Music Industry Awards
Industry awards salute the most important music each year. The awards below are presented in detail, with links to the artists and musicians and the sales data that drives the rankings of their music.
Rankings tell the story.
USA
The Billboard Music Award is an honor given by Billboard, a publication covering the music business. The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually in December until it went dormant in 2007, and returned in May 2011. The Billboard Music Awards finalists are based on United States year-end chart performance according to Nielsen data for sales, number of downloads and total airplay. Awards were given for the top album/artist/single in different genres. Since 1992, the awards also give out a Billboard Century Award—the magazine's highest honor for creative achievement and named for Billboard's centennial in 1994. The award was renamed the Icon Award in 2011.
A Grammy Award (originally called Gramophone Award), or Grammy, is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognise outstanding achievement in the music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of those awards that have a more popular interest.
The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show, recognizing the people and the work of popular culture, voted on by the general public. The show has been held annually since 1975.
The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame are also inducted as part of the awards ceremonies.
The MTV Europe Music Awards ("EMA's", originally MTV European Music Awards) were established in 1994 by MTV Networks Europe to celebrate the most popular songs and singers in Europe. Originally beginning as an alternative to the American MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards is today a popular celebration of what MTV worldwide viewers consider the best in music.
Echo is an accolade by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie, an association of recording companies of Germany to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The first ECHO Awards ceremony was held in 1992, and it was set up to honor musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1991, succeeding the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis which were awarded since 1963. Each year's winner is determined by the previous year's sales.
The ECHO Klassik is one of the best established and most well-known music awards in the world. Every year the Deutsche Phono-Akademie - the cultural institute of the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (German music industry association) - honours the outstanding and successful performances of national and international artists with this award. The ECHO Klassik is awarded by a jury who make their choices based on artistic quality as well as popular success.
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Nominations are chosen by a panel of musicians, music executives, journalists and other figures in the music industry in the UK and Ireland. The Mercury Prize has a reputation for being awarded to outside chances rather than the favourites.
The Brit Awards (stylised as the BRIT Awards; often simply called the Brits) are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards, and the British equivalent of the American Grammy Awards. The awards began in 1977 as part of the commemoration of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and as an annual event in 1982 under the auspices of the British record industry's trade association, the BPI. The last BPI Awards show was the first of the ceremonies to be broadcast on television, by the BBC, and in 1989 they were renamed the Brit Awards.
The Classic BRIT Awards (previously Classical BRIT Awards) are an annual awards ceremony held in the United Kingdom covering aspects of classical and crossover music, and are the equivalent of pop music's BRIT Awards. The awards are organised by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and were inaugurated in 2000 "in recognition of the achievements of classical musicians and the growth of classical music sales in the UK." Voting for the awards is done by "an academy of industry executives, the media, the British Association of Record Dealers (BARD), members of the Musicians Union, lawyers, promoters, and orchestra leaders," except for "Album of the Year" which is voted for by listeners of Classic FM.
The Eurovision Song Contest often shortened ESC, or Eurovision, is an annual song competition held among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition.
Winning the Eurovision Song Contest provides an opportunity for the winning artists to capitalise on the surrounding publicity and further their career.
The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known as ARIA Music Awards or ARIA Awards) is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The event encompasses the general genre-specific and popular awards (these are what are usually being referred to as "the ARIA awards"). This document links each winner and nominee to Music Industry Data. The sales data that drives the rankings give scholars a complete picture of the impact of music in social, political, and cultural contexts worldwide.
Canada
Europe
Australia
