Lorde has won the Taite Music Prize for her album Pure Heroine.
The annual award, which is organised by Independent Music New Zealand, recognises outstanding creativity for an entire collection of music contained on one album by a New Zealand artist.
Presented at an intimate ceremony last night at Auckland's Galatos, Lorde accepted her award from Las Vegas with a pre-recorded speech. The singer expressed her admiration for her fellow finalists (specifically naming Sheep, Dog & Wolfand @Peace), before saying that she wanted to split the prize evenly between all the nominees.
"I think everyone is kind of sick of me winning stuff at the moment and other people are more in need of the funds and exposure right now," She said. "So if you will accept it the prize money and the studio time have been split between this year's nominees ... if you don't want it that's cool too."
Named in honour of the late Dylan Taite, a respected music journalist, the Taite Music Prize includes a $10,000 cash prize sponsored by PPNZ Music Licensing, recording studio time, a KiwiFM marketing campaign and a year's supply of Red Bull.
The panel to determine the finalists was made up of a broad section of music media/industry specialists. The finalist judges made their decision based entirely on the artistic merit on the album. Sales, genres, artist recognition or popularity are not contributing factors in their decision making process.
Lorde beat out finalists David Dallas, Jonathan Bree, Sheep, Dog & Wolf, @Peace, Beastwars, The Phoenix Foundation and Unknown Mortal Orchestra to win the prize for 2014.
