Tones & I, Dean Lewis Win Big At The 2019 ARIA Awards

One of the biggest events on Australia’s music calendar has just wrapped, with some of the best local and international talent taking to the stage at The Star in Sydney as part of the 2019 ARIA Awards to perform, present and pick up awards.

After bringing you all the action from the red carpet, The Music team went into the ARIAs to cover the event live - highlights of which you can find via our Instagram here and Twitter here.

Check out all the 2019 ARIA Awards winner below!

Best Australian Live Act 

Hilltop Hoods - The Great Expanse World Tour 

We’re pretty sure that this one is going out to the people in the nosebleed section with legendary Aussie hip hop act Hilltop Hoods taking out Best Australian Live Act for The Great Expanse World Tour. The group are up for a total of seven awards for this year’s ARIAs and have beaten Amy Shark, Baker Boy, Electric Fields, Gang Of Youths, Keith Urban, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Midnight Oil, Peking Duk and The Teskey Brothers in the category.

Best Male Artist

Dean Lewis

Dean Lewis picks up his first win of the night with Best Male Artist! Lewis has been nominated for four awards tonight, including the coveted Album Of The Year, Best Pop Release and Song Of The Year. Lewis took out Best Video for Be Alright last year. We caught up with Lewis ahead of the ceremony to chat about what the ARIAs mean to him, check it out here.

Best Children’s Release

Dan Sultan - Nali & Friends

Dan Sultan’s Nali & Friends was a major style shift for the much-loved artist and it’s clearly paid off with Sultan scoring himself his first-ever award for Best Children’s Release. He’s beaten mainstays The Wiggles, The Beanies, Kamil Ellis & Ensemble Offspring and Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show for the title. 

Best Female Artist 

Tones & I - Dance Monkey 

Oh Tones & I, we love you. The now Byron Bay-based artist takes out Best Female Artist; one of just eight of the nominations she’s scored this year. Earlier today, Tones (real name Toni Watson) told Channel 9 that her goals for the year were to get played on triple j once and play a 200 capacity show - nailed it, absolutely nailed it.

Best Dance Release 

RÜFÜS DU SOL - Solace 

RÜFÜS DU SOL’s Solace has taken out Best Dance Release among a very impressive nominees list including PNAU, Peking Duo & Jack River, FISHER and Dom Dolla. The trio, who are going from strength to strength overseas, are also up for Album Of The Year and Best Group. This is their second-ever ARIA win, having taken out Best Dance Release for You Were Right back in 2015. 

Best Pop Release 

Tones & I - Dance Monkey 

Tones & I takes out Best Pop Release with Dance Monkey. The track has hit over 220 million plays on YouTube and scored her a standing ovation on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week. Oh, and you know, BROKE THE RECORD FOR LONGEST RUNNING #1 SINGLE ON THE ARIA CHARTS! 

Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album 

Northlane - Alien

Northlane have done it again! The Sydney five-piece have taken out their third ARIA Award for the Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album category, this year for their album Alien. They scored the award in both 2015 and 2017. They beat Clowns, Dead Letter Circus, DZ Deathrays and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard for the award.

Best Country Album 

Morgan Evans - Things That We Drink To 

Morgan Evans can get Day Drunk, night drunk and whatever the hell else kind of drunk he wants to get after scoring himself the ARIA for Best Country Album. Evans is up for two awards tonight, including Song Of The Year for Day Drunk. This is his first year nominated. 

Best Group 

The Teskey Brothers - Run Home Slow 

Melbourne group The Teskey Brothers have been nominated for a huge seven awards tonight and now they’ve scored themselves the title of Best Group for Run Home Slow. Sam Teskey picked up the award for Engineer Of The Year for the album at the Artisian Awards last month.

Breakthrough Artist

Tones & I - Dance Monkey 

Tones & I takes out this year’s Breakthrough Artist Award and given her incredible international breakout with Dance Monkey this year, we think that is a damn good call. She’s beaten other very worthy nominees including G Flip, Stella Donnelly, The Teskey Brothers and Thelma Plum. 

Best International Act 

Taylor Swift 

Tay Tay takes out this year’s Best International Act, beating Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, George Ezra, Khalid, P!nk, Post Malone, Shawn Mendes and Travis Scott for the award.

Best Comedy Release 

Arj Barker - Organic

We think we’re supposed to laugh at this result? Our favourite Californian turned Aussie Arj Barker takes out this year’s Best Comedy Release for Organic. 

Best Video Presented By YouTube Music

Guy Sebastian - Choir

Guy Sebastian picks up his first win of the night with Best Video for his clip Choir. This is Sebastian’s fourth ARIA Award win across 32 nominations since his debut on Australian Idol back in 2003 (we think angels brought him here for this award…) 

Telstra ARIA Music Teacher Of The Year 

Antonio Chiappetta - St Andrews College, Marayong, NSW 

Music teacher Antonio Chiappetta picks up this year’s Telstra ARIA Music Teacher Of The Year award for her work with St Andrews College in Marayong. For the world’s cutest and most wholesome content, check out the video with the nominees' student’s saying how great they are.

Best Independent Release 

Tones & I - The Kids Are Coming 

Tones & I picks up the award for Best Independent Release, beating out Angie McMahon’s Salt, G Flip’s About Us, Julia Jacklin’s Crushing and The Teskey Brother’s Run Home Slow.

Best Adult Contemporary 

Paul Kelly - Nature 

Paul Kelly has picked up his second award for 2019, scoring Best Adult Contemporary for his album Nature. He picked up Best Classical Album for Thirteen Ways To Look At Birds with James Ledger at the Artisian Awards last month. Kelly beats Julia Jacklin, Samantha Jade, Seeker Lover Keeper and The Paper Kites in the Best Adult Contemporary category.

Best Rock Album 

Amyl & The Sniffers - Amyl & The Sniffers 

Today’s the day; Sharpie rock has finally taken over the ARIAs with Amyl & The Sniffers picking up Best Rock Album. This is the first ARIA win for the Melbourne group, who have beaten Holy Holy, Jimmy Barnes, Midnight Oil and Skegss for the award. 

Best Blues & Roots Album

The Teskey Brothers - Run Home Slow 

The Teskey Brothers take out another award for their album, Run Home Slow. They had some solid competition with fellow Best Blues & Roots Album nominees including Dan Sultan, John Butler Trio, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Paul Kelly.

Best Hip Hop Release

Sampa The Great - Final Form

The incredible Sampa The Great takes out Best Hip Hop Release for her track Final Form, taken from her recently released album, The Return. Sampa The Great beats artists like Hilltop Hoods, Baker Boy, Illy and Tkay Maidza. This is the first time that Hilltop Hoods have been nominated and not won in this category from their seven nominations since 2004. 

Best Soul/R&B Release

Kaiit - Miss Shiney

At BIGSOUND last year, we saw people running down the street to get a photo with Kaiit. Well, chances are that’s going to be happening a whole lot more with the Melbourne artist picking up the award for Best Soul/R&B Release for Miss Shiney. She beats fellow nominees Adrian Eagle, Genesis Owusu, Tash Sultana and Matt Corby.

Album Of The Year

Dean Lewis - A Place We Knew

It’s all come down to this - Dean Lewis takes out the Album Of The Year award for his debut LP, A Place We Knew. Lewis has emerged the champion in an incredibly stacked category, which included nominations for RÜFÜS DU SOL, Thelma Plum, Hilltop Hoods and The Teskey Brothers. 

It’s been a massive year for Lewis since the release of A Place We Knew in March. Earlier tonight, Lewis took out the award for Best Male Artist, and was also nominated in the Best Pop Release and Song Of The Year categories. 

Lewis now joins the likes of Midnight Oil, Crowded House, Tina Arena, Regurgitator, Powderfinger, Kasey Chambers, Silverchair, Flume, Tame Impala, Gang Of Youths and more in winning the prestigious award. 

Congrats Dean, you might be the ARIA Award Album Of The Year winner but we’ll always remember that time you wrote our podcast theme song.

Song Of The Year

Guy Sebastian - Choir

And it’s our host himself again - Guy Sebastian takes out Song Of The Year for Choir. The track dropped back in May and peaked at #7 on the ARIA Singles chart.

MORE TO COME...