Lorde Takes Taite Music Prize 2014 For 'Pure Heroine'

Lorde was awarded the Taite Music Prize last night for her album Pure Heroine, but in a gracious move she offered to split the prize among the other seven finalists. Speaking from a hotel room in Las Vegas she said: "I think everyone is kind of sick of me winning stuff at the moment and other people who are more in need of the funds and exposure than I am right now... 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." The singer also gave props to her contenders Sheep, Dog & Wolf and @peace, saying she would have loved to have collaborated on the latter's album.

The annual Taite Music Prize has been going since 2010 and aims to recognise outstanding creativity for an entire collection of music contained on one album. The award entails a $10,000 cash prize, free recording time at Red Bull Studios, a year’s supply of Red Bull product and a KiwiFM marketing campaign.

This year's finalists were:
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II
Beastwars - Blood Becomes Fire
Sheep Dog & Wolf - Egospect
The Phoenix Foundation - Fandango
David Dallas - Falling Into Place
@peace - Girl Songs
Lorde - Pure Heroine
Jonathan Bree - The Primrose Path

The previous winners of the award are Lawrence Arabia, Ladi6, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and SJD.

This year's event also paid homage to pivotal punk album AK79 by awarding it the Independent Music NZ Classic Record.