Shona Laing To Receive IMNZ Classic Record Award - Taite Music Prize

Independent Music NZ have revealed this year's recipient of the prestigious Classic Record award will be Aotearoa songwriting icon Shona Laing for her synth-soaked 1987 album South (released via Pagan Records), featuring landmark single ‘(Glad I’m) Not A Kennedy’. The Classic Record is an annual award which "aims to acknowledge New Zealand's rich history of making fine albums that continue to inspire us and that also define who we are." Previous recipients have included Moana and the Moahunters, Headless Chickens, The Clean, Upper Hutt Posse, Herbs and The Gordons.

Graham Reid (Elsewhere) enthused about Laing's work: “She can be the achingly sensitive poet, a furiously astute social and political commentator (yes, she wrote a song called White Colonial Middle-Class Anarchist) or a woman speaking plainly of the power of passion and love.”

The Classic Record award was originally scheduled to be presented at this year's official Taite Music Prize event. An update on the new date and venue is set to be announced soon.