Last week, APRA announced the five finalists for the 2017 Silver Scroll Award. Today, exclusively for The Spinoff, the five artists discuss each other’s nominated songs.

Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra on ‘Laugh It Off’ by Chelsea Jade

My friend put me on to this song when it first came out and I love it. It’s just an impeccable pop song. It has this great clarity of communication and I find the production and structure really emotionally affecting. This is the kind of song that replays in your head even if it’s not playing. It kind of has a way of taking over the mood of your life for a few days which is the stuff I like. I want a song that will haunt me and make my whole life feel different, which this totally has done to me this year in several different waves.

Chelsea Jade on ‘Future Me Hates Me’ by The Beths

Elizabeth Stokes has a depth that isn’t compromised by unkindness. If genius can be measured in empathy, dedication and good humor in tandem with ability, Liz is an absolute prodigy. Her songwriting is an exact amalgamation of everything I love about her. Earnest, clever, self-aware, articulate, brazen, intricate, funny, friendly, anxious, endearing and deeply Kiwi. ‘Future Me Hates Me’ marries all of these things perfectly and honestly I want to marry Liz.

Elizabeth Stokes of The Beths on ‘Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore’ by Marlon Williams

I’m a sucker for a duet. And a sad song. The lyrics of this one make me feel miserable in just the way that I crave. I love the directions the melody and harmony wander in the verses and the way the song builds and collapses. It’s really a beautiful piece of music.

Marlon Williams on ‘Aztechknowledgey’ by Troy Kingi

It’s super tightly played, tightly produced. It seems complex but it’s actually kinda simple with cool melodic ideas. It’s refreshingly playful but appeals to some deeper sensibilities which I would sometimes dismiss, but if you listen closely it’s got a lot more depth than you’d think it has. It’s interesting that so many indigenous cultures take up psychedelic music. There are incredible Puerto Rican deep cuts from the 70s that are super psychedelic and there’s incredible Native American music that’s along the same vein. Maybe there’s some identity thing doing on between indigeneity and retro-futurism that resonates throughout time. It’s a cool phenomenon. I’ve certainly known a lot of Space Māoris in my time.

Troy Kingi on ‘Hunnybee’ by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

I’ve been a massive fan of UMO since I first heard ‘Ffunny FFriends’ – and even before that I actually used to be quite envious of both the Nielson boys during the Mint Chicks era, not only for their music but more so for the fact that their buzzy unique sound was coming out of ‘our’ own country. When both II and Multi Love came out they were literally (at those points in time) the soundtracks to my life. Sex & Food has followed suit and is a regular on my travelling playlists, and whenever ‘Hunnybee’ comes on I just smile. Its brainy lo-fi nostalgiac swagger has been packaged in such a way that it can be easily digested, yet when you listen deeper there is a lot of intricate shit going on beneath, ear-worming hooks on a smorgasbord of chords, a poet’s lyrics and a chaotic sleepy energy that seems like it has been soaking in a fine cognac, freeze-dried and roughly mixed before fan baking it into this beautifully refined jogging grove. Dope dope dope ????????????

This month on Lightbox you can raid the Met Ball with Sandra Bullock, visit Castle Rock with Melanie Lynskey or share some delicious hot tea with four dames.

Ocean’s 8 (drops Sep 5)

If there was a film that better summed up the feeling of lounging back with a bottle of prosecco, a large bucket of popcorn and some Maltesers, please direct me to it. Until then, we’ve got Ocean’s 8. It takes the verve, charm and excitement of the original Ocean’s films (which more than hold up, by the way, check ’em out) and marries them with one of the most stacked casts this side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Come for Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett giving you full big dick energy, stay for Anne Hathaway’s full-noise, full-drama performance as thinly-veiled parody of what the media thinks of her. / Sam Brooks

Tea with the Dames (drops Sep 5)

If you’re not already rushing to Lightbox Movies and renting this, knowing full well that you can do so today, then I don’t know what to do with you. It’s Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Eileen Atkins and Dame Judi Dench talking about their careers, their lives and sharing the many, many pearls of wisdom they’ve gathered over their combined three hundred and thirty eight years. Come for the shade, stay for the fact that these women have seen, heard and acted more things in their lives than we ever will, and enjoy spending a good ninety minutes with them. / SB

Disobedience (hits Sep 12)

There are so many reasons to watch this movie. It features two of the worlds best actresses who are named Rachel (Weisz and McAdams). It features the steamiest sex scene of the year. It features a wig so compelling that Sam Brooks just frantically typed “are the Disobedience wigs on purpose?” into Google. This movie is the real deal, an extremely tense story of forbidden romance within a strict religious community. It’s made by the director of A Fantastic Woman and based on the novel by the woman who wrote Power. What more do you need, ya greedy so and so?? / Alex Casey

Castle Rock (Binge from Sep 13)

We are in a ripe climate for Stephen King adaptations. It was a twisted, surreal masterpiece, Gerard’s Game was not something I should have watched alone in bed on pain meds and Castle Rock is on track to be the piece de resistance in the current Kingdom of King. Brought to the small screen by JJ Abrams, and based on various Stephen King stories, watch a world of horrors unfold in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. Starring Bill Skarsgard (Pennywise), Sissy Spacek (Carrie) and Melanie Lynskey (local hero), get yer eyeballs on this anthology if you DARE. / AC

The Good Doctor (Season Two Weekly from Sep 25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiTxifzbwkg

Look at his little good doctor face! Look at it! The Good Doctor wasn’t something that I expected to like – I expected it to be another medical drama featuring a doctor with a problem that you might expect would disqualify him from being a doctor, but shock-horror: it actually makes him better at it. The Good Doctor is absolutely this show, but it’s a surprisingly robust, heartfelt and well-acted version of it. Freddie Highmore has an earnestness and a lightness that makes him a joy to spend an hour with every week, and goddamn, that sweet good doctor face. I’m hooked, y’all. / SB

Hereditary (hits Sep 26)

I consider myself quite a staunch horror viewer. I remember sitting through The Strangers (even during that bit where the creepy sack-head man is lurking behind Liv Tyler) with my arms folded across my chest, because putting your hands over your eyes is a sign of weakness in the wild and makes you vulnerable to predators. All of that went out of the window when I saw Hereditary.

Sitting in that cursed theatre, tears rolling down my cheeks, I pulled my beanie down and my jumper up to create a double layer of protection against the pure, unrelenting horror. Don’t read anything else about it, don’t watch the trailer even though I embedded it – just turn your speakers up to 11 and enjoy (read: endure) easily the most terrifying movie of 2018. / AC

Tully (hits Sep 27)

Over the past fifteen years, Charlize Theron has proven herself to be one of our most essential performers. From finding the humanity and hope in Aileen Wuornos’ darkness in Monster to her photorealistic police sketch of a writer’s narcissism in Young Adult to unadultered, violent drive in Mad Max: Fury Road, she’s been quietly turning out sharp, specific performances. Tully is no exception. In her second collaboration with Young Adult scribe Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman, Theron plays a woman who finds herself saddled with basically sole care of a newborn child, and I’ve honestly never seen tiredness portrayed better onscreen – she shows what it’s like to be truly, utterly beaten down by a day, knowing that you’ll have to do it all again tomorrow. / SB

Tin Star (hits Sep 27)

I’m all about a grisly small town murder mystery. Give me a troubled, alcoholic cop, a drone shot of a rusty suspension bridge and a divided low income community absolutely any day of the week. When Tin Star arrives at the end of this month, it will for sure be next on my kill list. Starring Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks, the suspicious-looking suicide of a local leads to a freshly-emigrated detective (Roth) going head to head with with a massive nearby oil refinery up to no good. Set in the beautiful Canadian Rockies, if you don’t like the crimes then you’ll bloody love the scenery. / AC

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