Genesis Owusu has won Album of the Year twice. Now his third album is nominated.

The 2026 ARIA nominations came out this morning. Genesis Owusu and Tame Impala lead with eight each. Ecca Vandal has seven.

Three artists at the top, and we have photographed two of them. Ecca Vandal at Roskilde on 2 July, Genesis Owusu the following night.

Genesis Owusu

REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE came out on 15 May, fourteen tracks. It went in at number three on the ARIA Albums Chart and at number one on both the Australian Albums Chart and the Vinyl Albums Chart.

The eight nominations are Album of the Year, Best Solo Artist, Best Independent Release, Best Alternative Release, Best Australian Live Act, Best Video, Best Cover Art and Best Produced Release.

The live nomination is for Red Star Wu's Pirate Radio Tour, one of four categories decided by public vote. The cover art nomination has another detail we liked: it is credited to Kofi Owusu-Ansah, Isaac Brown and Gina Wagstaffe. Kofi Owusu-Ansah is Genesis Owusu. So alongside the nominations for the record itself, he is nominated for the artwork on his own sleeve.

He has seven ARIA Awards already, two of them for Album of the Year. Smiling With No Teeth won in 2021 and STRUGGLER won in 2023.

Ecca Vandal

Seven nominations for LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW, out on 22 May, seventeen tracks.

Two of them sit strangely next to each other. She is up for Album of the Year and for the Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist award at the same time, for her second record. The other five are Best Solo Artist, Best Independent Release, Best Alternative Release, Best Cover Art and Best Video, the last of those for CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE, which she made with Richie Buxton. She played Coachella and Jimmy Kimmel Live! this year.

About that record

Coverage this morning reported that Owusu is only the third artist in the ARIA Awards' forty years to have his first three albums all nominated for Album of the Year. We went through the Album of the Year shortlist for every year from 1987 to 2026 to check it, and we get a different number.

By our count at least six others have done it. Crowded House, Silverchair, The Avalanches, Tame Impala, Troye Sivan and Amy Shark.

There are two reasons we would not call that number definitive. ARIA never recorded the 1988 nominees, only the winner, so the real number could be higher. And it drops if you read the claim as solo artists only, which would leave Troye Sivan, Tame Impala and Owusu. That may well be what was meant.

Either way, two of the artists on that list are nominated again this year. Tame Impala is level with Owusu on eight. Troye Sivan has four.

When and how to vote

The awards are on Wednesday 18 November at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, across 29 categories. Four of them are decided by the public: Best Australian Live Act, Song of the Year, Best Video and Most Popular International Artist. You can vote once a day, inside Spotify or on ARIA's own site, until 11.59pm AEDT on Monday 9 November.

One line in the announcement is doing more work than the rest of it. ARIA's chief executive Annabelle Herd used the nominations to talk about copyright: "As we continue to fight against the relentless assault on our copyright laws by foreign AI companies, this year's ARIA Awards are a powerful moment to recognise the enduring power of music." It is a considerably more political line than you usually find in an awards announcement.

Best Alternative Release is back for the first time since 2016. Owusu and Vandal are both in it, against Tame Impala, Gang of Youths and Meg Mac.

We have photographed a few other names on this year's list too: Olivia Rodrigo and Olivia Dean, both nominated for Most Popular International Artist; Kylie Minogue for Best Pop Release; Tkay Maidza for Best Soul and R&B Release; Royel Otis and Ocean Alley for Song of the Year; and Amyl and the Sniffers, whose music features in a nominated Toyota campaign.