(sda) At the end of February 2020, the SMA was one of the last major events before the lockdown. A year later, moderator Nick Hartmann opened the 14th edition in front of empty seats and spoke in front of an “unbelievable atmosphere”.
That it was above all an incredibly strange atmosphere became apparent when the live acts were on the barren stage. Or when the band members of Patent Ochsner sat in white armchairs kept at a safe distance. The stiffness was felt all the way into the living room.
The band from Bern around frontman Büne Huber had traveled to Zurich to receive this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award 30 years after the release of their debut album “Schlachtplatte”. Laudator Bänz Friedli, author, cabaret artist and the first journalist who had ever written about Patent Ochsner, paid tribute to her with personal anecdotes and words of appreciation.
For Büne Huber it all sounded a bit “like old people’s home”. You can almost hear someone saying: “Pack your suitcase and go to the geriatric ward”. Nevertheless, he was pleased about the award for his life’s work, the seventh Swiss Music Award in the collection. “Above all, we were lucky”.
After 148 years – that’s how long the five band members have been making music together – the dialect hard rockers Megawatt won the title Best Breaking Act. The rock band Gotthard, which has long been successful and has been nominated twice this year, received its fourth cobblestone in the Best Group category. For this, singer Nic Maeder thanked him with a spontaneous speech in at least four languages, after which guitarist Leo Leoni concluded with the conclusion that “the SMA are very important for our culture”.
The Bernese musician Trummer is someone who has already criticized the event because it primarily serves the musicians who are already successful. He played a key role in introducing the Artist Award category in 2015. A division in which artists’ voices and not sales figures define the winner.
In 2021 the singer-songwriter won this award himself. As the Valais singer Sina said in the laudation, Trummer is “one of the most poetic musicians in Switzerland”. He is “one of those people who think that the music chose him and not the other way around”.
Beatrice Egli was once again awarded as Best Female Act. She had already won the title in 2015 and 2017. The pop singer, who will be featured in the second “Sing my Song” season from March 3rd, also sang her song “Mini Schwiitz, mini Heimat”. She is often asked about the title, she recently told the Keystone-SDA news agency on the show’s media day. Because it apparently also addresses an audience that doesn’t like pop music.
In the Best Album category, the Heimweh male choir beat the rock band Gotthard and the Bernese blues musician Philipp Fankhauser. Latino singer Loco Escrito, who is known for giving spontaneous, emotional acceptance speeches, was named Best Male Act 2021. He dedicates this stone to his “Papà”, he said with the third block of his career in hand. His father didn’t always get off as well as he did in his life.
At the end of the show, he also won the Best Hit category – for the third time in a row. He used the moment to criticize the laudation by slam poet Lara Stoll, who, in his opinion, did not say that a hit takes more than a few chords and clumsy lyrics. Namely “courage and big dreams”.
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