Annual music awards by the American Association of Independent Music
TheLibera Awards are an annual awards ceremony organized by theAmerican Association of Independent Music (A2IM). First hosted in 2012, the awards celebrate theindependent music community. The capstone of A2IM's Indie Week, an annual music business conference, the ceremony has been able to be viewed by the public since 2020.[ 1]
The top-billed awards are generallyRecord of the Year andBest Live Act , in addition toLabel of the Year ,Best Sync Usage , andVideo of the Year , among others. In addition to the awards which are voted on, A2IM annually confers the Lifetime Achievement and Independent Icon Awards to industry leaders and artists, respectively.
Note: the names of most categories have been tweaked overtime with the most significant name changes indicated below. Updated 2022.[ 20]
Artist-specific awards [ edit ] Former categories
Road Warrior of the Year (2012–2016) (2013–2015: Hardest Working Artist; 2016: Into the Pit Award) Record-specific awards [ edit ] Record of the Year (2012–)Self-Released Record of the Year (2022–) A2IM Artist Record of the Year Award (2021–) (honors self-released artists)[ 1] Best Alternative Rock Record (2020–) Best American Roots Record (2018–) Best Blues Record (2018–)Best Classical Record (2018–)Best Country Record (2018–) Best Dance Record (2022–)Best Electronic Record (2022–)Best Folk Record (2020–) (2020–2022: Best Folk/Bluegrass Record) Best Heavy Record (2018, 2020–2021: Best Metal Record) Best Hip-Hop/Rap Record (2017–)Best Jazz Record (2018–) Best Latin Record (2018–) Best Outlier Record (2018–) Best Pop Record (2022–) Best Punk Record (2020–) (2020: Best Punk/Emo Album) Best R&B Record (2018–) Best Re-Issue (2018–) Best Rock Record (2018–) (2020: Best Mainstream Rock Album) Best Singer-Songwriter Record (2023–) Best Soul/Funk Record (2023–) Best Spiritual Record (2021–) Best Global Record (2018–) (2018–2022: Best World Record) Former categories
Groundbreaking Album of the Year (2015–2016) Heritage Album of the Year (2015–2016) Shifting Beats Award (2016) Best Blues/Jazz/R&B Album (2017) Best Classical/World Album (2017) Best Country/Americana/Folk Album (2017) Best Dance/Electronic Record (2017–2021)Best Metal/Hard Rock Album (2017) Best Indie Rock Album (2017) Former categories
Music Supervisor (2012–2014) A&R Team of the Year (2016) Video of the Year (Fan Vote) (2017) A2IM Lifetime Achievement Award [ edit ] This award was first presented at the inaugural Libera Awards to honor contributions by industry leaders in independent music.
Independent Icon Award [ edit ] This award was first presented at the 2016 Libera Awards to honor a "groundbreaking Independent artists who have contributed to the Independent community and have paved the way for future Independents to succeed on their own terms."[ 29] [ 30]
Independent Impact Award [ edit ] Formally titled the A2IM Independent Impact Award (as of 2021)[ 1] [ 35]
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Major awards Ceremony year Related
Worldwide Africa Americas Asia and Europe
