Tina Arena’s blockbuster performance was the talk of this year’s ARIAs, only outdone in headlines by the speech she gave when she was inducted into the ARIAs Hall of Fame.
The performance of her 1994 hit Chains, which also featured pop stars The Veronicas and Jessica Mauboy, made it the biggest-selling new single on the charts this week.
The speech that followed urged Australian radio stations to “continue to support Australian music” and base playlists “on the quality of the song and not the age of the artist.”
Arena went on, “Radio, please don’t try and meet your Australian quotas because you have to, exceed them because you really want to.”
However, Chains triumphed in the charts without the radio industry lifting a finger.
Watch Arena’s ARIAs performance here… Post continues after video.
Despite Arena’s impassioned speech and the huge reception for the performance, not a single radio station added the ARIAs version of the song to its playlists.