The concept for the Taite Music Prize has taken inspiration from successful international music prize formats such as the Mercury Prize in the U.K., the AMP in Australia, The Prix Constantin in France and the Polaris Music Prize in Canada.

Previous winners of these awards are often outside chances and have not necessarily had top 10 releases, however their creative output was deemed extraordinary, including acts such as Roni Size, Portishead, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, PJ Harvey, Augie March, Dizee Rascal...

In addition to the cash prize for the winning album, both the winner and the nominated artists experience huge surges in sales and media exposure immediately preceding the announcements and for sometime afterwards.

The Taite Music prize aims to support the growth and increasing sustainability of the local NZ music industry in drawing attention to the creative output of NZ artists.

Named after the late Dylan Taite, one of the country's most highly respected music journalists, this will be the third year for the award. In a similar vein to several international awards, The Taite Music Prize's purpose is to recognise outstanding creativity for an entire collection of music contained on one album. The winner will receive a cash prize of $10,000, to be spent as they wish. The cash prize is kindly supplied by PPNZ Music Licensing.