Missy Higgins
Missy Higgins is one of Australia’s most beloved singer/songwriters. She has struck a deep and enduring chord with her irresistible melodies, ‘arrow through the heart’ lyrics, unforgettable live concerts, plus classic songs like ‘Scar’, ‘The Special Two’, ‘Steer’, ‘Everyone’s Waiting’, ‘Futon Couch’ and ‘A Complicated Truth’.
Missy has blazed a trail for female singer/songwriters in Australia, marching to her own drumbeat, earning 26 ARIA Award nominations and seven ARIA #1’s (so far!).
2024 was a huge year for Missy thanks to The Second Act – “a kind of sequel” to her influential debut album The Sound Of White. That raw and introspective classic was about taking on the world as a 20-year-old while The Second Act was about doing that all over again as a 40-year-old, after the stories you told yourself turned out not to be true. Written, produced, and performed largely on her own, this powerful artistic statement topped the ARIA charts 20 years to the day after The Sound Of White first reached #1.
Missy also hit the road across 2024 with The Second Act Tour drawing unanimous rave reviews across 46 emotional shows to well over 100,000 Australians. The year culminated in sold out gigs at the biggest venues she had headlined in nearly 20 years, an ARIA Award for “Best Live Artist”, her induction into the ARIA Hall Of Fame, and even a return to Triple J’s Hottest 100 through her cover of Troye Sivan’s “One Of Your Girls”.
Since being Unearthed by Triple J while still at high school back in 2002, Missy Higgins has sold over two million albums globally. She became a household name in Australia with 2004’s The Sound Of White which became the country’s highest selling album of 2005 influencing a generation of singular singer/songwriters including Ed Sheeran, Amy Shark, G Flip and Angie McMahon. In 2007, On A Clear Night also topped the local charts and earned Missy a gold certification in the U.S. for her single, “Where I Stood”. Country superstar Leanne Rimes released a version of the song and another song off the album was covered by a young Billie Eilish.
After seven years of non-stop touring and recording lead to a bout of writer’s block, Missy pursued other interests including a course in Indigenous Studies, and acting in the classic Australian film ‘Bran Nue Dae’. She finally returned to music with 2012’s The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle – her third album to top the Australian charts – then followed it two years later with a unique book/covers collection called OZ which received rave reviews.
Following standalone singles “Oh Canada” (2016) (inspired by the tragic images of infant Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi) and “Torchlight” (2017) (which won “Best Original Song Composed for the Screen” at the 2017 APRA Screen Music Awards) 2018 brought her long awaited fifth studio album, Solastalgia. Its lead single “Futon Couch” became Missy’s biggest radio hit in a decade alongside her appearance as main support on Ed Sheeran’s ÷ Tour – the largest series of concerts in Australian history with nearly 1 million tickets sold. Missy and Ed also dueted at most shows, helping her reconnect with lots of old fans and winning her lots of new ones too.
Missy capped that year with The Special Ones – a Best Of Collection that is a primer to one of Australian music’s strongest modern catalogues. The album featured four previously unreleased tracks including “Arrows” and the previously unheard demo of “All For Believing” that set her career in motion when she won Unearthed all those years ago.
After the birth of her children, Sammy and Luna, Missy wrote original music for the first two series of ABC TV’s acclaimed ‘Total Control’. The show became the highest rated new Australian TV drama of the year during covid. Missy received another APRA nomination for the flagship track, ‘Edge of Something’ and eventually released a mini-album of songs from the program as well as featuring on “Carry You” written by Tim Minchin for his TV show ‘Upright’, which featured on the pandemic chart topper Music From The Home Front.
In recent years Missy has featured on a hip-hop track by Birdz as well as receiving the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Music which recognizes Victorian artists who have made a significant contribution to music and cultural life. Her stunning 2024 success with The Second Act was followed by headlining performances on some of Australia’s leading summer festivals, cementing Missy Higgins’ place as an artist of singular and enduring influence to multiple generations.