The APRA Music Awards return for 2025, with the reinstated International Recognition Award acknowledging Aussie artists - like Kylie Sackley - making waves overseas.
You may not know it, but Kylie Sackley might just be the invisible hand holding the pen behind some of your favourite country songs. This year, the APRA Music Awards is once again recognising artists like Kylie – who won the award back in 2018 and this year, is nominated Most Performed Country Work – and the incredible impact that these Australian musicians have on the global music industry with the return of the International Recognition Award.
A songwriter who has worked with a slew of massive names in the country music scene – Keith Urban, Faith Hill and Sam Hunt, to name a few – Kylie continues to make her mark on the music industry with a steady flow of certified country hits, including a recent collaboration with Cooper Alan on Take Forever (Hally’s Song).
The 2025 APRA Music Awards
- Wednesday 30 April
- Melbourne Town Hall
- More info here
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Previously known as the Overseas Recognition Award, the reinstating of the International Recognition Award works to honour Australian songwriters who are finding incredible success beyond home soil. After first winning the award in 2018, Kylie’s last seven years have been nothing but full steam ahead.
The Australian-born artist – who has made quite a name for herself in Nashville, Tennessee – says her first venture to the Music City was back in her “Aussie artist days”. “I was blown away by the community of music makers, studios, publishers and record companies,” Kylie says. “And it was all in the tiny little Nashville bubble.”
“I always wanted to take my music globally, so it was a no-brainer for me [to move to Nashville]. I realised early on, though, that I didn’t really want to be an artist and live that life – though I’m so grateful many do. Songwriting was always my number one passion. Giving people a voice has been my proudest achievement. I am so honoured that artists come to me, share their stories and trust me to write with them.”
“I had no business writing in some of those rooms”
While Kylie holds an immense pride for the country she comes from, she says she had to move to Nashville to build the career she has today. “Moving planted me in the middle of the industry, helped me make connections faster, and let me dive into my craft on a level I’d never known possible.”
“I am a better writer,” she continues, “for being that little wide-eyed Aussie girl who walked off a plane and had no business writing in some of the rooms I was writing in. I was thrown right in the deep end and [I had to] learn how to swim. And also how to write a pretty decent song.”
It’s a growing trend in the Australian music industry for artists to up and leave their home country in search of success elsewhere. Similarly, it’s an established trend that Australians are some of the hardest working artists across the creative industries – no matter where in the world they find themselves.
Kylie has noticed more of her fellow Aussies making the move to live and work in Nashville. She observes that once they arrive, they’re working hard to prove that they deserve a seat at the table. “I love it,” Kylie muses with patriotic pride.
Aside from their reputation as hard workers, Kylie also cites Australians’ “realness” as a reason why they’re able to find so much success internationally. “I think people find that refreshing, especially in these times,” she says. “We’re go-getters.”
Aussie musicians making noise overseas
Achieving international success is one thing, but for Kylie, being honoured by her home country means just as much. Her nomination for writing on one of the Most Performed Country Works at the 2025 APRA Music Awards is, in her words, a “huge deal”.
“[It] means the world to me,” she says. “It makes me feel like I’m doing something right and doing something my fellow Aussies can be proud of. I hope I inspire all the little dreamers out there to go for it.”
The nomination recognises Kylie’s songwriting credit on country music star Cooper Alan’s Take Forever (Hally’s Song). “We wrote the song about a month before Cooper’s wedding,” Kylie says. “He either needed a wildly unhinged song or a wedding song – I voted for wedding. The song started to fall out of us the more we discussed his and Hally’s relationship.”
Aussie pride and Nashville ties
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Kylie has already found immense success through radio plays and streaming numbers, and now her APRA Music Award nomination for Take Forever (Hally’s Song) adds the cherry on top.
The songwriter says that when she catches up with Cooper later in the week for a writing session, she’ll be sure to tell him “how much Aussies love him.” The same goes for Kylie, as the award nomination proves.
As for whether Kylie envisages coming back to Australia to work here at any point, or if Nashville now has her heart (and hand) for good, she says that in a perfect world she would spilt her time more evenly between the two places. However, she hastens to add, “I’m open to whatever opportunities the future brings.”
For more information on the 2025 APRA Music Awards, including the list of nominations, head here.
This article was made in partnership with APRA AMCOS.
