The Beaches Awarded Group of the Year at Billboard Canada Women in Music Launch Announcement

Billboard Canada and iHeartRadio teamed up to present a big award to a major Canadian group this week.

The Beaches received the first ever Billboard Canada Women in Music Award for Group of the Year on June 5, honouring the Toronto quartet's breakout year, and were on hand for the announcement of Billboard Canada's Women in Music celebration event, which is officially set for September 7, 2024.

They were presented with the award by Billboard Canada CEO Amanda Dorenberg and CCO Elizabeth Crisante, who announced the September 7 date for the upcoming Billboard Canada Women in Music celebration. At the event, more Canadian artists (including a few legends of the industry) will be recognized and honoured for their artistry and for blazing trails as women in the industry.

Receiving the award as part of a livestream performance on iHeartRadio's YouTube, the Beaches played a stripped back set of three songs from their hit 2023 album, Blame My Ex. Typically in a rock group set up of two guitars, bass and drums, the acoustic Beaches found drummer Eliza Enman McDaniel with just a shaker, leaving space for Jordan Miller's powerful lead vocal and light harmonies by guitarists Leandra Earl and Kylie Miller.

Surrounded by a select group of industry members and contest winners, the bandmates — and close friends — performed viral single "Blame Brett," — co-written by Billboard Canada's 2024 Non-Performing Songwriter Award winner Lowell — "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Paranoid" and "Shower Beer."

After the performance, iHeartRadio's Shannon Burns did a Q&A with the group, joking about playing pool with them and asking them audience-submitted questions. The band talked about their experiences as women in the music industry, providing some advice for up-and-coming female artists.

"Make sure you do it with your friends," McDaniel said. The group spoke about how isolating it can be to be a woman in a still-male-dominated — though gradually changing — industry. It's important to be surrounded by women you trust, they emphasized, whether in your band or on your team.

They also spoke about how the industry is improving, when it comes to gender representation. "When we started, there weren't any all-female groups, especially in rock at all," singer Jordan Miller said. "It's no longer necessarily a niche to be in a female group."

That's a change from the days when the band was frequently referred to as a "girl band" — so much so that they had cheeky merch made with the phrase. "Where I think that we could do better is being more inclusive with non-binary people, people of colour, giving them more voices and more opportunity to have further representation."

Check out the full performance and interview below, and keep your calendar marked for September 7.