Anugerah Juara Lagu (literally: "Song Championship Award"), commonly known by the acronym AJL, is a popular annual music competition in Malaysia, organised by TV3 since 1986. It features the best musical and lyrical compositions of each year it is held. Nominees are derived from a list of mostly Malay-language songs which have garnered the most public votes in Muzik Muzik throughout the year, and then progress into the semifinals, from which twelve songs will be nominated by a panel of judges to become the winner of Juara Lagu. AJL honours the composers and lyricists of the songs rather than the performing artistes.

History and background

Originally, Juara Lagu was introduced as a show that had a simple publication format that was easy to understand and follow for the audience. Anugerah Juara Lagu began in 1986 and has captivated many audiences over the years. Datuk Ahmad Merican who was then the Program Manager of TV3 was the pioneer of the Muzik Muzik show which started airing on Sunday, 2 March 1986 at 8.30 pm. From the songs nominated in the Musics that will be taken and screened to the next level. In the early years of the Juara Lagu, final contestants were screened from the monthly champions. In the early stages of the organization, the public also made nominations and elections through local daily newspapers. Until 1991, each monthly champion was eligible to be screened for the finals. Beginning in 1992, the Juara Lagu format was changed by introducing categories with the aim of encouraging participation from genres such as traditional rhythms and ballads as rock genres were much dominant at that time. Regular changes have been made to the format of the plan to the weekly chart system. Chart 20 is introduced as used by Music Music now. This chart format gives the opportunity for new songs to enter the chart on a weekly basis. The songs that are successfully screened will be taken to the semi-finals to select 12 songs that will be competed to the finals to be crowned as the "Juara Lagu". In 2009, competitions by category were abolished due to a critical lack of entries from traditional rhythmic songs and creative ethnicities. Anugerah Juara Lagu are held either at the end of the year or at the beginning of the following year. The location of AJL, which is a venue for artists and composers to compete for talent, was once held at the San Choo Hall at Wisma MCA, Angkasapuri RTM Auditorium, Sri Pentas Dua, Shah Alam City Hall, Merdeka Hall, PWTC, Malawati Stadium Shah Alam, Axiata Arena and Putra Stadium Bukit Jalil. Juara Lagu has also invited local and international professional judges, especially from the Malay region such as Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan to judge the finals. The evaluation focuses on the melodies, lyrics and performances of the artist.

Organizing List

Judging

The competition started from the weekly popular voting stage in the Muzik Muzik program where voting was made by the audience through newspaper forms (1986–2002) and online voting (2003–present). The accumulated scores will determine the 30 songs that will compete in the Semi Final commemorations. At this stage the songs that will advance to the finals will be judged by a professional jury appointed from the composer and music director. Anugerah Juara Lagu uses a professional judging method where a group of music artists from various backgrounds are gathered to evaluate the quality of the song that advanced to the finals to be crowned the champion song, runner-up, third place and category champion (1992–2008). On awards night, the scoring of the vocal performance and the stage performance will be combined to determine the championship. Vocal scoring is 100% in the hands of the jury, while the stage performance is determined either through fan votes (press, telephone, SMS, online) or combined/determined by a professional jury.

List of Overall Winners of the Song Champion Award

"* For a full list of entries, please see Songs That Have Competed in the Song Champion Awards" Hint : Title = Song title Composition = Creator/Composer Lyrics = Lyricist Artist = Singer Album = Album that published the song Beginning in 1993, the Music Industry Awards (MIA) adding category in the best song award, and the following are the results comparison markers; † = Song that won AIM Best Song † S = Song that wins any AIM Best Category Song ‡ = Song nominated as Best Song / any AIM best category song ‡ S = Song nominated in any AIM best category song If measured through competition through albums, the following are the markers; † C = Album that wins any AIM Best Category Album † K = Album that won AIM's Overall Best Album ‡ C = Album nominated in any AIM best category album ‡ K = Album nominated for AIM Overall Best Album

Runner-up & Third Place

Category Champions

When first organized in 1986, AJL competed in open categories for all song genres. However, from the 7th AJL (1992) to the 23rd AJL (2008), the organizers opened three categories arranged according to song genre. The categories are ballads, pop rock and creative ethnic Malaysian rhythms. The opening of this category, among others, to ensure that the traditional music genre also competes with today's pop songs. Competitions by category were abolished in 2009 due to a lack of entries from traditional rhythmic songs.

Special Category

Best Performance

Best Lyrics

Beginning in 1993, this category was not contested separately but counted in the creation of a song.

Best Vocals

This category was first competed in 2002 at the 17th Anugerah Juara Lagu

Other Awards

Trivia

Double wins and entries

Entry more than three times but failed

Non-Malay and foreign participation

Performance by a substitute singer

Intermission Performance

Others

Age of participation

Youngest Artist The Oldest Singer Composer

List of overall winners

The following are for each year of the competition, the winning song, the performer(s), composer and lyricist of the song: