And Finally Artist News Awards

BRIT nominations out – Harry Styles and Wet Leg get four each

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 13 January 2023

The nominations are out for this year’s BRIT Awards. Once again, the focus has fallen on how diverse the shortlists are – or not – in particular now that the UK’s big music awards bash doesn’t have gender specific categories like Best Female and Best Male.

One of the concerns raised when the BRITs decided to get rid of the gender specific categories was that it could result in less gender diversity overall. Actually, last year – the first year without Best Female, Best Male et al – that didn’t really happen.

However, this year things do definitely skew male overall, and most notably all the contenders for the prime Artist Of The Year prize are men.

Which is disappointing, obviously, given how easy it is to name the female artists who could and should have appeared in that list as well. But then again, both Best New Artist and Best International Artist do have more female nominees than male.

There is also enough gender balance across the majority of the categories that, on the night itself, there could be more female winners than male winners. Especially if Wet Leg win most of the four awards they are up for, which – of course – they should. We shall see.

Meanwhile, whatever happens gender wise, it seems likely that the final winner list will be somewhat Harry Styles dominated. He is also up for four awards this time round, including Artist Of The Year, which I’m not sure anyone could really begrudge him winning.

Anyway, here are the shortlists for you to peruse, absorb, scrutinise, analyse, criticise or ignore as you see fit. The awards will be dished out on 11 Feb.

Artist Of The Year 
Central Cee
Fred Again
George Ezra
Harry Styles
Stormzy

Group Of The Year 
The 1975
Arctic Monkeys
Bad Boy Chiller Crew
Nova Twins
Wet Leg

Best New Artist 
Kojey Radical
Mimi Webb
Rina Sawayama
Sam Ryder
Wet Leg

International Artist Of The Year 
Beyonce
Burna Boy
Kendrick Lamar
Lizzo
Taylor Swift

International Group Of The Year 
Blackpink
Drake & 21 Savage
First Aid Kit
Fontaines DC
Gabriels

Alternative/Rock Act 
The 1975
Arctic Monkeys
Nova Twins
Tom Grennan
Wet Leg

Hip Hop, Grime, Rap Act 
Aitch
Central Cee
Dave
Loyle Carner
Stormzy

Dance Act 
Becky Hill
Bonobo
Calvin Harris
Eliza Rose
Fred Again

Pop / R&B Act 
Cat Burns
Charli XCX
Dua Lipa
Harry Styles
Sam Smith

Album Of The Year 
The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language (Dirty Hit)
Wet Leg – Wet Leg (Domino Recordings)
Harry Styles – Harry’s House (Sony/Columbia)
Stormzy – This Is What I Mean (Merky + Universal/0207)
Fred Again – Actual Life 3 (1 Jan – 9 Sep 2022) (Warner/Atlantic)

Song Of The Year 
Aitch / Ashanti – Baby (Universal/Capitol)
Cat Burns – Go (Sony/RCA/Since 93)
Dave – Starlight (Dave + Neighbourhood + Universal)
Ed Sheeran & Elton John – Merry Christmas (Warner/Atlantic + Universal/EMI)
Eliza Rose / Interplanetary Criminal – BOTA (Baddest Of Them All) (One House + Warner Records)
George Ezra – Green Green Grass (Sony/Columbia)
Harry Styles – As It Was (Sony/Columbia)
Lewis Capaldi – Forget Me (Universal/EMI)
LF System – Afraid To Feel (Warner Records)
Sam Smith & Kim Petras – Unholy (Universal/Capitol)

International Song Of The Year 
Beyonce – Break My Soul (Parkwood + Sony/RCA/Columbia)
David Guetta & Bebe Rexha – I’m Good (Blue) (Warner/Parlophone)
Fireboy FDML & Ed Sheeran – Peru (Universal/Island + Warner/Atlantic)
Gaitan / Castillo / Adassa / Feliz – We Don’t Talk About Bruno (Walt Disney + Universal) Gayle – abcdefu (Warner/Atlantic)
Jack Harlow – First Class (Warner/Atlantic)
Lizzo – About Damn Time (Warner/Atlantic)
Lost Frequencies / Calum Scott – Where Are You Now (Sony/Insanity + Universal/Capitol)
OneRepublic – I Ain’t Worried (Universal/Polydor/Interscope)
Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero (Universal/EMI/Republic