Well, we love the Darkness as much as the next man here at CMU (in fact, we're due to start the backlash to the backlash next week), but whether or not we'd label them 'Songwriters Of The Year', given how much good stuff has been out there in the last twelve months, I'm not convinced. But it doesn't matter what we think, the judges for the Ivor Novello Awards yesterday gave them that title at their annual awards bash designed to celebrate songwriting talent.
Accepting his band's gong Justin Hawkins said: "It's a great award, it's the heaviest. This is the biggest award you can get if you write your own songs. We have always wanted something like this but didn't expect to be in this position now. Now we've got here we're not going to let it go."
Other winners at the awards included Francis Eg White for the Will Young track 'Leave Right Now', who got the award for Best Song Musically And Lyrically.
Amy Winehouse and Salaam Remi were given the Best Contemporary Song trophy for the former's hit 'Stronger Than Me'.
Radiohead took the award for International Achievement while Rollo Armstrong and Rick Nowels got the gong for International Hit Of The Year for penning Dido's 'White Flag'.
The full list of Ivor Novello winners is listed at the bottom of today's CMU Daily.