Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine, Harry Styles lead 2023 Ivor Novello nominations

Over 70 songwriters have received nominations for the 2023 Ivor Novello awards – with Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine and Harry Styles leading the pack.

The nominees for this year’s instalment were announced yesterday (April 18) by The Ivors Academy, and features nine categories including Song Writer Of The Year With Amazon Music, Best Album and Best Contemporary Song.

72 individual songwriters and composers from Britain and Ireland were announced in the nominations, and songwriting partnerships with Harry Styles and Kid Harpoon, and Cleopatra Nikolic (known artistically as Cleo Sol) and Dean ‘Inflo’ Josiah Cover lead the way, with three nominations each.

Alongside Harry Styles and Kid Harpoon, nominees for the Songwriter Of The Year With Amazon Music award include Florence + The Machine frontwoman Florence Welch, The 1975’s George Daniel and Matty Healy, and Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers.

Best Album nominees include Arctic Monkeys’ latest effort, ‘The Car’, as well as Lil Simz’s ‘No Thank You’, Fontaine D.C’s ‘Skinty Fia’ and Sault’s ‘11’.

Elsewhere, Harry Styles is also in the running to win the award for the Best Song Musically and Lyrically with 2022’s ‘As It Was’. Other songs put forward include Tom Odell’s ‘Best Day Of My Life’, Florence + The Machine’s ‘King’, Sault’s ‘Stronger’ and Katie Gregson-Macleod’s ‘Complex’.

Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ has also been named in the PRS for Music’s Top 5 Most Performed Songs of 2022 category – nearly four decades after the track was nominated for Best Contemporary Song.

Launched in 1956, the awards celebrate outstanding achievements in the field of songwriting and composition and are awarded by award-winning artists and composers from The Ivors Academy. Previous winners include Adele, Annie Lennox, Amy Winehouse, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

The award also acknowledges prominent songwriters and composers in the film, gaming and television fields. This year, composers have been nominated from films including Avatar: The Way Of Water, Death On the Nile and Don’t Worry Darling, television series including Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen and The Responder, and games Gotham Knights, Horizon Forbidden West and Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope.

The winners will be revealed at The Ivors with Amazon Music at London’s Grosvenor House on May 18.

Last year, Robert Smith and Simon Gallup of The Cure picked up the Icon Award at the 2022 Ivor Novello awards — they have been part of the band’s lineup since 1978 and 1979.
Speaking with NME backstage after the win, Smith said: “It is a strange one. I was thinking about it when we were walking up to collect the award – it felt strange to be leaving the other three at the table.”

He also added: “For me, it’s really lovely that Simon is up there with me. It’s criminal really, because he’s been there all the time.”

In other news, front-runner Harry Styles called crew members to check they were OK after a mishap at his 2023 Grammy Awards performance.

The pop star sang his hit single ‘As It Was’ at the 65th Annual Awards, however both he and his dancers were forced to “reverse” their routine live after the revolving stage malfunctioned.

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