The nominations for the 2023 BRIT Awards have been announced, with Harry Styles, Dua Lipa and Sam Smith leading the hopefuls ahead of the February 11 ceremony.
The stars will battle it out for the coveted prizes at next month’s live ceremony at London’s O2 Arena, with Harry and Wet Leg leading the pack with four nods.
But surprisingly, female artists were excluded from Female Artist of the Year, which introduced a gender-neutral overhaul last year by scrapping its male- and female-centric categories.
Big names! The nominations for the 2023 BRIT Awards have been announced, with Harry Styles (left), Dua Lipa (right) and Sam Smith leading the hopefuls ahead of the February 11 ceremony
Artist of the Year nominees include Central Cee, Fred Again, George Ezra, Harry Styles and Stormzy.
The category has been snubbed by the likes of Dua Lipa, Charli XCX and Florence & The Machine, although Adele won the top prize last year when she debuted her gender-neutral makeover for the first time.
In 2021, the BRIT Awards announced they were abolishing their male and female categories to celebrate artists “solely for their music”.
Bosses claimed the move was an attempt to be “as inclusive and relevant as possible” and allowed entry for people who don’t identify as male or female.
But fans blasted the change as “bright babble,” with many calling for a boycott of the show next year.
Meanwhile, The 1975 compete for the coveted Mastercard Album of the Year with Being Funny In A Foreign Language, Wet Leg with their self-titled album and Harry Styles with his hit compilation Harry’s House.
Also nominated are Stormzy with his album This Is What I Mean and Fred Again with Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9, 2022).
In the coveted Song Of The Year category with Mastercard are Aitch with Baby Ft Ashanti, Cat Burns with Go, Dave with Starlight and Ed Sheeran and Elton John with their festive hit Merry Christmas.
Also nominated are Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal with Baddest Of Them All, George Ezra with Green Green Grass and Harry Styles with As It Was.
Finally, the nominations for Song of the Year are Lewis Capaldi with Forget Me, Lf System with Afraid To Feel, and Sam Smith and Kim Petras with Unholy.
Following his meteoric rise to success in 2022 after helping Britain take second place in the Eurovision Song Contest, Sam Ryder was nominated for Best New Artist.
He will face off against Kojey Radical, Mimi Webb, Rina Sawayama and Wet Leg.
Sam said, “I hum! I feel like a golden retriever who won a medal. Whatever happens, just being recognized alongside so many great artists and colleagues is incredible. To me, that’s really a reflection of what it’s all about – the music.”
Group of the Year is up for The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Bad Boy Chiller Crew, Nova Twins and Wet Leg, while International Group of the Year is nominated for Black Pink, Drake And 21 Savage, First Aid Kit, Fontaines Dc and Gabriels.
After nodding four times, Wet Leg said: “Someone will hold our horses while we grapple with this wild news. It’s too hard to understand being nominated for a BRIT award. We could never have expected our little band to achieve this. ‘
Nominated for Alt Rock are The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Nova Twins, Tom Grennan and Wet Leg.
Stormy landed another node in the Hip Hop/Grime/Rap category, taking on Aitch, Central Cee, Dave, and Loyle Carner.
Becky Hill has received another nomination in the Dance Act category after winning the award last year.
She is nominated against Bonobo, Calvin Harris, Eliza Rose and Fred Again.
After nodding, she said: “I’m amazed to be nominated for Best Dance Act for the second time in a row.
“I am very honored to be recognized once again for my contribution to dance music, which is so dear to me.
“As a fan of dance music all my life it’s really heartwarming to be seen in that regard and this is a really humbling moment for me. Thank you, can’t wait to be back with the BRITs as a 2023 candidate.
And following the re-issue of her Future Nostalgia album, Dua was nominated in the Pop/R&B category alongside Harry, Sam, Charlie XCX and Cat Burns.
Elsewhere, in the international categories, Beyonce reigns once again with two nods, alongside Taylor Swift and Lizzo.
Beyonce, Burna Boy, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo and Taylor Swift stand for International Artist of the Year.
Many of these nominees also win awards in the International Song of the Year category, including Beyonce for her viral hit “Break My Soul.”
She is joined by David Guetta and Bebe Rexa with Aim Good, Fireboy Dml & Ed Sheeran with Peru.
The team behind the hit song We Don’t Talk About Bruno from the Disney animated hit Encanto also landed a surprising nod.
International Song of the Year is by Gayle with Abcdefu, Jack Harlow with First Class, Lizzo with About Damn Time and Calum Scott And Lost Frequencies with Where Are You Now.
Rounding out the nominations are One Republic with I Ain’t Worried and Taylor Swift with Antihero.
In December, The BRITs announced the winner of this year’s Rising Star supported by BBC Radio 1 awards as FLO, the first group to win the award.
They join the list of incredible artists to have won the award over the past few years including Adele, Florence + The Machine, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, Emeli Sandé, Griff and last year’s winner Holly Humberstone.
The winners of the four genre categories – Rock/Alternative Act, Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act, Dance Act, Pop/R&B Act – will be determined by a public vote on TikTok, which opens Thursday, January 19 at 12pm will.
Vick Hope and Jack Saunders revealed the nod in a live show presented on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Vick and Jack enlisted the help of a team of celebrities to help announce this year’s key categories.
Olympic champion Tom Daley, YouTube’s Yung Filly, Euro 2022 winner Jill Scott and Gogglebox’s Joe and George Baggs were among the names to unveil this year’s nominations on their own social channels.
The celebrities were given locked BRITs boxes for safekeeping before revealing their categories on the day of the live stream.
The BRIT Awards 2023 with Mastercard will take place on Saturday 11 February – the first time in its history that the show has taken place on a Saturday – and will be broadcast live on ITV1 and ITVX – from the O2 Arena.
Mo Gilligan will return as host for the second time.
Masked Dancer judge Mo said: “Hosting the BRITs last year was one of the most phenomenal moments of my life.
“I’m so honored to meet the incredible team behind music’s biggest night and so proud to bring our amazing audience even closer to their favorite artists. I promise we’re going to be even bigger this year… Let’s go.’
This year, the BRIT Awards were designed by Slawn, the Nigerian-born, London-based artist who follows in the footsteps of an illustrious list of creatives including Dame Vivienne Westwood, Sir Peter Blake and Tracey Emin.
Taking the helm: Mo Gilligan will return as host of this year’s BRIT Awards
The BRITs have already announced their first winner – R&B girl group FLO are the recipients of the 2023 Rising Star Award.
Adele won the BRIT Awards last year when she took home three gongs at the first-ever gender-neutral ceremony.
The singer won the first-ever genderless Artist of the Year gong after eliminating the male and female categories.
However, she hit back at the “wake up” ceremony when she insisted in her acceptance speech that she “loves being an artist” after bosses bowed to calls for the awards to be stripped of gendered categories.
Delighted: R&B girl group FLO have already been announced as winners of the 2023 Rising Star Award, celebrating another rising star of British music
The BRIT Awards sparked controversy after they ditched the traditional male and female categories and switched to gender-neutral gongs for the first time in their history, leading to naysayers branding the event “awakened”.
Organizers were divided, with some outraged at the decision to switch to gender-neutral gongs for the first time in their history, in calls led by non-binary singer Sam Smith.
Bosses claimed the move was an attempt to be “as inclusive and relevant as possible” and allowed entry for people who don’t identify as male or female.
But fans at the time blasted the change as “bright babble” at the time, with many calling for a boycott.
Winner takes all: Adele won the BRIT Awards last year when she took home three gongs at the first-ever gender-neutral ceremony