The nominees for this year’s biggest night in British music, the Brit Awards, were announced on 12 January. To be hosted by comedian Mo Gilligan, the 2023 ceremony will be the second since the organisation ditched gendered categories in an effort to be more inclusive. However, the list of nominees for the major categories this year is not representative of the diversity that can be found in the British music industry.
At the May 2021 ceremony, Sam Smith spoke out about gender-specific classifications at such awards ceremonies after they were frozen out of the big awards in that year because these were exclusively given to men or women. The British Phonographic Industry, which presents the Brit Awards, responded by saying that their gendered categories were under review while warning that “if a change unintentionally leads to less inclusion then it risks being counterproductive to diversity and equality”. That counterproductivity has been put on full display with the list of nominees for this year’s British Artist of the Year.
The announcement of a gender-neutral awards list in November 2021 brought concerns from then-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries about whether women would be awarded appropriately for their work if they had to compete alongside men. Despite this, last year’s inaugural genderless awards saw Adele pick up all three major awards and Dua Lipa, Little Simz, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo each earn trophies of their own. Wolf Alice, fronted by lead singer Ellie Rowsell, also won the British Group award.
This kind of recognition for women in British music will be nigh on impossible to replicate at this year’s ceremony on 11 February because most categories are dominated by men and some feature men exclusively.
The most egregious example of the Brits lacking the inclusivity they seem to strive for is in the category for British Artist of the Year. Last year saw a 2:3 split among the five nominees of women to men with Adele ultimately winning on the night. This year’s ratio is 0:5. Central Cee, Fred Again, George Ezra, Harry Styles, and Stormzy are the nominees for the biggest award of the British music industry’s biggest night. It is understandable for women to feel let down by this.
Naturally, those that find nothing wrong with these nominees argue that awards are meant to be about merit and if the five best British musicians of the year are men, so be it. Music, like all art, is subjective but the opinions of the critics are usually good indicators of an artist’s acclaim. It’s not all that surprising to find Styles and Stormzy up there as they both released chart-topping acclaimed albums in 2022. However, The Guardian’s review of George Ezra’s latest album called it a “relative dip in quality” from his previous work and its songs “cheesy”. Central Cee and Fred Again’s recent projects had favourable critical reception but not a distinctive degree.
There are others whose albums did better with critics and are mysteriously not nominated. NME gave Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl a five-star review and called it “the best British pop album of the year” but all she received was a measly Best New Artist nod – and a questionable one at that given that she has two albums under her belt. Florence + the Machine was a mainstay of Brits nominations from 2009 to 2019 but, in spite of their latest record Dance Fever receiving perfect scores from both The Independent and The Telegraph, Florence Welch received no nominations this year. Charli XCX’s Crash was named the fourth best album of 2022 by The Guardian but a British Artist of the Year contender she is not.
According to the BBC, of the 70 artists eligible to be nominated for the award, only 12 were women. Acts must have released one top 40 album or two top 40 singles between December 2021 and December 2022 to qualify. The lack of women nominated might therefore be put down to heavy hitters like Adele and Dua Lipa not putting out any music during the eligibility period. On the other hand, Mabel, who won the award for British Female Solo Artist in 2020, achieved similar success with her second album last year as she did in her Brit-winning year but got zero nominations.
Maybe the list of men in line for top honours from the BPI would be less of an affront if it weren’t the same men they have been recognising in almost every ceremony. In only three ceremonies George Ezra has received nine nominations and Harry Styles and Stormzy have both got eight in four. Charli XCX, who has been releasing music regularly since 2012, only received one nomination before this year. The vast majority of the most successful artists at the Brits have been men – Robbie Williams has the most awards of anyone with 13 while the likes of David Bowie, One Direction, Coldplay, Oasis, Ed Sheeran, and Arctic Monkeys all have at least six awards. Only three women – Adele, Annie Lennox, and Dua Lipa – can say the same.
The Brit Awards are meant to be the UK music industry’s answer to America’s Grammys (who went genderless with their awards a full decade before the BPI did). The difference is that the Brits make a point of giving out separate awards for British and international acts. It seems that, unless you’re Adele, most women don’t get the recognition their acclaimed albums deserve, particularly on the domestic front.
All televised award ceremonies live and die by their viewing figures. It’s notable that last year’s Brits, which introduced gender-neutral awards and saw women win the majority of them, attracted the ceremony’s lowest audience to date. The ratings and the winners are not necessarily connected but it would be easy for the people behind the Brits to see a link. Discussion of who is and is not nominated is an integral element of an award show’s marketing, and given that last year many media outlets predicted Adele’s runaway victory, perhaps people thought they knew who was going to win and thus didn’t tune in.
The BPI must have been aware that nominating only men in the biggest award of the night would generate discussion, and it doesn’t sit right that the exclusion of women might have been a marketing tactic for this year’s Brits. The work that went into some of the most acclaimed albums of last year is not something to be thrown away to bait more people to watch glumly as one man from a list of five wins the most prestigious music award in the country.