By Anita Singh, Arts and Entertainment Editor 12 January 2023 • 8:34pm
This year’s best artist nominees are Stormzy, Harry Styles, George Ezra, Fred again.. and Central Cee
The artist of the year nominees for the 2023 Brit Awards are all male, after organisers opted to make the category gender-neutral.
Last year, the best male and best female categories were scrapped and replaced with a single award honouring artists “irrespective of gender”.
At the time, critics warned that the move could be detrimental to women.
This year’s best artist nominees are Stormzy, Harry Styles, George Ezra, Fred again.. and Central Cee.
The album of the year category is also dominated by men, with Wet Leg the only female act out of contenders. The international artist of the year award is more mixed, and the list features Beyonce, Lizzo and Taylor Swift.
At the inaugural gender-neutral ceremony last year, Adele won artist of the year and said in her speech: “I understand why the name of this award has changed but I really love being a woman and being a female artist.”
Critics of the change included Nadine Dorries, then Culture Secretary, who said last year: “I think it sounds quite a sad decision. I would like to see how that would work in terms of fair gender representation.
“If I wanted to look at who used to win at awards for novels, and many things in the past, men always dominated. My concern would be that women weren’t being fairly presented.
“I would just be concerned on the gender balance issue, whereas we know we’re going to get best female artist, best female producer, whatever. I’d be concerned that in the future, women weren’t fairly represented at these awards.”
Placeholder image for youtube video: y-oJJw3xo0A
The British Independent Film Awards and the Whatsonstage Awards have also introduced gender-neutral performance categories, with organisers of the Baftas and Oscars said to be considering the issue.
Supporters of the idea include Hugh Jackman, the film and stage actor, who said recently: “I don’t know why it’s split into two genders when we all know it’s a much bigger spectrum than we’ve been thinking in the past.
“Whatever the mix is, we should maybe break down any of those categories that end up being divisive and unnecessary.”
Brit Awards organisers were urged to go gender-neutral after Sam Smith, one of the UK’s biggest-selling singers, was excluded from the nominations in 2021 after adopting ‘they’ and ‘’them’ pronouns.
The 2023 awards will take place on February 11 at the O2 Arena and broadcast on ITV.
This year’s nominations are led by Harry Styles and Wet Leg, who each appear in four categories.
And Adele won last year.
Wet Leg are a female group.
I don’t think anyone is surprised at this. Maybe it would have just been easier to add a new category of “Best Artist called Sam Smith”.
Why is it “detrimental” to women? Can women not make good music? Does a woman HAVE to win an award?
the most offensive thing here is people thinking george ezra is good
The only thing that really matters is that the selection process is fair and transparent and that there is a level playing field for selection so people get on the shortlist by merit.
If there are going to be demographic quotas on the shortlist, this would seem to entirely defeat the purpose of gender neutral awards in the first place.
Gender neutral awards are fine if we’ve eliminated the discrimination that lead to them being segregated in the first place. A sample of five is too small to draw meaningful conclusions from – but if this becomes a pattern then that’ll certainly raise more questions.
But a lot of people are going to point towards this as a case of “I told you so”.
So apparently when male and female it’s sexist and then when men dominate a genderless award that’s also sexist. At the end of the day it should be genderless tbf and noone should cry whether it’s all men or whatever the gender split. Music’s crap in general atm Harry Styles will dominate but his recent singles have been woefully boring.
[deleted]
In theory, I’m all for a gender neutral category. In practice, I do think it could be detrimental, just on the fact that female artists tend to enjoy, on average, less support or popularity than their male counterparts (for various reasons, I imagine things like spending less time in the media/spotlight and men not identifying with female artists while women might be more open to being fans of both genders.)
We’ll have to see how it goes though.
~~The public voted for these artists – The award is a representation of what the public find enjoyable.~~ If there are no women in the top list, then their music isn’t hitting the right cord with the audience. You could also argue women are more into these artists than they are other female artists.
I’m kind of surprised that Little Simz wasn’t nominated, to be honest.
I’d be interested to see the gender split of voters and who they voted for.
There weren’t many female artists cracking the top of the charts this year, for albums at least. Florence Welch, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, maybe Adele (was that this year?)
If you want a level playing field you have to accept that sometimes men are going to have better years than women. The whole purpose of having gendered awards categories is to make sure female artists get celebrated – this was always likely to happen at least once or twice
I thought the whole point was that a gender neutral award wouldn’t be about gender. Yet here we are, and here we will be every year depending on who feels wronged on such a small sample size.
Hope the women who blindly virtue signal for erasing women are proud…I blame them for allowing this to happen
Reminds me of a symphony orchestra (think it was New York) who a few decades ago realised they had an issue with the orchestra predominatly being men. To rectify it they put blind auditions in- literal screen between the panel and the person auditioning. Sure enough, more women were accepted to play.
Now, there’s a movement to remove them as apparently they’re prejudiced against non-white musicians.
What I’m saying is sometimes these kinds of actions do have consequences for other groups of people but yet we love to charge headlong into ‘solutions’ that just shift it off to another group
Edit- just to clarify after having a chance to search it properly again- they haven’t abolished them yet, but there’s a lot of places, [including the New York Times](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.amp.html) who are petitioning for them to be abolished for them ostensibly being prejudiced. I have removed the elements which stated that effects have been seen and the actual story for accuracy.
This is exactly what people said would happen and they were demonised for saying it. Called all sorts of names and accused of being sexists.
These awards shows mean nothing to me. But a nomination or an award for an artist surely means a lot. And a whole category just had that taken away from them. Well done.
[removed]
If people are surprised by this, they’re not paying attention. Women are slowly being erased by inclusion by exclusion of women. Weird times, especially with so many women celebrating it. Really, really weird times.
Honestly who gives a shit.
I’d be fucking embarrassed to win any of these awards;
And the award to the person who got someone else to write the blandest, most radio friendly, boring trash pop music that only children under 12 listen to for them iiiiiissssss…..
Meh.
The artist’s biological sex is actually an important part of the creative process, and removing it from the equation will just cause culture to become even more bland than it already is. Sam Smith is not clever or sophisticated for identifying out of his own sex and “gender neutral Brits” is a boring charade.
If it was an all female shortlist there wouldn’t be a problem. If you have no gendered categories than this is always a possibility especially in years when for some reason there are fewer releases from male or female major artists.
I would be frankly shocked if we ever see an all woman shortlist so this annoys me. I wish they had just kept the separate categories or at least expanded the number of nominees.
American culture at its absolute worst, nobody in the UK wants this or asked for it.
I’m 49, having read this thread I’ve never felt so old. I’m claiming one point for knowing who Wet Leg are.
It’s the classic equal opportunity vs equal outcome. So many people think it needs to be equal outcome and that can somehow be fair
It’s the second year ever that it’s gender neutral and a woman won last year..
I don’t think there is an issue here
If it was all women this headline wouldn’t exist…or it would but it would be celebrated…
See how when women were a minority at universities across the UK it was a massive issue that needed addressing…then the ratio got to near enough 50:50…that rightly got celebrated…then men became a minority across universities in the UK and that got celebrated too…
The irony of it being gender neutral and the only thing that is focused on is the gender of everyone nominated!
who didn’t see this coming? Some years there just aint gonna be any of a given gender nominated, and everyone will cry foul when there’s no women. Bet no one in the media gives a shit in the future if there’s years with no men in a particular category.
Demanding equal outcomes based on gender in a competition sounds a little fixed, no?
Blah blah more shit no one cares about to distract you from the Tory fingers up your arsehole.
At least you won’t be cold with all this trash to burn!
Don’t be too sad; maybe the winner will announce they’re changing gender as part of their acceptance speech!
[removed]
Near perfect example of breaking a fairly good system because of a niche problem. Doesn’t solve the niche problem and breaks other stuff.
Adel won last year and a guy will win this year. Let’s make a news story out of that.
37 comments
By Anita Singh, Arts and Entertainment Editor 12 January 2023 • 8:34pm
This year’s best artist nominees are Stormzy, Harry Styles, George Ezra, Fred again.. and Central Cee
The artist of the year nominees for the 2023 Brit Awards are all male, after organisers opted to make the category gender-neutral.
Last year, the best male and best female categories were scrapped and replaced with a single award honouring artists “irrespective of gender”.
At the time, critics warned that the move could be detrimental to women.
This year’s best artist nominees are Stormzy, Harry Styles, George Ezra, Fred again.. and Central Cee.
The album of the year category is also dominated by men, with Wet Leg the only female act out of contenders. The international artist of the year award is more mixed, and the list features Beyonce, Lizzo and Taylor Swift.
At the inaugural gender-neutral ceremony last year, Adele won artist of the year and said in her speech: “I understand why the name of this award has changed but I really love being a woman and being a female artist.”
Critics of the change included Nadine Dorries, then Culture Secretary, who said last year: “I think it sounds quite a sad decision. I would like to see how that would work in terms of fair gender representation.
“If I wanted to look at who used to win at awards for novels, and many things in the past, men always dominated. My concern would be that women weren’t being fairly presented.
“I would just be concerned on the gender balance issue, whereas we know we’re going to get best female artist, best female producer, whatever. I’d be concerned that in the future, women weren’t fairly represented at these awards.”
Placeholder image for youtube video: y-oJJw3xo0A
The British Independent Film Awards and the Whatsonstage Awards have also introduced gender-neutral performance categories, with organisers of the Baftas and Oscars said to be considering the issue.
Supporters of the idea include Hugh Jackman, the film and stage actor, who said recently: “I don’t know why it’s split into two genders when we all know it’s a much bigger spectrum than we’ve been thinking in the past.
“Whatever the mix is, we should maybe break down any of those categories that end up being divisive and unnecessary.”
Brit Awards organisers were urged to go gender-neutral after Sam Smith, one of the UK’s biggest-selling singers, was excluded from the nominations in 2021 after adopting ‘they’ and ‘’them’ pronouns.
The 2023 awards will take place on February 11 at the O2 Arena and broadcast on ITV.
This year’s nominations are led by Harry Styles and Wet Leg, who each appear in four categories.
And Adele won last year.
Wet Leg are a female group.
I don’t think anyone is surprised at this. Maybe it would have just been easier to add a new category of “Best Artist called Sam Smith”.
Why is it “detrimental” to women? Can women not make good music? Does a woman HAVE to win an award?
the most offensive thing here is people thinking george ezra is good
The only thing that really matters is that the selection process is fair and transparent and that there is a level playing field for selection so people get on the shortlist by merit.
If there are going to be demographic quotas on the shortlist, this would seem to entirely defeat the purpose of gender neutral awards in the first place.
Gender neutral awards are fine if we’ve eliminated the discrimination that lead to them being segregated in the first place. A sample of five is too small to draw meaningful conclusions from – but if this becomes a pattern then that’ll certainly raise more questions.
But a lot of people are going to point towards this as a case of “I told you so”.
So apparently when male and female it’s sexist and then when men dominate a genderless award that’s also sexist. At the end of the day it should be genderless tbf and noone should cry whether it’s all men or whatever the gender split. Music’s crap in general atm Harry Styles will dominate but his recent singles have been woefully boring.
[deleted]
In theory, I’m all for a gender neutral category. In practice, I do think it could be detrimental, just on the fact that female artists tend to enjoy, on average, less support or popularity than their male counterparts (for various reasons, I imagine things like spending less time in the media/spotlight and men not identifying with female artists while women might be more open to being fans of both genders.)
We’ll have to see how it goes though.
~~The public voted for these artists – The award is a representation of what the public find enjoyable.~~ If there are no women in the top list, then their music isn’t hitting the right cord with the audience. You could also argue women are more into these artists than they are other female artists.
edit. Just going to nix that first bit – Its voted for by the Brit Awards voting academy with over one thousand members, which comprise record labels, publishers, managers, agents, media, and previous winners and nominees. [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_Award_for_British_Artist_of_the_Year#:~:text=The%20winners%20and%20nominees%20are,and%20previous%20winners%20and%20nominees.&text=The%20inaugural%20recipient%20and%20current,Adele%2C%20who%20won%20in%202022)
I’m kind of surprised that Little Simz wasn’t nominated, to be honest.
I’d be interested to see the gender split of voters and who they voted for.
There weren’t many female artists cracking the top of the charts this year, for albums at least. Florence Welch, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, maybe Adele (was that this year?)
If you want a level playing field you have to accept that sometimes men are going to have better years than women. The whole purpose of having gendered awards categories is to make sure female artists get celebrated – this was always likely to happen at least once or twice
I thought the whole point was that a gender neutral award wouldn’t be about gender. Yet here we are, and here we will be every year depending on who feels wronged on such a small sample size.
Hope the women who blindly virtue signal for erasing women are proud…I blame them for allowing this to happen
Reminds me of a symphony orchestra (think it was New York) who a few decades ago realised they had an issue with the orchestra predominatly being men. To rectify it they put blind auditions in- literal screen between the panel and the person auditioning. Sure enough, more women were accepted to play.
Now, there’s a movement to remove them as apparently they’re prejudiced against non-white musicians.
What I’m saying is sometimes these kinds of actions do have consequences for other groups of people but yet we love to charge headlong into ‘solutions’ that just shift it off to another group
Edit- just to clarify after having a chance to search it properly again- they haven’t abolished them yet, but there’s a lot of places, [including the New York Times](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.amp.html) who are petitioning for them to be abolished for them ostensibly being prejudiced. I have removed the elements which stated that effects have been seen and the actual story for accuracy.
This is exactly what people said would happen and they were demonised for saying it. Called all sorts of names and accused of being sexists.
These awards shows mean nothing to me. But a nomination or an award for an artist surely means a lot. And a whole category just had that taken away from them. Well done.
[removed]
If people are surprised by this, they’re not paying attention. Women are slowly being erased by inclusion by exclusion of women. Weird times, especially with so many women celebrating it. Really, really weird times.
Honestly who gives a shit.
I’d be fucking embarrassed to win any of these awards;
And the award to the person who got someone else to write the blandest, most radio friendly, boring trash pop music that only children under 12 listen to for them iiiiiissssss…..
Meh.
The artist’s biological sex is actually an important part of the creative process, and removing it from the equation will just cause culture to become even more bland than it already is. Sam Smith is not clever or sophisticated for identifying out of his own sex and “gender neutral Brits” is a boring charade.
If it was an all female shortlist there wouldn’t be a problem. If you have no gendered categories than this is always a possibility especially in years when for some reason there are fewer releases from male or female major artists.
I would be frankly shocked if we ever see an all woman shortlist so this annoys me. I wish they had just kept the separate categories or at least expanded the number of nominees.
American culture at its absolute worst, nobody in the UK wants this or asked for it.
I’m 49, having read this thread I’ve never felt so old. I’m claiming one point for knowing who Wet Leg are.
It’s the classic equal opportunity vs equal outcome. So many people think it needs to be equal outcome and that can somehow be fair
It’s the second year ever that it’s gender neutral and a woman won last year..
I don’t think there is an issue here
If it was all women this headline wouldn’t exist…or it would but it would be celebrated…
See how when women were a minority at universities across the UK it was a massive issue that needed addressing…then the ratio got to near enough 50:50…that rightly got celebrated…then men became a minority across universities in the UK and that got celebrated too…
The irony of it being gender neutral and the only thing that is focused on is the gender of everyone nominated!
who didn’t see this coming? Some years there just aint gonna be any of a given gender nominated, and everyone will cry foul when there’s no women. Bet no one in the media gives a shit in the future if there’s years with no men in a particular category.
Demanding equal outcomes based on gender in a competition sounds a little fixed, no?
Blah blah more shit no one cares about to distract you from the Tory fingers up your arsehole.
At least you won’t be cold with all this trash to burn!
Don’t be too sad; maybe the winner will announce they’re changing gender as part of their acceptance speech!
[removed]
Near perfect example of breaking a fairly good system because of a niche problem. Doesn’t solve the niche problem and breaks other stuff.
Adel won last year and a guy will win this year. Let’s make a news story out of that.