Beyonce and Harry Styles are among the first BRIT Awards winners

• A shadow has been cast over the BRIT Awards’ introduction of gender-neutral categories
• By an all-male nominee list for the artist of the year award.
• Which included Harry Styles and Beyonce among the inaugural winners on Saturday.

A shadow has been cast over the BRIT Awards’ introduction of gender-neutral categories by an all-male nominee list for the artist of the year award. Which included Harry Styles and Beyonce among the inaugural winners on Saturday.

Styles, who shared the most nominations with the indie rock band Wet Leg (four each), was named best pop/R&B act. Chart-topper Beyonce was voted worldwide artist of the year, one of two gender-neutral categories that were added the previous year when organisers did away with the boundaries between men and women.

The other is the artist of the year award, whose nominees are all men (rappers Stormzy and Central Cee, vocalists Styles and George Ezra, DJ and producer Fred Again). This infuriates many in the music business.

The gender-neutral categories were created, according to a statement on the BRIT Awards website, “so that artists are assessed entirely on the quality and popularity of their work, rather than on who they are, or how they choose to identify.”

The fact that no women made the list, it was stated, was acknowledged and shared by the organisers. A significant contributing aspect is that, regrettably, there were less commercially successful female releases in 2022 than there were male releases.

“Only 12 (17%) of the 71 qualified artists on the longlist are female. We acknowledge that this raises more significant concerns about the portrayal of women in music that also need to be addressed.” 10 of of the 15 categories at the awards last year had female winners. According to the organisers, 42% of this year’s nominees are women or groups with female members.

“We have made a great decision by becoming gender-neutral as a whole. The constraints, in my opinion, are that there are not enough positions for nominees, “On the red carpet, singer Rina Sawayama spoke with Reuters. “If there are more nominations, you will see a more diverse representation of the year’s events and the people who have had an impact.”

Stormzy, Styles, Wet Leg, and Fred once more and rockers The 1975 are in contention for best album, the evening’s top prize.

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