The 64th Annual BMI Pop Awards were held May 10th at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) a global leader in music rights management, celebrated the songwriters and publishers behind the year’s most performed pop songs. The awards were hosted by BMI President & CEO Mike O’Neill and BMI Vice President of Writer/Publisher Relations Barbara Cane.
Tay lor Swift was presented with the first-ever Taylor Swift Award. This special award in her name is for recognition of her creative and artistic talent and influence on music lovers around the world. This is only the second time in BMI’s 76-year history that the company has presented an award in someone’s name. The first was to Michael Jackson in 1990.
Swift also took home the BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year title once again for penning four of the year’s most-performed songs from her hit album 1989; “Bad Blood,” “Blank Space,” “Style,” and “Wildest Dreams.”
The BMI Icon Award was presented to songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. The duo penned many classics including “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” “On Broadway”, “Just Once,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Somewhere Out There,” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”
The SoCal VoCals, University of Southern California’s premiere acapella group, paid homage to the songwriting team with a musical tribute by performing a medley of Mann and Weil’s songs.
The BMI Pop Song of the Year went to “Uptown Funk“. The award went to writers Jeff Bhasker, Devon Gallaspy, Trinidad James, Mark Ronson, Lonnie Simmons, Rudy Taylor, Charlie Wilson, Robert Wilson and Ronnie Wilson.
Sony/ATV Publishing was named the BMI Pop Publisher of the Year with 23 of year’s most performed songs.
Throughout the evening, the 50 best performing songs of the year were honored including ” Animals” by Maroon 5, “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy, “Chains” by Nick Jonas, “Don’t” by Ed Sheeran, “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten and “Honey, I’m Good” by Andy Grammer to name a few.
For more information on BMI and the awards: www.bmi.com
Check back to this page to see interviews with artists and songwriters from the awards.
