BRITS GENDER ROW CONTINUES

The longlist for the BRITs Artist of the Year award for 2023 is heavily weighted toward male acts, with just 12 out of 68 of those included being women, The Mirror reported.

Next year’s ceremony will be the second without gendered categories, which have been replaced by the Artist of the Year gong. They were scrapped in 2021 as part of the BRITs’ commitment to making the show as inclusive and relevant as possible.

However, with just 18% of the acts on the list for 2023 being female artists, The Mirror report asks: Is there a risk that female talent is still being overlooked?

The longlists are determined by releases that have charted within the eligibility period, so rather than blaming the BRITs itself, which has a diverse voting academy, an industry source points out: “If the nominations and eventual wins point to deeper structural issues, then this puts the onus on the industry to acknowledge the issue and address it.”

BPI has commissioned a wide-ranging study on gender equality in the U.K. music business, the results of which are set to land around the time of the BRITs.

Last year’s BRITs saw women dominate the awards, receiving eight of a possible 11 that night. The shortlist for this year’s Rising Star, which was won by FLO, was all female acts. How diverse the remaining shortlists for 2023’s ceremony will be is yet to be seen. Stay tuned for updates.