Coldplay were competing against themselves, as well as a certain Adele Adkins, at yesterday’s Ivor Novello Awards in London, and they ultimately emerged triumphant.
In the category of the year’s Most Performed Work, Coldplay had two songs in the running - ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ and ‘Hymn for the Weekend’. They were up against Adele’s ‘When We Were Young’, and ultimately it was ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ that triumphed.
This is the second Ivor for the band, following their gong for Best Selling Song in 2009 with ‘Viva La Vida’. They’ve been nominated a further five times.
While Coldplay continue to be the Marmite of pop with their foot-stamping anthems and plinkety-plonk, piano stool-bouncing balladeering, there’s no doubting they’ve found the magic formula. Since they formed at university in 1996, they’ve sold more than 80million records worldwide.
Other winners at yesterday’s ceremony included Laura Mvula, Florence Welsh and Skepta, while two musical icons appeared on stage, when George Clinton arrived to give the Lifetime Achievement Award to Bill Withers.
Full list of winners below:
- Best Song Musically and Lyrically: Black Man In A White World, by Dean “Inflo” Josiah Cover and Michael Kiwanuka
- Best Contemporary Song: Man, by Skepta and Josh Homme
- Album Award: The Dreaming Room, by Laura Mvula
- PRS for Music Most Performed Work: Hymn For The Weekend, by Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion and Chris Martin
- Best Original Film Score: Kubo And The Two Strings, by Dario Marianelli
- Best Television Soundtrack: War And Peace, by Martin Phipps
- International Achievement: Florence Welch received the Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement in recognition of her unique songwriting voice and success outside the United Kingdom.
- Lifetime Achievement: Nitin Sawhney received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement in recognition of his exceptional creative talent.
- Outstanding Song Collection: Pulp’s Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackey, Russell Senior and Mark Webber were honoured for the Outstanding Song Collection.
- PRS for Music Outstanding Contribution to British Music: Anne Dudley received the PRS for Music Outstanding Contribution to British Music for her work as a songwriter, arranger, producer and television and film composer.
- PRS for Music Special International Award: Bill Withers
- Songwriter of the Year: Skepta, in recognition of an outstanding body of work released in 2016.
- The Ivors Jazz Award: John Surman, in recognition of his outstanding body of jazz compositions.
- The Ivors Inspiration Award: Gary Numan, in recognition of his influence as a pioneer of electronic music.