The Music Week Sync Awards are over for another year, after a busy night for which the great and the good of the sector congregated at 8 Northumberland Avenue in central London.
As the rain fell outside, guests were treated to a slap up dinner, with anticipation building nicely ahead of the ceremony’s 9pm kick off. After that, the awards came thick and fast with BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Shaun Keaveny introducing a total of 24 Awards.
Sync Team Publisher: @UMusicPub_UK “Credit to this brilliant team, they really are the best in the business” #SyncAwards pic.twitter.com/8n8khtifDR
— Music Week (@MusicWeek) October 19, 2017
Universal completed an in impressive double, with Universal Globe scooping the Record Company award and Universal Music Publishing taking home the Publisher trophy. Also among the big winners were Artist Of The Year Barns Courtney, Independent Publisher Bucks Music Group, Independent Record Company Beggars Music and Broadcaster Music Department BT Sport.
Feast on the full list of awards here, and read on to relive five magic moments from Music Week’s biggest Sync Awards yet…
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
US music supervisor Nora Felder was a popular winner for Stranger Things in the Overall TV Series Soundtrack category. The show features plenty of classic UK bands from the ‘80s, including The Clash, New Order and Joy Division, so she’s obviously got good taste. Felder gave one of the acceptance speeches of the night, here it is in all its inspirational glory: “I’m really honoured to be here. I’ve been listening to British music all my life, so just the fact that you guys are honouring me means a lot to me. British music is an important part of the project. All the people in this room, we can’t do what we do without your help. This is amazing and I hope that people continue to honour the importance of music to moving stories. I’m happy that awards like this exist. Most of the people in this room I truly believe are passionate about what they do.”
THE BT SPORT SHOW
BT Sport's Pete Kelly spent almost as much time in the Music Week green room as he did in the main hall at this year's ceremony. The music supervisor's first trip down the plush carpeted staircase came after he picked up the award for Best Sync – TV Show (Sport) for Loyle Carner's bespoke rap for the Champions League final, which featured in our Sync Story column back in June. Emerging just in time to collect the Music Supervisor (TV) gong - complimentary bottle of vodka in hand - he arrived upstairs in the nick of time to deliver his second speech of the night. Talking to Music Week afterwards, he bigged up the company's sync work with a range of artists including AJ Tracey, P Money and Peter Broderick. Kelly stressed that, instead of using sports people or celebrity interviews to introduce major sporting events, his team put musicians - many of whom are at the start of their careers - front and centre. "We're able to use music for our biggest events, and that makes me so proud," he said. With more of the same lined up in the coming months, BT Sport's close ties to the UK music scene look set to continue.
Another win for @btsport - Sync Team Broadcaster Music Department #syncawards pic.twitter.com/kOsYgmX2qr
— Music Week (@MusicWeek) October 19, 2017
WHERE GRIME MEETS CLASSICAL…
Where else can you get such a breadth of genres as the Music Week Sync Awards? As she collected the Best Sync - TV Show (Drama) award for her role in the composition of In Paradisium (with Ben Robbins) on BBC One’s Broken, Fiona Jessica Wilson commented: “Blimey, there’s still life in classical music, hurrah!” Contrast that jolly celebration with Julz Baldwin, deputy head of music at TMR Black Sheep Music, who a few moments later picked up the award for Best Social Media/Online Partnership for KFC Vs - Panasonic by P Money. Baldwin described the branded Facebook live stream event as not just “non-traditional” but also “really fucking exciting”. And she said this is just the start for this kind of content. “It was a bunch of fucking cool grime artists - there’s more of this shit coming,” Baldwin promised.
FIFA WINS THE DOUBLE
One of the world’s biggest video games bagged an early brace to claim the first two awards of the evening. Energy by Avelino feat. Stormzy & Skepta was a worthy winner of Best Sync - Video Game Trailer for FIFA 18, assembling three of the hottest UK rappers of recent times. The franchise also won the Video Game Soundtrack award for Comeback Kid, a brand new Kasabian track, as featured in FIFA 17. Back of the net.
SHAUN KEAVENY’S BRYAN FERRY STORY
To be honest we’re still waiting for the punchline, but it certainly left an impression...
Stay tuned to Music Week and musicweek.com for more Sync Awards coverage.
