The annual MPG Awards take place at London’s Grosvenor House tonight, as the industry comes together to celebrate the industry’s most prominent producers.
Now in its ninth year, the 2017 MPG Awards will see some the of the world’s finest producers contest 16 different categories.
Battling it our for the Producer Of The Year Award are Fraser T Smith, Paul Epworth and Nigel Godrich, while James Blake, Jeff Lynne and Tarek Musa of Spring King have been nominated for the newly introduced Self-Producing Artist category. Other notable entries include David Bowie’s Blackstar, Michael Kiwanuka’s Love and Hate and Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, all of which are shortlisted for UK Album of the Year.
Meanwhile, producer and DJ Roni Size will be honoured with the 2017 MPG Inspiration Award. The award is given to recording professionals who, according to the MPG board of directors, are ‘responsible for a body of work that has significantly inspired others’. Previous recipients include Nile Rodgers, Damon Albarn, Glyn Johns and Sylvia Massy.
The Producer Of The Year Award, which had traditionally been presented as BRITs Producer Of The Year, was dropped by the BRITs ahead of this year’s show. According to the BPI, the decision to cease its involvement with the award was due to an overhaul of the BRITs voting academy, which meant the organisation didn’t have sufficient time to agree on a voting process with the MPG.
However, Music Week sources claimed that attempts from the BPI to exert greater influence over the judging of the award were the real cause of the fallout.
Responding to our requests for clarification on the matter, Tony Platt, managing director of the MPG Awards Group, said: “The MPG UK Producer of the Year Award is unchanged and will be presented to the winner chosen by our recent judging panel. That person will have been nominated, voted and judged using our usual fair, transparent and inclusive process, which will continue unaffected.”
A spokesperson for the BPI responded in turn: “Over the last eight years, we’ve been delighted to present a BRIT Award for Best Producer to the winner of the MPG Producer of the Year. Until now that selection has been based on the MPG’s voting and judging processes.
“The two awards are, however, entirely separate, even though the same person has previously received both. This year, as people may be aware, the BRITs has significantly changed the composition of its voting academy, and we also annually review our award categories and voting processes. The voting mechanic for the Best Producer Award differed substantially from our other votes and we have not had time to complete a review as to how this might best be structured. As a result, we have decided to rest the Best Producer Award for 2017. We fully recognise the important role producers play in the music industry and will be considering further how best to reflect this going forward.”
You can view the full list of nominees below, while last year’s winners can be found here.
UK Producer Of The Year
• Paul Epworth
• Nigel Godrich
• Fraser T. Smith
International Producer Of The Year, sponsored by Prism Sound
• Josh Homme
• Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee
• Tony Visconti
Breakthrough Producer Of The Year, sponsored by Novation
• Brett Cox
• Andrew Hunt
• Joel Laslett Pott
Self Producing Artist of the Year, sponsored by Spitfire Audio
•James Blake
• Jeff Lynne
• Tarek Musa (Spring King)
Recording Engineer Of The Year, sponsored by AMS Neve
• Guy Massey
• Mark Rankin
• Richard Woodcraft
Breakthrough Engineer Of The Year, sponsored by Genelec
• Manon Grandjean
• Andrew Hunt
• Jack Ruston
Mix Engineer Of The Year, sponsored by Solid State Logic
• Tom Elmhirst
• Mark ‘Spike’ Stent
• Cenzo Townshend
Mastering Engineer Of The Year, sponsored by Prism Sound
• John Davis
• Barry Grint
• Mandy Parnell
Re-Mixer of the Year
• Disclosure (Howard & Guy Lawrence)
• Matthew Herbert
• Wideboys
UK Album Of The Year
• Black Star – David Bowie
• Love and Hate – Michael Kiwanuka
• A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead
UK Single Song Release Of The Year, sponsored by Shure
• This Is What Your Came For – Calvin Harris feat. Rihanna
• Burn The Witch – Radiohead
• Pillowtalk – ZAYN
Studio Of The Year
• Abbey Road Studios
• British Grove Studios
• RAK Studios
The A&R Award
• Toby L & Tim Dellow (Transgressive Records)
• Bart McDonagh (Domino Records)
• Nigel Reeve (Warner Music International)
The winner of the Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award, sponsored by PPL, is yet to be announced, while the MPG Inspiration Award and the Special Recognition Award will be announced at the ceremony in February.
