The nominations are out, the performers are (mostly) confirmed and the host has been revealed, meaning the countdown is on to this year’s Brit Awards.
We’ve still got a little while to go until we found out who is taking home some of the most coveted awards in British music, but now we know who the contenders are, we’ve put our thinking caps on, rounding up our predictions for this year’s winners (as well as which artists we think should be honoured during the ceremony).
Take a look at our Brits 2018 picks below...
British Male
Nominees: Ed Sheeran, Liam Gallagher, Loyle Carner, Rag’n’Bone Man, Stormzy
Who will win? Ed Sheeran. We’re also looking forward to the inevitable tweet from Liam Gallagher when he doesn’t win.
Who should win? Stormzy. While there’s no denying Ed’s commercial success over the last 12 months, the actual story is a little different to what you may have been led to believe.
’÷’ was met with mixed reviews upon its release in 2017 and ‘Galway Girl’ was named by plenty as one of the year’s most irritating singles, while his quest for the Christmas number one was met with rolled eyes from more cynical music fans.
On the other hand, Stormzy’s rise to household name status in 2017 was truly something to behold. ‘Big For Your Boots’ made a big impact on the charts, he spoke out on important issues both in the music industry and beyond it, and gave some of the year’s best TV performances on the MTV EMAs stage and on ‘The X Factor’. All this and more make him our top pick.
British Female
Nominees: Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Kate Tempest, Laura Marling, Paloma Faith
Who will win? Dua Lipa’s pretty much a dead cert, right? She’s the only one of this year’s nominees to have bagged a number one single this year, her self-titled debut album was lauded by critics and the ‘New Rules’ music video had people talking (we named it the eighth best of 2017).
Who should win? Dua Lipa. In truth, British Female is not the easiest category to get excited about this year, which is shocking considering winners in the past decade have been artists as important as Adele, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse.
Based purely on how many times we’ve watched the ‘New Rules’ video, we’ll go with Dua, but we’re hoping the next 12 months sees a new flux of British female talent, so we can avoid this situation in a year’s time.
British Group
Nominees: Gorillaz, London Grammar, Royal Blood, Wolf Alice, The xx
Who will win? As the only past winners in this category, our money would be on Royal Blood.
Who should win? Wolf Alice. Honestly, it feels like everyone on this list could deserve it, but Wolf Alice are still the fairly new kids on the Brits block, having been up for British Breakthrough two years ago, so it’d be nice to see them take home the prize for British Group in 2018.
British Breakthrough Act
Nominees: Dave, Dua Lipa, J Hus, Loyle Carner, Sampha
Who will win? Dua Lipa. We’d argue it’s actually been a good few years since her actual “breakthrough” but there’s no denying that ‘New Rules’ was the track that cemented her place on the British pop scene.
Plus, this is one of two votes that are decided by a public vote, and we can’t imagine any of the other nominees’ fans pushing as hard as Dua’s.
Who should win? J Hus. Yeah, we’d be happy for Dua to take it, especially as she’s the only woman who made the cut, but part of us is rooting for J Hus too.
International Male
Nominees: Beck, Childish Gambino, DJ Khaled, Drake, Kendrick Lamar
Who will win? This is Kendrick Lamar’s for the taking, surely?
Who should win? See previous.
International Female
Nominees: Alicia Keys, Björk, Lorde, P!nk, Taylor Swift
Who will win? When we were making our initial Brits predictions back in January, this was the hardest category to narrow down to just five.
Alicia Keys’ place on the shortlist was a particularly surprising one for us, considering her album came out at the end of 2016 and acts including SZA, St Vincent, Katy Perry, Demi Lovato and Lana Del Rey all wound up missing out on the nomination, so we reckon she could be one to watch.
Who should win? Lorde. This is a strong category, but of the five acts on the shortlist, it’s Lorde who has impressed us the most over the past 12 months. Her album ‘Melodrama’ was a nostalgic dream, her Glastonbury set was a highlight of the whole weekend and her music videos have been characteristically intriguing and endearing.
Let’s just not talk about that bizarre VMAs performance…
International Group
Nominees: Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Haim, The Killers, LCD Soundsystem
Who will win? On 10 January 2018, Foo Fighters announced that they were performing for the first time at this year’s Brit Awards. On 13 January 2018, Foo Fighters were announced as one of five competitors for International Group at this year’s Brit Awards. You do the maths.
Who should win? Probably Foo Fighters. That being said… 2017 was a particularly huge year for a band that was already pretty huge to begin with, so if they do take home the Brit, we can’t say we’ll be too upset.
British Single Of The Year
Nominees: *deep breath* Calvin Harris - ‘Feels’, Clean Bandit - ‘Symphony’, Dua Lipa - ‘New Rules’, Ed Sheeran - ‘Shape Of You’, J Hus - ‘Did You See’, Jax Jones - ‘You Don’t Know Me’, Jonas Blue - ‘Mama’, Liam Payne - ‘Strip That Down’, Little Mix - ‘Touch’, Rag’n’Bone Man - ‘Human’
Who will win? Ed Sheeran - ‘Shape Of You’. One of the toughest categories, we could see this going any number of ways. But for the sheer size of its success, we reckon Ed is going to be the one to beat.
Who should win? This is probably the hardest one to choose a favourite in.
Little Mix’s ‘Touch’ immediately springs to mind (probably because it’s been hard to get it out of her heads since we first heard it more than a year ago), while Clean Bandit’s ‘Symphony’ made us want to dance and shed a tear all at the same time.
That said, ‘Shape Of You’ was quite literally the Single Of The Year, so if Ed does end up bagging the Brit, we’d be hard pressed to find an argument against it.
British Album Of The Year
Nominees: Dua Lipa - ‘Dua Lipa’, Ed Sheeran - ‘÷’, J Hus - ‘Common Sense’, Rag’n’Bone Man - ‘Human’, Stormzy - ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’
Who will win? They’re not going to bring Ed Sheeran out all that way and not give him the biggest award of the night, are they?
An album so impactful they literally rewrote the rules of the charts to accommodate it, ’÷’ hit the number one spot in 14 countries (including the UK, obv) and was 2017’s highest-selling album. No matter what you think of Ed’s music, there’s little you can do to argue with those numbers.
Who should win? Stormzy - ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’. Despite its success, should the winner of one of the most prestigious titles in British music go to an album that was so divisive among music critics? Particularly when you’ve got Stormzy offering ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’, an album that had people talking in 2017 for the right reasons, whether it was about his admirable work ethic, the wide range of topics covered on the album or the cross-genre appeal Stormzy displayed over its 16 tracks.
British Video Of The Year
Nominees: *another deep breath* Anne-Marie - ‘Ciao Adios’, Calvin Harris - ‘Feels’, Clean Bandit - ‘Symphony’, Dua Lipa - ‘New Rules’, Ed Sheeran - ‘Shape Of You’, Harry Styles - ‘Sign Of The Times’, Jonas Blue - ‘Mama’, Liam Payne - ‘Strip That Down’, Little Mix - ‘Touch’, Zayn - ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’
Who will win? First of all, we should point out that this category was based on which videos had the most views on Vevo, which explains why some pretty terrible efforts from Little Mix and Harry Styles have made the cut.
The result is also determined by a fan vote on Twitter, and given how famously enthusiastic (translated: relentless and exhausting) those One Direction fans can be, we think ‘Sign Of The Times’ could wind up giving young Harold his first ever solo Brit. Let’s just hope he’s not stuck in the lav this time…
Who should win? Stormzy’s ‘Big For Your Boots’, obviously. But since it was deemed that his video didn’t receive enough views to be nominated, we’ll go with Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’.
Find out how accurate our predictions are when this year’s Brit Awards are broadcast live from The O2 Arena on 21 February 2018 on ITV.
For details on how you can vote in the British Breakthrough and British Video Of The Year categories, click here.