MUMBAI: iHeart Radio will hold its first ever awards ceremony this May, and leading the pack with most nominations is pop superstar Rihanna. The ‘Pour It Up’ singer has seven nominations for Hip Hop/ R&B Song of the Year, Artist of the Year and Best Fan Army. She is also nominated twice in the categories Best Collaboration and Song of the Year, for the tracks ‘The Monster’ with Eminem and ‘Stay’ with Mikky Ekko.
Following the Barbadian singer is Justin Timberlake with a total of five nominations for Artist of the Year, Song of the Year and Hip Hop/ R&B Song of the Year. Like Rihanna, Timberlake will also be competing with himself in the Best Collaboration category, for which he has got two nods for the singles ‘Suit & Tie’ and ‘Holy Grail’, both of which he sings with rapper Jay Z.
Scoring four nominations is this year’s Grammy winner for Best Rock Performance- Imagine Dragons. The Las Vegas alternative rock band is nominated for Song of the Year (Radioactive), Best New Artist and Artist of the Year. The band’s track ‘Demons’ is nominated in the Alt Rock Song category, in which it is pitted against Lorde’s ‘Royals’, Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Do I Wanna Know’, Capital Cities’ ‘Safe and Sound’ and Bastille’s ‘Pompeii’.
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This year’s Grammy winners for Best New Artist, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, however, have earned only two nominations for Artist of the Year and Best New Artist. In the latter category, the rapper/ producer duo will go up against Passenger, Icona Pop, Florida Georgia Line, Imagine Dragons and Lorde.
Other nominees include Avicii, Daft Punk with Pharrell Williams, Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch, Zedd feat. Haley Williams and Lana del Ray feat. Cedric Gervais, all of who will be vying for EDM Song of the Year. It will also honour country artistes Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett and Tim McGraw feat Taylor Swift for Country Song of the Year.
Nominees for the awards event are based on the results from iHeart Radio’s new Chart which takes into consideration digital streaming data (iHeart Radio platform), performance data and listener feedback. Fans can vote for their favourite acts until 25 April.
Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, who has partnered with NBC to host the three-hour award show, is still to announce the line-up of performers. However, it did reveal that the event would see brand new collaborations and duets, live performances and celebrity guest appearances. The iHeart Radio Awards will take place at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium and will be broadcast on NBC on 1 May.
