ANNE-MARIE TOPS NOMINEES

HARD work really has paid off for this year’s BRIT Award nominees.

Homegrown talent like AnneMarie and George Ezra, who spent last year touring relentlessly, lead the charge following yesterday’s nominees announcement. WIRED favourite Anne-Marie has an incredible four nominations after a brilliant year in which she supported her pal and landed two

Top 10 hits.

The singer, who started her career as a kid in musicals, is up for the

British Female, British

Video of the Year and

British Single gongs

But she will be most chuffed with her British Album nod for her bestselling debut, Speak Your Mind.

Anne-Marie told me: “My aim was always an album, I always wanted to put out more than just singles. “Because singles have to be a certain way, be a certain a tempo, but there’s more to my music than that.”

George Ezra is another WIRED regular who has put in the hours to get to where he is.

The man who went off to Barcelona to rent an AIR B&B room to write his No.1 album Staying At Tamara’s is rewarded with three nods, including British Male and Album. Talking about the BRITs he said: “It feels like the World Cup of music.” also has three nominations while Little Mix, Calvin Harris, Florence + The Machine, The 1975 and Dua Lipa get two each. Naturally, there are a few surprises and some very big names left out altogether. Stadium-fillers MUSE, U2 and Mumford & Sons failed to get a single mention. International stars like

and also came up short this year. Even only gets recognised as the featured guest on Little Mix’s song Woman Like Me. Perhaps more disappointing is a lack of representation for rap and grime following triumph last year.

Besides there were no other shoutouts, with the likes of and notably absent. Nevertheless, as a mainstream pop awards show, it’s a pretty fair list with and receiving significant nominations.

Find out who gets what on Wednesday, February 20, live from The O2 Arena in London on ITV from 8pm.