The songwriter of the year award at the 57th annual BMI Pop Awards resulted in a record-breaking, eight-way tie between Colbie Caillat, Polow Da Don, T-Pain, Alan Chang, Matchbox Twenty’s Paul Doucette and Brian Yale, Chris Brown, and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.
As for the eight-way shared songwriter of the year award, each of the winners contributed two songs to the 50 most-performed list. The 57th BMI Pop Awards were held tonight (May 19) at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.
Caillat also won song of the year honors for “Bubbly,” her international hit published by CocoMarie. She co-wrote with singer/songwriter Jason Reeves. In addition to “Bubbly,” Caillat’s “Realize” earned a spot in the top 50. Polow Da Don contributed “Forever,” co-written and recorded by Chris Brown, and “Love In This Club,” recorded by Usher and featuring Young Jeezy, to the 50 most performed list.
Other songs on the list are T-Pain’s “Kiss Kiss,” which was also recorded and co-written by Chris Brown; “Low,” recorded by Flo Rida; Alan Chang’s “Everything” and “Lost,” both recorded by Michael Bublé; Matchbox Twenty’s Yale and Doucette’s co-compositions “How Far We’ve Come” and “These Hard Times,” from the band’s retrospective “Exile on Mainstream” album; and Maroon 5 frontman Levine’s “Wake Up Call” and “Won’t Go Home Without You,” which he recorded with the rock band.
The BMI pop publisher of the year crown this year went to Universal Music Publishing Group, which had the highest percentage of copyright ownership among the year’s top 50.
Universal’s catalog includes award-winners “All Summer Long” (Kid Rock), “Hate That I Love You” (Rihanna featuring Ne-Yo), “It’s Not My Time” (3 Doors Down), “Stronger” (Kanye West), “Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)” (Wyclef Jean featuring Akon, Lil Wayne, and Niia), “Shadow Of The Day” (Linkin Park), and “All Around Me” (Flyleaf).
In addition to earning a BMI pop award for her crossover hit “Teardrops on My Guitar,” Taylor Swift received the BMI president’s award. In the legend category, the songwriting/production team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff were presented with BMI’s icon award. During the show, Estelle performed the team’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”, while Bublé delivered his rendition of their classic “Me and Mrs. Jones.” Gavin DeGraw performed the duo’s “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.”
Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” earned its third BMI pop award, while Gary L. Jackson, Raynard Miner, and Carl William Smith took home their second award for Michael McDonald’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”
Additional winners tonight included: will.i.am, Kanye West, Wyclef Jean, Ne-Yo, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Natasha Bedingfield (PRS), Pink, DeGraw, and Ray J; Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden and Joel Madden; Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger (SOCAN); Lifehouse’s Jason Wade; 3 Doors Down’s Brad Arnold, Todd Harrell, Chris Henderson, and Matt Roberts; Chris Daughtry and Brian Howes (SOCAN); Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett; Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, Joe Hahn, and Mike Shinoda; and songwriting and production heavy weights JR Rotem, Danielle Brisebois, Ian Dench (PRS), Amanda Ghost (PRS), Jude Cole, Amund Bjørklund (PRS), and Espen Lind (PRS).
Publishing companies that garnered multiple awards included EMI Music Publishing (EMI-Blackwood Music, Inc./EMI-Longitude Music), Sony/ATV Music Group (Sony/ATV Songs LLC / Sony/ATV Tree), Warner/Chappell Music (Unichappell Music, Inc./Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.), Cocomarie Music, Culture Beyond Ur Experience, February Twenty-Second, Ihan Zhan Music, Lucinda Panic, Nappypub, Pookie Stuff, Reach Global, and State One Music Americ.
The BMI Foundation’s 12th annual John Lennon scholarship was presented to pop singer/songwriter Jaci Wisot for her song “Firefly.”
