MPG announces 2017 Awards shortlist

Tony Visconti, Josh Homme, Fraser T. Smith and Nigel Godrich are among a host of internationally acclaimed producers in contention for a 2017 Music Producers Guild Awards.

Announced today, the 2017 Shortlist was fiercely contested with a record number of MPG Full Members casting votes. This has resulted in a wide variety of candidates reflecting a wealth of creative talent across many different genres. Final judging will take place on 5 December and the winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony on 16 February at Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London.

The newly introduced Self-Producing Artist category was particularly hard fought, with James Blake, Jeff Lynne and Tarek Musa of Spring King making it through to the final three. Other notable entries include David Bowie’s Black Star, Michael Kiwanuka’s Love and Hate and Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, all of which are up for UK Album of the Year.

Now in its ninth year, the Music Producers Guild Awards will feature 16 awards categories with the aim of recognising the best and brightest names in music production. Previous award winners have included Sir George Martin CBE, Youth, FKA Twigs, Brian Eno, Catherine Marks, Trevor Horn and Dave Stewart.

Tony Platt, MPG Awards group director, says: “The MPG Awards are totally unique because they reflect the UK music industry’s incredible wealth of creative talent and also the respect we all have for our colleagues. The roles of producers and engineers are now universally recognised and we can pat ourselves on the back for championing that recognition. The support and encouragement that these production teams give to artists is priceless and should be shouted about at every opportunity.”

The shortlists for each of the MPG 2017 Awards categories (in no particular order) are as follows:

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, will be announced soon, while the MPG Inspiration Award and the Special Recognition Award will be announced at the ceremony in February. All three of these are in the gift of the MPG.

http://www.mpg.org.uk/mpg-awards