Adele snubbed at Ivor Novello Awards

Adele's new album has sold more than 19m copies worldwide.

Adele has failed to win any nominations at the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards, which recognise achievement in songwriting.

The star, whose third album 25 was the biggest-seller of 2015, was overlooked by the awards, which are voted for by her fellow composers and songwriters.

Instead, Ed Sheeran, Jess Glynne and James Bay made the shortlist.

And, following the row over diversity at the Brits, Roots Manuva and Skepta were listed for best contemporary song.

Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, who has hosted the ceremony since 1987, says grime and UK hip-hop had been recognised because of the way the awards were set up.

"This is what the Ivor judges do - they do deep listening, so the type of song that may not make it to The Brits has a chance here," he told the BBC.

The full list of nominees is as follows:

Best song musically and lyrically

• Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran

• Bros - Wolf Alice

• Wasn't Expecting That - Jamie Lawson

Best contemporary song

• All My Friends - Snakehips ft Tinashe & Chance The Rapper

• Cargo - Roots Manuva

• Shutdown - Skepta

Most performed work

• Hold Back The River - James Bay

• Hold My Hand - Jess Glynne

• King - Years & Years

Best album

• Darling Arithmetic - Villagers

• In Colour - Jamie xx

• Matador - Gaz Coombes

Best film score

• Ex Machina

• Pan

• The Duke of Burgundy

Best television soundtrack

• And Then There Were None

• From Darkness

• London Spy

Paul Gambaccini (centre) with 2016 Ivor Novello nominees Jack Patterson (left) and Conor O'Brien (right)

The Ivor Novellos are highly prized by musicians because they are voted for by their peers.

"It's really nice that it's celebrating the graft," said Jack Patterson, from dance act Clean Bandit, who is nominated this year for co-writing Jess Glynne's number one hit Hold My Hand.

"It's about the stuff that you don't see - [working] in these grotty rooms for hours and hours with scraps of paper and gigabytes of discarded voice notes."

"Music awards are funny things - but these ones seem to be actually controlled by writers and the writing community," added The Villagers' Conor O'Brien, nominated for best album.

"Which feels good because writing can be a strange, solitary existence. So it can be nice to peek your head above the parapet and say 'hello.'"

Although Adele did not receive a nomination at the awards' launch, she could still pick up a prize when the ceremony takes place on 19 May in London, as there are special awards for "outstanding song collection" and "songwriter of the year", decided by a panel from the British Academy of Songwriters Composers and Authors.

The singer won the latter prize in 2011, in recognition of her breakthrough album, 21, while Rolling In The Deep won most performed work (recognising the song broadcast the most often on UK radio) at the same ceremony.

"All this means is that she was not nominated in the five categories in which there were judges," said Gambaccini.

"It does not mean that she hasn't won anything that was in the gift of the academy."

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