LONDON, 21 JANUARY 2009 – EMI Music artists Coldplay, Iron Maiden, The Verve and Katy Perry have all been nominated for this year’s BRIT Awards. In addition, the Pet Shop Boys will be presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Music prize.
Coldplay, whose ‘Viva La Vida’ has now sold over 6.6 million copies, won the joint-highest number of BRIT nominations – four, for Best Album, Single, Group and Live Act.
‘Viva La Vida’ was released last June and reached number one in 36 countries. The band have embarked on a huge global tour and are in the running for seven Grammys including Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year and Song Of The Year. ‘Viva La Vida’ was honoured further at the BRIT nominations through its producer Brian Eno who is up for the Best Producer award.
Alongside Coldplay, Iron Maiden and The Verve are also nominated for Best Live Act, giving EMI artists three of the four nominations in that category.
Iron Maiden completed one of the most ambitious tours of their hugely successful career in 2008. Circumnavigating the globe in their own customised Boeing 757, which was flown by the band’s lead singer Bruce Dickinson for much of the time, they played to almost half a million fans in 13 countries. A film of the tour, ‘Iron Maiden: Flight 666’, will be released into cinemas worldwide on 21 April.
Last year The Verve headlined the legendary Glastonbury festival as well as V and T In The Park. The band’s latest album ‘Forth’ was released in August and was the UK number one for two weeks.
In the international categories, Katy Perry is nominated for Best International Female Solo Artist. Her breakout global hit, ‘I Kissed A Girl’, was the number one single in the UK for five weeks and in the US for seven weeks and is nominated for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy. Sales of her album ‘One Of The Boys’ are now approaching two million.
Pet Shop Boys will round off the awards with this year’s Outstanding Contribution to Music BRIT. With over 50 million album sales worldwide during their career, the groundbreaking duo are still a major writing force in contemporary music as shown by the current success of the Girls Aloud hit ‘Loving Kind’ which they co-wrote. The band’s new studio album, ‘Yes’, will be released by EMI in March.
The BRIT Awards will take place in London on 18 February.