Post Malone, Halsey and Khalid were big winners at this year’s BMI Pop Awards.
Honors for Songwriter of the Year were shared by Khalid and Post Malone, who each penned four of BMI’s top-performing songs of 2019. Khalid’s “Beautiful People,” “Better,” “Eastside” and “Talk” dominated the airways and the charts, alongside Post Malone’s “Goodbyes,” “Jackie Chan,” “Sunflower” and “Wow.”
Khalid and Malone enjoyed a successful year, accruing numerous accolades and media praise between them. The catchy hit single “Talk” earned over 186 million streams on Spotify, making Khalid the most listened to artist on the platform, and garnered a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year, his sixth nod to date.
Post Malone teamed up with fellow BMI songwriter Swae Lee for “Sunflower,” which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted in the Top 10 for a total of 33 weeks. The smash single received two Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Post Malone was also named BMI’s R&B/Hip-Hop Songwriter of the Year in 2019.
The poignant break-up anthem “Without Me,” co-written by Halsey and singer/songwriter Delacey, was awarded Song of the Year, nabbing Halsey her sixth BMI Pop Award and the first for Delacey. The single marked the first time Halsey ditched her moniker and wrote under her given name, Ashley Frangipane. The mega-hit reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Halsey’s first No. 1 single as a lead artist.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing received the coveted Publisher of the Year designation for the eighth time. The publishing giant represented 25 of the previous year’s top 50 songs, including “Dancing with a Stranger,” “High Hopes,” “Old Town Road (Remix),” “Señorita,” “Truth Hurts” and “You Need To Calm Down,” among others.
BMI created a page on its website where fans can watch video messages from this year’s winners. The BMI Pop Awards also honored the songwriters and publishers of the 50 most-performed pop songs of the previous year, including Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings,” the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool,” Sam Smith and Normani’s “Dancing with a Stranger,” Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes’ “Senorita,” and more.
