When the BPI announced that it would drop gendered categories for the 2022 awards, the move was praised by British musicians and newspapers as long overdue. That made the pop star - and frequent Brit Award winner - ineligible for the show’s artist of the year awards, which had long been split into “best male” and “best female” categories. But now I encourage elderly songwriters to sue Smith for stealing three or two notes, heck, sue him for using 4/4 time like you did in 1983. I used to feel sorry for Sam Smith because Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne sued him for stealing three notes from their song “I Won’t Back Down,” which is the kind of petty thing Petty, who loved the business of show biz, would do to amuse himself in his dotage.

… But three years ago, the organization faced a dilemma after the singer Sam Smith announced they were nonbinary and used they/them pronouns. … At a time when other major cultural award shows - including the Tony Awards and the Academy Awards - are facing pressure to include nonbinary artists, the experience at the Brits shows the difficulties that can arise from removing gendered categories.

… But to some watching the televised ceremony in Britain, the acclaim for the pop icon was a little soured because Styles triumphed in a category that did not have a single female nominee - an unintended consequence of the decision a little more than a year earlier by the Brit Awards to merge its categories for best male and best female artist of the year into one gender-neutral top prize. On Saturday night at a glittering ceremony in London, the pop star Harry Styles was named artist of the year at the Brit Awards, the highest honor at Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys. This year, the event faced backlash for not nominating any women. In 2022, the Brit Awards merged its top artist prizes to include male, female and nonbinary acts.

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