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Bruce Springsteen Gives the Killers’ Brandon His Flowers, Bono Calls for Peace in Gaza, Charli xcx Wins Songwriter of the Year at Ivors Ceremony
Ivors 2025: Bruce Springsteen paid homage to the Killers' Brandon Flowers, U2's Bono called for peace in Gaza, Charli xcx won songwriter of the year.
However, he couldn’t resist a reference to U2’s attempt to force feed its “Songs of Innocence” album onto everyone’s iPhone a few years back (“Mixed results,” deadpanned Sheeran), but he also paid tribute to Bono’s phone manner, the U2 frontman having apparently talked him through everything from parenthood to building his own pub. Ivors Academy chair Tom Gray sounded a somewhat downbeat note in his pre-awards address, pointing out how the modern music industry too often sees his members “struggle, and suffer, and only succeed after death or at the mercy of an algorithm that believes the very depths of your soul is a good match for someone’s spin session.” Individual songwriters may have had occasional successes in those areas, but it remains a long way off from becoming the norm – to the extent that Myles Smith, winner of the PRS For Music Most Performed Work for his megahit “Stargazing” (adding one more to its tally here by also playing it live), reiterated her request in his acceptance speech.
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