Eagle-Eye Cherry, Shania Twain, Rob Thomas Win Big At BMI Pop Awards

05/17/2000 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/17/00, 10 a.m. ET) - Eagle-Eye Cherry and Shania Twain were two of the big winners at the 48th Annual BMI Pop Awards last night (May 16) at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. Cherry's "Save Tonight" took pop song of the year, and crossover superstar Twain returned for the second year in a row to take the pop songwriter of the year award. BMI, the performing rights organization, awarded the past year's most performed songs at the ceremony; in all, 75 songwriters and publishers were recognized for their contributions.

Cherry's "Save Tonight" was selected as the pop song of the year because it tallied the most feature-broadcast performances over the past year. "Save Tonight" was a Number One hit taken from his debut album, Desireless, and the song has already been certified a BMI Million-Air -- a song that has accumulated at least 1 million broadcast performances.

Twain proved she's "Still The One" as she took home the pop songwriter of the year for the second year in a row. Twain has the distinction of placing five songs on the most performed list, including: "From This Moment On," "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!," "That Don't Impress Me Much," "You're Still The One," and "You've Got A Way." Twain and husband Robert "Mutt" Lang co-wrote all five of the Number One hits from her 17-times-platinum album, Come On Over. The five awards given to Twain last night raise her BMI Pop and Country award total to 19.

Of the 121 songwriters recognized, 17 were multiple winners. Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas followed Twain for multiple wins as he walked away with four awards, three for songs by his band -- "3 AM," "Back 2 Good," and "Real World" -- and one for the hit "Smooth," which he performed with Santana.

Brothers Fred and Rodney Jerkins took three honors, and rounding out the list of multiple winners with two awards each were Craig Bullock, Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, Stan Frazier, Elton John, David Kahne, Murphy Karges, Mark McGrath, Sarah McLachlan, Joseph Nichol, Rodney Sheppard, Scott Stapp, and Mark Tremonti.

Among the 75 songs honored, 17 were also repeat winners from previous years. "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" -- the most performed song in BMI's repertoire with more than 8 million broadcast performances -- picked up its 14th pop award for songwriters Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Phil Spector. "Baby, I Need Your Lovin'," penned by the team Holland-Dozier-Holland, garnered its tenth award, and Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio's "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" was rewarded for a fifth time.

In addition, the Offspring picked up the award for most performed song on college radio with "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" for 1999.

-- Sue Falco

Got news tips, comments, or questions? Send them to newstips@launch.com.