Dido, Strokes, Crazy Town, Others Also Honored At ASCAP Awards

05/21/2002 6:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Altman

(5/21/02, 6 p.m. ET) -- Dido and the Strokes were among the varied rock acts to be honored at the 19th annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards, held Monday (May 20) at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The gathering honors the songwriters represented by the performance rights organization and their most successful songs of the past year.

Dido's massive hit single, "Thank You," was named song of the year, while New York rockers the Strokes received the ASCAP College Vanguard Award for garnering the most spins on college radio with songs from their debut album, Is This It.

Other songs championed Monday included Lenny Kravitz's "Again," U2's "Beautiful Day," Incubus's "Drive," Train's "Drops Of Jupiter," Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" and "You're A God," Uncle Kracker's "Follow Me," Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like A Bird," Staind's "It's Been Awhile" and "Outside," Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," Aerosmith's "Jaded," Barenaked Ladies' "Pinch Me," and the Dave Matthews Band's "The Space Between."

In the case of Crazy Town, this is the second of such events that the group has attended in the last week to celebrate the success of its single "Butterfly." Members also appeared at the rival BMI Pop Awards for the same song. Crazy Town's Shifty Shellshock explains, "We used a [Red Hot Chili Peppers] sample on 'Butterfly,' and the Peppers are with BMI and we're with ASCAP, so we got to win two awards."

Shellshock tells LAUNCH that he's still fond of his group's breakout single. "I love the song. You know, that's our first record we ever made and it's the one that, like went Number One and did all this cool stuff on the charts and we're proud of that," he says.

Also during the evening, Destiny's Child's Beyonce Knowles was named songwriter of the year, while James Taylor earned the ASCAP Founders Award for pioneering songwriters and Tony Bennett the ASCAP Pied Piper Award in recognition of his consummate musical artistry.

-- Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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