Kendrick Lamar, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran lead 2018 BBMA nominations

Other Top Nominees Include Post Malone with 13, Imagine Dragons with 11, Drake with 9 and Justin Bieber and Cardi B with 8

Dick Clark Productions and NBC have announced nominees for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, which will honor the year’s most successful artists in 57 categories of music. Kendrick Lamar, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran lead the pack with 15 nominations each, followed by Post Malone with 13, Imagine Dragons with 11, Drake with nine and Justin Bieber and Cardi B with eight each. The 2018 Billboard Music Awards will broadcast live coast to coast from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, May 20th at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT on NBC.

The 2018 Billboard Music Awards nominations include a cross section of artists with many seeing more nods than ever. Lamar, Mars and Sheeran received nominations for Top Artist, Top Male Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Hot 100 Song and Top Songs Sales Artist, among others. Post Malone received 13 nominations including Top Male Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Rap Artist, Top Billboard 200 Album, plus two nominations in the Top Streaming Song (Audio) category. Imagine Dragons received 11 nominations, including Top Duo/Group, Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Rock Artist, and two nominations in the Top Rock Song and Top Selling Song categories. Additional top nominees include Drake with nine, Justin Bieber and Cardi B with eight, and Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi with seven nominations. In addition to Cardi B, other top female nominees include Taylor Swift with five and Camila Cabello with four nominations.

Voting for the two fan voted categories, Billboard Chart Achievement Award and Top Social Artist, will open in the coming weeks and additional details will be available soon.

Billboard Music Awards nominees are based on key fan interactions with music, including album and digital song sales, streaming, radio airplay, touring and social engagement, tracked by Billboard and its data partners, including Nielsen Music and Next Big Sound. The finalists and award winners are determined using data reflecting a 12-month tracking period. Since 1940, the Billboard charts have been the go-to guide for ranking the popularity of artists, songs and albums, and are the ultimate measure of success in music.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com