Colorado-based DJ and producer Illenium has been awarded the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) grand prize for his track ‘Crawl Outta Love‘. The $25,000 prize was split between four co-writers, including Nick Miller (Illenium), vocalist Annika Wells, Kate Morgan and Michael Biancaniello.
‘Crawl Outta Love’ was first released as a single in August 2017 and came out on Miller’s second studio album Awake in September 2017. The song features his signature melodic feel over hard hitting bass and even harder hitting emotional lyrics. It was an instant hit upon release and has garnered almost 20 million streams on Spotify. Miller told Forbes that “one of [his] favorite parts is in the second drop when it goes into a fake drop. Playing that out to a huge crowd is one of the most incredible feelings ever.”
The ISC has been the most diverse and inclusive songwriting contest in the world, with a vast array of categories to win, and judges. There are a total of 71 winners, and Nick Miller also took home the number one spot in the EDM category. Judges include over 35 artists and 36 industry professionals, from Hardwell and Kaskade to Tom Waits and Bastille. The mixture of judges allows each category to be fairly assessed, from Christian and Children’s music to Jazz, EDM, and Rock.
Other winners in the EDM category are Lemon Fight with ‘Stronger’ featuring Jessica Reynoso taking second place and Kendra Erika with ‘Under My Skin’ finishing third. While many dance music artists are known for their particular melodies, beats or overall sounds yet have short repetitive lyrics, it is nice to see artists who put effort into the message of their song and execute the whole thing perfectly. More honors may be yet to come for Illenium with the Electronic Music Awards coming up in September, but the success of his touring and the ISC prize are plenty reassurance for now that he is making great music.
