The Wavy Awards 2026: Your Guide to the ‘Songwriter of the Year’ Nominees

By Karissa A. Kelly

With this year’s Wavy Awards just around the corner, some commotion for our nominees is in order. Take this guide as your own personal tour of who caught our attention this award season, and listen along with me as we introduce you to your new autumn heavy rotation.

Lovely Ocean - Make Me Stay

This track took me a few rounds to take in, and that’s no easy feat. I hear a lot of music in a day, but Make Me Stay stood out from the noise, making LovelyOcean known to me as an up-and-comer you’d be a fool to underestimate. A prolific soul reveals itself through her matter-of-fact poetry, spoken from a deeply rooted self-knowledge speaking truth to the power of being a dangerously winning combination of audacious and ambitious. Her chosen instrumental style provides a complimentary road to drive home the point: this California girl works hard, plays hard, and takes no shit. 

From her latest release, Homework, an 11-song concept album chock full of a signature prose that feels earned, Make Me Stay is the track that really sets LovelyOcean apart from the new-age tradition of hiphop and r&b; it chronicles hardship, but celebrates graft and hard work not just for the material success, but for the spiritual reward waiting on the other side. This track and this album has made it into my own personal playlists, and should be promptly added to yours, too.

Briana Lewis - Turquoise (Reimagined Version)

Turquoise is a love letter to the past. Briana Lewis is romanticisation personified, reminiscing over times gone by with a childlike prose that unfurls into the bittersweet goodbye we all confront at some time or another. In true fashion to the experience, Lewis takes an unorthodox approach to songwriting and doesn’t attempt to force a rhyme into the works; she just lets it flow, and allows the progression to come naturally. In this reimagined version of the single, it illustrates upscaled production, and a clear quality on behalf of the artist to revisit a piece and ask herself, “how can we make it even better?” Lyrically, and musically, Turquoise is a perfect fit for your dewy-eyed late night drives through neon city lights and rain-slicked roads.

PiPELLA - Fire and Blood

Fire and Blood is a declaration of forward momentum. Digging up the past is no longer an option, and so you carry on to clean the dirt from your fingernails, lick your wounds, and start again. Starting with isolated vocals that summon her instrumental landscape piece by piece, Fire and Blood illustrates PiPELLA’s almost film-like capabilities of crafting a song by way of a three-act-structure; compression and explosion give and make way for one another, musically illustrating the sensation of faltering and overcoming life’s tribulations, and furthermore, seals the deal for her position on our list for Songwriter of The Year, where they are a returning champion in this category from 2024!

Stephanie Mae - I don’t need them, they don’t need me

Stephanie Mae - I don’t need them, they don’t need me

Now for a stripped-back acoustic track, Stephanie Mae takes us to a soft landing from the exhaustion of trying to be everything to everyone. Clean and honest, she lays out the truth of self-sabotage for the sake of keeping another’s comfort; losing yourself and succumbing to the weight of being a Wonder Woman. However, the silver lining is that some of the most beautiful things in this world, like diamonds, form under immense pressure.

Lessa - Her

Out of this set of submissions, this one brought me to my knees. Lessa dares to tread into emotional territory where angels, devils and everyone else fear to go. She grabs hold of the little details; the way he looks into your eyes, how he holds your hand, and the words of affection  spoken into your ears and your heart. You wonder if you’re just getting recycled goods. You wonder if you really are different. Then, she snatches and shakes the listener to the core with but one question. That question. The one that keeps a woman up at night with intrusive wondering. Who were you when you loved her? You die to know, how does he love, not just how he loves you? It isn’t a question that comes from insecurity; it comes from loving someone so much that you can’t imagine having them and hurting them the way she did.

Outer Shapes - SPOONFED

Outer Shapes has been on our Wavys radar for some time, and they continue to earn their keep on not one, but four of our categories this award season. Spoonfed is no exception to their proven capabilities in digging teeth and claws into raw humanity. This track exposes the part of you that seeks approval from someone you know doesn’t deserve it; that part you’d rather not admit was there. Being too proud to ask for help, and doing the harder thing just to prove you can – an ebb and flow between a grandiose self-belief that hasn’t quite materialized in your personal relationships, and cutting yourself down for the comfort of an avoidant who can’t make it clear where you stand, but still keeps you close enough to take what they want. Well, Outer Shapes says you just gotta cry a little, so here’s to breaking away from whoever’s left standing on your coattails. Your freedom is priceless. Take it, even if some tears fall in the process.

Like what you’ve heard? Vote for your favorite submissions in our peer-led voting for the 2026 Wavy Awards! 

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