NME Award Nominations: Arctic Monkeys and Haim Dominate while One Direction and The Wanted Battle it out for Worst Band

After the massive success of AM, Arctic Monkeys are strong contenders to sweep up to eight of those cheeky middle finger gongs at this year's NME Awards as the nominations were released today. Hot on their tails are girl band Haim who are up for six awards. 

Following her successful comeback, Lily Allen along with Lorde are the ladies up against the likes of David Bowie, Jake Bugg and Paul Mc Cartney for the coveted Best Solo Artist title. Electro dance duo Disclosure have been short listed for Best British Band but are up against Arctic Monkeys, Two Door Cinema Club and Foals to name a few. 

The two prizes for Hero and Villain of the year are always interesting, as Miley Cyrus' twerking antics, Harry Styles' love life and Robin Thicke's general creepiness will be tough contenders for the latter. Pussy Riot's place as potential heroes of the year come after their imprisonment in Russia, they are competing against Russell Brand for his general involvement in politics and Alex Turner's general aura of cool. 

Worst Band have a dire shortlist of One Direction, The Wanted, Imagine Dragons and Muse among them, I'm not sure if I can pick one that is worse than the other. 

The NME Awards will take place on 26th February at the O2 Academy in Brixton and public voting for the winners began today on the website. 

Vote for your favourites now

Full List of nominees: 

Best British band
Arctic Monkeys
Biffy Clyro
Disclosure
Foals
Palma Violets
Two Door Cinema Club

Best international band
Arcade Fire
Haim
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Phoenix
Queens Of The Stone Age
Vampire Weekend

Best solo artist
Lily Allen
David Bowie
Jake Bugg
Lorde
Sir Paul McCartney
Kanye West

Best new band
Courtney Barnett
Chvrches
Drenge
Jagwar Ma
Swim Deep
Wolf Alice

Best live band
Arctic Monkeys
Biffy Clyro
Haim
Palma Violets
Queens Of The Stone Age
Savages

Best album
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Drenge - Drenge
Peace - In Love
Queens Of The Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
Savages - Silence Yourself
Kanye West - Yeezus

Best track
Lily Allen - Hard Out Here
Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?
Daft Punk - Get Lucky
Disclosure ft AlunaGeorge - White Noise
Primal Scream - 2013

Worst band
30 Seconds To Mars
The 1975
Imagine Dragons
Muse
One Direction
The Wanted

Hero of the year
Russell Brand
David Bowie
Este Haim
Pussy Riot
Lou Reed
Alex Turner

Villain of the year
Russell Brand
David Cameron
Miley Cyrus
Vladimir Putin
Harry Styles
Robin Thicke