Songwriters Hall of Fame 2027 Nominees Include Lady Gaga, Jack White and Sia

The Songwriters Hall of Fame has revealed its nominees for the class of 2027, placing writers from disco, hip-hop, country, rock, pop and beyond on the same ballot. Lady Gaga, Jack White, Sia, Boy George, Vince Gill, Grandmaster Melle Mel, P!NK, Shakira and Ne-Yo are among the performing songwriters under consideration, while Pete Bellotte, Stargate, Andreas Carlsson, Stock Aitken Waterman, Kandi Burruss and Dan Wilson appear in the songwriter field.

The nomination list is a useful reminder that a hit record can have several creative identities behind it. Some candidates are artists chiefly known to audiences as performers. Others have built catalogs for a broad array of recording artists, sometimes while also maintaining their own public careers. The two ballot categories make room for both kinds of songwriting legacy rather than treating them as identical jobs.

Eligibility begins 20 years after a songwriter’s first commercial release, provided they have a catalog of notable songs. Eligible voting members may select as many as three nominees in the songwriter category and three in the performing-songwriter category. Ballots are due by midnight EST on December 14, 2026.

What the two nominee fields represent

The performing-songwriter list centers writers whose own recording careers are fundamental to how their songs reached audiences. Gaga’s nominated credits span “Poker Face,” “Bad Romance,” “Born This Way,” “Shallow” and “Die With a Smile.” Jack White’s cited songs include “Fell in Love With a Girl,” “We’re Going to Be Friends,” “Love Interruption,” “Seven Nation Army” and “Steady As She Goes.”

That category also gives the ballot a particularly wide musical range. Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are nominated for a set including “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Rapture,” “One Way or Another” and “Dreaming.” Boy George is represented by Culture Club staples including “Karma Chameleon,” “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” and “Time (Clock of the Heart).” Grandmaster Melle Mel’s list includes “The Message,” “Freedom,” “New York New York,” “Scorpio” and “White Lines (Don’t Do It).”

The songwriter category, by contrast, spotlights people and teams whose work may be familiar even when their names are less immediately recognizable to casual listeners. Andreas Carlsson’s nominated catalog includes “I Want It That Way,” “Bye Bye Bye,” “It’s Gonna Be Me,” “That’s The Way It Is” and “I’m Alive.” Mikkel Eriksen and Tor Hermansen, working as Stargate, are listed with “Irreplaceable,” “Diamonds,” “Firework,” “So Sick” and “Take a Bow.”

It is not a hierarchy between performers and behind-the-scenes writers. It is a framing choice that acknowledges two routes to a major body of songwriting: an artist can write material inseparable from their own voice and persona, or a writer can help construct songs that take on different lives through other performers. There is overlap, too. will.i.am appears in the songwriter field with “Where Is the Love,” “I Gotta Feeling,” “Scream and Shout,” “OMG” and “Ordinary People,” while Ne-Yo is a performing-songwriter nominee whose cited songs include “Irreplaceable,” “Let Me Love You,” “Give Me Everything,” “So Sick” and “Take a Bow.”

Why the shared-song credits stand out

Several listed songs recur across the nominations, illustrating the collaborative nature of modern pop songwriting. “Irreplaceable” is connected to both Stargate and Ne-Yo. “Diamonds” and “Take a Bow” appear in both Stargate’s catalog and Sia’s performing-songwriter nomination. That does not diminish either candidate’s contribution; it underscores that songwriting credits can involve multiple writers whose combined work becomes one recording.

This matters when reading a Hall of Fame ballot. A song title is not necessarily a claim that one person wrote every component alone. It is shorthand for a credit within a larger catalog. The nominees’ accompanying selections offer voters a compact view of the work under consideration, not a full accounting of every collaborator on every track.

Stock Aitken Waterman—Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman—arrive with “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “I Should Be So Lucky,” “Together Forever,” “This Time I Know It’s For Real” and “Especially for You.” George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, known as Boy Meets Girl, are nominated with “How Will I Know,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Waiting for a Star to Fall,” “I Know You by Heart” and “Bring Down the Moon.”

Elsewhere, Kandi Burruss’s cited body of work includes “No Scrubs,” “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “It Makes Me Ill,” “There You Go” and “Don’t Think I’m Not.” Dan Wilson’s list brings together “Closing Time,” “Someone Like You,” “Not Ready to Make Nice,” “White Horse” and “Treacherous.” In practical terms, the ballot’s structure encourages voters to weigh both instantly recognizable songs and the larger creative pattern those songs reveal.

The performing-songwriter nominees

Alongside Gaga, White, Harry and Stein, Boy George, Melle Mel and the other high-profile names, the performing-songwriter field includes a mixture of individual artists and bands whose songwriting credits are being considered collectively.

Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell of America: “A Horse with No Name,” “Ventura Highway,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “I Need You” and “Tin Man.”
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie: “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Rapture,” “One Way or Another” and “Dreaming.”
Boy George: “Karma Chameleon,” “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me,” “Time (Clock of the Heart),” “It’s a Miracle” and “Victims.”
Vince Gill: “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away,” “I Still Believe in You,” “One More Last Chance” and “When I Call Your Name.”
Grandmaster Melle Mel: “The Message,” “Freedom,” “New York New York,” “Scorpio” and “White Lines (Don’t Do It).”
Lady Gaga: “Poker Face,” “Bad Romance,” “Born This Way,” “Shallow” and “Die With a Smile.”
Ne-Yo: “Irreplaceable,” “Let Me Love You,” “Give Me Everything,” “So Sick” and “Take a Bow.”
P!NK: “So What,” “Raise Your Glass,” “Who Knew,” “U + Ur Hand” and “What About Us.”
Shakira: “Hips Don’t Lie,” “Dai Dai,” “Whenever, Wherever,” “La Tortura” and “Inevitable.”
Sia: “Cheap Thrills,” “Diamonds,” “Titanium,” “Chandelier” and “Unstoppable.”
WAR: “Low Rider,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” “The Cisco Kid,” “The World Is a Ghetto” and “Spill the Wine.”
Jack White: “Fell in Love With a Girl,” “We’re Going to Be Friends,” “Love Interruption,” “Seven Nation Army” and “Steady As She Goes.”
ZZ Top: “Legs,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” “La Grange” and “Tush.”

WAR’s nomination names Thomas Sylvester Allen, Harold Ray Brown, Morris “B.B.” Dickerson, Jerry Goldstein, LeRoy L. Jordan, Lee Oskar Levitin, Charles William Miller and Howard E. Scott. The ZZ Top nomination names Frank Beard, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill. The ballot denotes Allen, Dickerson, Miller, Beard and Hill as deceased.

The songwriter nominees

The songwriter field presents a similarly broad set of catalogs. Pete Bellotte is nominated with “Hot Stuff,” “I Feel Love,” “Love To Love You Baby,” “Heaven Knows” and “Push It to the Limit.” Tom Douglas is listed for “The House That Built Me,” “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” “I Run to You,” “Little Rock” and “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s,” while Bob McDill’s selections include “Amanda,” “Good Ole Boys Like Me,” “Gone Country,” “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and “Song of the South.”

Pete Bellotte: “Hot Stuff,” “I Feel Love,” “Love To Love You Baby,” “Heaven Knows” and “Push It to the Limit.”
Boy Meets Girl: “How Will I Know,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Waiting for a Star to Fall,” “I Know You by Heart” and “Bring Down the Moon.”
Kandi Burruss: “No Scrubs,” “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “It Makes Me Ill,” “There You Go” and “Don’t Think I’m Not.”
Andreas Carlsson: “I Want It That Way,” “Bye Bye Bye,” “It’s Gonna Be Me,” “That’s The Way It Is” and “I’m Alive.”
Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer: “My Boyfriend’s Back,” “I Want Candy,” “Sorrow,” “Night Time” and “What Time Is It.”
Stargate: “Irreplaceable,” “Diamonds,” “Firework,” “So Sick” and “Take a Bow.”
Maurice Starr: “Candy Girl,” “I’ll Be Loving You Forever,” “Is This the End,” “Step by Step” and “Popcorn Love.”
Stock Aitken Waterman: “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “I Should Be So Lucky,” “Together Forever,” “This Time I Know It’s For Real” and “Especially for You.”
will.i.am: “Where Is the Love,” “I Gotta Feeling,” “Scream and Shout,” “OMG” and “Ordinary People.”
Toni Wine: “A Groovy Kind of Love,” “Candida,” “Black Pearl,” “Your Husband, My Wife” and “You Came You Saw You Conquered.”

Feldman is marked as deceased on the nomination list. The scope of the ballot—from “I Feel Love” and “The Message” through “Seven Nation Army,” “Chandelier” and “Born This Way”—makes a case for considering songwriting as a craft that changes form with its performers, production styles and eras while remaining central to the songs listeners remember.

For music fans who enjoy the overlap between games and songcraft, rhythm-driven releases and musical modes remain a vivid way to focus on arrangement and momentum; Tricky Madness’ planned multiplayer and Endless Jam Mode is one recent example of a game built around that kind of participation. The Hall ballot, however, puts attention on the authorship side: the people and teams whose writing supplied the hooks, narratives and structures long before a listener presses play.

What happens next

The 2027 nominees have been announced, but nomination is not induction. Eligible voters now have until December 14, 2026, at midnight EST, to submit their choices. Each voter can choose up to three candidates in each of the two categories. The eventual class will therefore reflect a selection from a ballot deliberately designed to bridge different generations and songwriting traditions.

Until those votes are in, the nominees stand as a particularly dense cross-section of popular music writing: artist-authors and specialist writers, individual creators and long-running partnerships, as well as groups whose credited members collectively shaped enduring songs.