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Flamboyant rockers The Darkness have been named songwriters of the year at the 49th annual Ivor Novello Awards for British composers.

The four-piece with a taste for skintight catsuits, big hair and guitar solos, crowned a breakthrough year when they accepted their Ivor award at a London ceremony on Thursday.

Their debut album "Permission to Land" has sold well over one million copies in Britain and went gold in the United States in February.

Singer Dido was among the other winners, picking up the international hit of the year award for "White Flag", from her second album "Life for Rent".

Will Young, who won "Pop Idol" in 2002, picked up the best song award for his number one "Leave Right Now".

Rising star Amy Winehouse won the best contemporary song award with "Stronger Than Me", her jazzy debut single about having a passive boyfriend.

Moody quartet Radiohead picked up an international achievement award, while Motown legends Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland were given a special prize.

Composer Sir Richard Rodney Bennett won the classical music award.

The event was staged by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters in association with the Performing Rights Society, a body which manages music royalties.

The Ivor Novello awards take their name from the Welsh actor, composer and playwright who was one of Britain's biggest stage and screen stars in the early part of the last century.

[delboy]

god i thought everyone had forgotten about the darkness

and now their winning songwriting awards? surely they should give the prize to bands like def leppard who they so blatently ripped off.

[kirkt]

songwriters of the year? what a load of bollocks

[Dan Atom]

who the fuck are the darkness?

[delboy]

dunno dan, i hear they used to be quite famous.....

[Dan Atom]

My dad likes the darkness, they must be some 70's band or something

[Tav]

Look if you stop posting/speaking/thinking about them then they may just go away.