The list of nominations this year is best described by the word eclectic. A variety of composers across a variety of films, which makes this year's race extremely interesting. Nominees include John Williams (War Horse), Alexandre Desplat (The Ides of March), John Powell (Rio), Thomas Newman (The Help), Larry Groupe (Straw Dogs), Patrick Doyle (Thor), Mychael Danna (Moneyball) and Mark Isham (Warrior). Last year, Howard Shore was nominated for his work on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, but the award went to Hans Zimmer for his score for Inception.

Among the nominated music artists for Best Song-Film are Jason Mraz ("Collapsible Plans" from The Big Fix), The Zac Brown Band ("Knee Deep" from Dolphin Tale), Ok Go ("Here it Goes Again" from A Little Bit of Heaven) and Linkin Park ("Iridescent" from Transformers: Dark of the Moon).

Video game composer nominees include Michael McCann, Sascha Dikiciyan & Cris Velasco, Inon Zur, Gerard Marino, Richard Jacques, Jason Graves and Will Loconto & Assaf Rinde.

Additional visual media music categories include Original Score for TV, Video Game, Indie/Short/Documentary and Best Song in TV, Film, Video Game and Commercial Advertisement. The HMMA is the only music award show to recognize Outstanding Music Supervision in TV, film and movie trailers. New categories added this year include Best Soundtrack Album, Best Music-Mobile Video Game and Best Score-Special Feature.

The HMMA's Lifetime Achievement Award honor will be presented to legendary singer/songwriter Smokey Robinson.