Brits 2013

It's February yet again, so it must be time for my annual Brits rant.

Thankfully, the award itself was looking more presentable than last years thanks to an overhaul by Damien Hirst and his famous colourful spots.

But in terms of entertainment, the Brits was bland and frankly rather boring.

Sure, Muse kicked off the whole thing in unprecedented style and bombast, and Taylor Swift had plenty of jaws dropping as she owned the stage and set pulses racing with a large scale take on recent single Trouble, both performances took advantage of the award shows monumental stature within the industry, but aside from a mesmerising turn from Ben Howard, the other live sets seemed to be lacking somewhat.

And it certainly wasn't just the artists on parade that left more to be desired, James Corden's abysmal presenting was completely devoid of any charisma, instead playing a good puppet, smiling and mugging for the camera.

Where was the impulsiveness of years gone past, where was the risk that saw Brit-Pop era award shows postponing broadcasting until a day later following the unplanned onstage antics of Jarvis Cocker, Brandon Block and Ronnie Wood?

There is nothing exciting about a polished smooth machine that runs perfectly, why do you think the biggest talking point of last year was the abrupt interruption of Adele's acceptance speech over any other winner or performance?

But where ITV's coverage was lacking, ITV2’s picking up of the baton backstage proved to be the perfect antidote.  Rizzle Kicks' amateur red carpet interviews from earlier in the evening had been replaced by sozzled revelry, an extremely loose approach to scripted questioning and disastrous attempts to read the autocue.

Co-host, Laura Whitmore, seemed panicked by the young pop duo who had clearly enjoyed far too much of the evenings hospitalities, but little did she know that the relaxed atmosphere of post-award show chitter chatter mixed with a free-flowing table service had caught celebrity guests completely with their guard down, resulting in far more honest entertainment, seeing stars as we very rarely do... drunk, witty and very funny.

It was car-crash telly, especially when Robbie Williams reduced .... To tears with his kind words and commandeered the strangely free-form interview, and I doubt Rizzle Kicks will be invited back in the same capacity next year, but we caught a rare glimpse into the real back-slapping culture of the music industry.

So next year, lets run the risk of uncertainty, lets see some more unpredicted behaviour, and lets have an award show that is worth discussing for more than just the predictable winners.

The Brits 2012

while much can be said for the annual flag-waving and chest-puffing of the Brit Awards, it just doesn't do it for me anymore.

quite why i felt any excitement, pre-awards, this year, i'm not entirely certain.


i think part of it may have been down to the guessing game, invented last year, of 'match wHe0wfo9wartist to the award they will win'

Coldplay's opening set was traded in for a Best Band Award, with similar accolades going to Bruno Mars, Rihanna, and of course Ed Sheeran and Adele.



but sadly, the reality of the Brit Awards was that it just wasn't as exciting as the pancakes being flipped in my kitchen, and that is a damn shame, considering this should be our chance to fly the flag for the UK and revel in the momentous spectacle of it.

instead we got a handful of 'shocking' moments to be blown out of proportion by twitter and the media.

'OMG! James Corden interupted Adele'

'OMG! Adele flipped the bird'

'OMG! Blur sound rubbish'



and yet no-one is calling out the largest embarresment in this years Brit awards.

no, not One Direction laying claim to having the Best British Single, but the Brit Award itself!

while last years statuette, designed by Viviene Westwood, was a very understated and graceful redesign, seeming to drape the figure in patriotic red, white and blue, for the 2012 ceremony, Sir Peter Blake, yes, he of Sergeant Pepper cover fame, decided to produce a far brighter overhaul, daubing the primary colours boldly as he went, which may have worked fine, if only he had held back and not felt the need to spell out the word BRIT in large descending block-capital letters, presumably just incase anyone was unaccustomed to the   long established and recognisable trophy.

so while Ed Sheeran may be immensely proud of his first Brits win, scooping Best British Male and best British Newcomer, i dare say that they will both be pushed to the very back of his trophy cabinet.

Ed Sheeran

seriously, who is Ed Sheeran?

the mainstream may recognise him as as the rusty haired troubadour that has made significant inroads with his radio friendly hits, catapulted into the spotlight with the gentle lulls of The A-Team (a surprisingly un-radio friendly song about prostitution, drug abuse and death, that hit big regardless) and is likely to be the only possible contender to be putting paid to an all out Adele whitewash at next weeks Brit Awards.

but the truth is, this is only just scratching the surface, as well as hanging around with the likes of Rizzle Kicks and reportedly writing for One Direction, Sheeran's street credentials are boosted somewhat when his no.5 collaborations project EP, released early last year, is taken into consideration, featuring a handful of grime artists and rappers including Devlin, Wiley, JME, Dot Rotten and Wretch 32.



Ed was rejoined by a handful of his collaboraters for a special live session for BBC 1xtra last December, and since then it seems that he is showing no signs of slowing down or allowing himself to be pigeonholed easily, as various sources throughout December and January confirmed that Ed Sheeran had been recording with American rapper Yellawolf, and has also recorded duets with both Example and Jessie J.

and this week saw Sheeran leak the aforementioned 4 track collaboration with Yellawolf, from the comfort of his twitter feed, racking up more than 100,000 downloads in under 24 hours and throwing another curveball to those that expect him to follow pop formulas since his debut album hit the UK top spot upon its release last September.



so while music snobbery may tell you to hate on those that become popular, Ed Sheeran still maintains his integrity and remains an anomaly.

The Brits 2011

it has been a good few years since i've bothered to tune into The Brits

not through any real feelings of resentment of the annual event, more that i'd simply become bored of it and didn't think that it was worth my time

but this year, sat in my new home with my girlfriend and having invited a friend over, i would have found it quite hard and socially awkward to have avoided this year's ceremony

i was out of the room when Take That kicked off the whole thing and only caught the very end of their performance, while i was busy putting away laundry my girlfriend informed me that Plan B had won the Best Male Amy Winehouse award (at least i think that's what she said) and then i heard a little bit of nattering about how Adele looked like she had lost weight and started 'dressing posh' as i hung out the wet bed clothes to dry

when i rejoined the viewing in the front room i added my two cents worth by contributing that since Arcade Fire had picked up Best Album at the Grammies, i fully expected them to repeat that success in the Brit's International Album category, and i was right

as the programme plodded along and a handful more Vivien Westwood designed awards were handed out a rather obvious pattern seemed to be emerging.

Arcade Fire who had picked up two awards performed their song, Ready To Start, early winner Plan B performed a couple of tracks from The Defamation of Strcikland Banks, Rihanna picked up Best International Female after prancing around for a while and briefly miming three tracks merged into one, and winner of Best Single and Breakthrough Act, Tinie Tempah took to the stage to breeze through a medley of his own recent hits.

It appeared that the awards had organised some kind of trade-off - 'here, have an award in exchange for performing, thank you very much!'

other nominations that had us slightly thrown were International Breakthrough, surprisingly won by Justin Beiber who had been convincingly sat at a table near where the awards were handed out while no other nominees seemed to be in sight, and the biggest guessing game was for Best Female since all of the nominees were actually in attendance and none of them had been up for their turn to sing

(Adele presumably had traded her performance this year for 2012's award and Laura Marling seemed as pleasantly surprised as we were when her name was read out)

one of the biggest awards, Best Album, seemed to be wide open, if not for that fact that Mumford and Sons were still waiting patiently in the wings for their chance to thank their management for setting up such a lucrative sales boosting exchange for three minutes of singing, after Take That had already swooped in for Best Group (nice performance earlier lads, well done)

and the height of ludicrousness was when Cee-lo Green undone all of  gobby James Corden's hard work jabbering on about this years's awards being carbon neutral or eco-friendly or some other equally green buzz-phrase, when he casually let slip as Corden questioned him about his travel arrangements, that his record company had laid on a private jet for him to fly into the country following his star turn at the Grammies.

all in all, 2011's Brit Awards proved to be a rather un-exciting and pedestrain music industry pantomime, headed up by a chosen few that will no doubt see the difference in their record sales next week.