As a spectacle, this year’s Brit Awards maintained the recent high standards, particular the stunning visual effects. But somehow the show has become too contrived, lacking any spark of spontaneity and leaving me wondering at times if the 1989 nadir of Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood really was as cringeworthy as some of the table set-ups we get these days.
Ella Eyre winning the award for Best attempt at achieving a Wardrobe Malfunction
We all like to disagree with the judges – it’s a British tradition, and not only in Awards Shows. However, even there I found myself nodding approvingly at some of the nominations, even if most of those inevitably lost-out to that frightful combination of corporate dollars and Buggins’ Turn. So whilst enduring the more tedious parts, I found myself creating a few awards of my own:
The first ones were not for the music, but for some of the other bits: The section for ‘Designing an Award most like a Ping-Pong Bat’ was won by Irish fashion designer Philip Treacy. The ‘Wish you Were Here’ Award for the live link closest to impersonating a Pink Floyd album cover went to James Corden, who completed a hat-trick on the night by also winning the ‘Best Football Chant-Inspired Link’ with his “Beyonce – Sh*t! Beyonce!! Sh*t!!!” outburst after her performance on stage, rounding it all off with the ‘I’ve not got the Gig anymore, so I don’t Give a ****’ Award. This made him ineligible for the final category in this section, the ‘I want the Job Next Year!’ Award; that went to Jimmy Carr, who also ran Alex Turner very close in a later section.
James Corden won the “Wish You Were Here” Award
Lorde won the ‘Trying to Get Used to winning all these Awards’ Award for dropping that sentence into her acceptance speech, not a bad achievement for a supposedly naive 17-year-old from New Zealand. ‘Best attempt at achieving a Wardrobe Malfunction’ was easily won by Ella Eyre, and ‘Greatest achievement in preventing a Wardrobe Malfunction by Giving a Performance as a Statue’ went to Beyonce for her first live rendition of “XO”. The ‘Will I Ever stop being a Pretentious Pr*ck?’ Award was won for the eighth year running by Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, this year for his acceptance lecture on Rock n’Roll.
Alex Turner attempts to use the microphone to demonstrate his new Ping Pong service technique
Ziggy’s suit gives David Bowie’s Apologies
In the lesser categories, winners of the Global Achievement section, otherwise known as the ‘Band that wouldn’t otherwise have won an Award’ Award, were One Dimension, who also took the ‘Band who had a special tweet-in category designed for them to win an Award on the night just in case they didn’t win The Band that wouldn’t otherwise have won an Award’ Award. Band member Harry Styles made it three personally by winning ‘Using the word Wee in an Acceptance Context’.
The final Award, for ‘Outstanding Achievement in the field of Sneaking a Political Comment past the Armed Guards’ was, of course, won by David Bowie, who unfortunately could not be there on the night, so sent along his Ziggy Stardust catsuit to receive the award on his behalf, accompanied by Kate Moss. That comment, a rather tame plea against Scottish Independence, had the twitosphere red hot within minutes, and probably sums up just how bland even the coolest of the cool have become.
In fifty years the UK pop music business has certainly come a long way; back then we only had band members causing controversy by claiming to be more popular than Jesus.