Fear of Music

Once again, I’m blogging the Brits. Christ, I really should start getting drunk for this. Anyway, let’s crack on.

20.02: Johnny Vegas is doing the voiceover. And U2 are performing, Contrary to popular belief, it’s 2009 and not 2004.

20.03- The new U2 single sounds like Homer Simpson singing REM. And Bono has apparently spent the last half decade discovering the joys of guyliner rather than listening to any new music.

20.05: Five minutes in, I’ve realised the only thing getting me through this is the promise of Pet Shop Boys at the end. It’s gonna be a long night, folks.

20.05: Kylie, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head was bloody years ago. Get over it. James Corden and Matthew Horne are co-presenting and are, prepare yourself for hilarity, dressed as Kylie’s dancers. If you squint a bit, it could practically be the Friday Night Project.

20.08: First up, Best British Female. I hope you’ve all placed your bets on Beth Rowley. It’s going to be ‘new face of Diet Coke’ Duffy, of course. Christ, it took thirty years for Madonna to end up looking like a tranny. It’s taken Duffy eighteen months. No wonder there’s no enduring acts nowadays.

20.12: Lionel Richie informs me that Estelle won a Grammy, a fact I found curiously hard to believe.

20.13: Please don’t let Katy Perry win International Female. Oh fucking fuck. She’s got a fringe like Peggy from Mad Men and a voice like Mariella Frostrup after swallowing a roll of sandpaper.

20.15: Girls Aloud time. The Promise is probably their least inspiring single, well ever, isn’t it? I’m hoping that Xenomania aren’t turning into the Simpsons post-season 10 where nobody really understands what made it so great in the first place. Second Simpsons reference of the night. Let’s go for the triple.

20.20: Year after year, Fearne Cotton hopes to land the main presenting job. Presumably with Holly Willoughby. Poor Fearne. I’mma take a wild guess and say she’s going to plug the best singles category.

20:21: Hooray. I have a horrible feeling that Scouting for Girls might bag this one. They’ve got thousands of deranged fans. But so have Girls Aloud, so who knows. Once again, it’s going to be the battle of 300 free texts a month.

20:26: Has anyone noticed that it doesn’t feel like anyone’s actually hosting the event? It’s as if the real presenter’s fucked off for a fag and Horne and Corden are taking over for five minutes. The fact that the crowd are screaming all the way through it doesn’t lend anything to the atmosphere either.

20:28: Boy is Alex James ever available. British Breakthrough now. The Brits don’t tend to shy away from dishing out prizes to Alex Turner, so Last Shadow Puppets could be in with a chance here. Oh, it’s Duffy. She’s thanking radio for playing her songs. It’s good to see how passionate she is about her work.

20:30: Viva La Vida just does nothing for me. I can’t think of any other word to describe it but ‘big’. Is it good, is it bad? No idea. It sounds pleasant enough but I’m simply incapable of mustering up the energy to form any real opinion of it.

20.35: Time has not been kind to Jamie Cullum.

20:41: On the other hand, Natalie Imbruglia’s looking alright. Kings of Leon are a shoo-in for best international act. They’re the new Foo Fighters. Make of that what you will.

20:43: Told you.

20:44: Right, can we ban the use of the word ‘literally’. Forever. Best British male. I’m going to go with the bookies and say Paul Weller will win this one. Yup, and for some reason Adele’s on his video acceptance. Now there’s a porno nobody wants to see.

20:47: Duffy’s an interesting one. She’s half Winehouse, half Melua. I’m not overly convinced that her voice is that amazing and I’m even less convinced that her second album’s going to sell fantastically. I think the brief was for her to look sultry but most of time I’m just checking for signs of a stroke.

20.51: Oh, a bit about the set. It’s Glastonbury reimagined by the makers of In The Night Garden.

20.57: Best international album. It’ll be Kings of Leon again. I cannot think of one interesting thing to say about Kings of Leon or their acceptance speech. ‘If it weren’t for England, Kings of Leon wouldn’t be a band right now’. I’m pretty sure Spain has a royal family too.

21.02: It’s Take That performing Greatest Day whilst doing some kind of ELO tribute. Yep. I still refuse to believe it’s a song. It’s half Xenomania (three or four choruses in lieu of a song) and half Snow Patrol but doesn’t manage to work as well as either of them. It probably sounds incredible at the start of a concert though, and I get the feeling that’s why it was written. Anyway, they’ve given us the most remarkable Brits performance in quite some time. That is a compliment, despite last year’s most extravagant set being the Kaiser Chiefs in a cardboard city.

21.06: Nick Frost is looking like Rosie O Donnell. Best live act. If Coldplay’s going to win anything tonight, it’ll be this. Iron Maiden have won, which is probably the only real surprise of the evening.

21:09: David Hasselhoff is presenting Best British Group. Sigh. Are we not over this already? Elbow have won. Can anyone really listen to One Day Like This without thinking of Konnie Huq watching people piss on a hill?

21.14: Kings of Leon win again, this time for Best International Group. They’re in a similar position that The Killers were four years ago, which they should be slightly worried about, but it’s been a good year for them so it’s likely they’re not too bothered.

21:19: Elbow could do with putting a donk on it.

21:24: Florence and the Machine are fucking dreadful. Thanks, but we’ve already had Ida Maria and she only managed to have one hit. She’s thanked Conor McNicholas and Edith Bowman in one sentence which just about says it all doesn’t it?

21:26: Best International Male. Kanye West wins.To be fair, Love Lockdown was one of the five best singles of last year but I was having a listen to the rest of 808s last night and most of the lyrics are beyond dreadful. “He said his daughter got a brand new report card and all I got was a brand new sports car”. Indeed.

21:28: The Ting Tings and Estelle on one stage. With that much star power on one stage it’ll be no surprise if they blow the fuses. It sounds like one of those homemade mash-ups on Youtube that just don’t quite work. Unless Gary Barlow’s real name is Helen, Estelle is the only performer tonight who shares a first name with a Seinfeld character’s mother.

21:33: Finally, best British single. I’m still thinking Scouting For Girls could take it, but it’d be just Girls Aloud’s luck to win their first award for The Promise. And there we go. I dunno, it’s got to be a good thing that they’ve finally won something, but for this song…meh. See, Duffy, that’s how you’re supposed to react when you win an award.

21.38: Tom Jones is presenting best British Album. This is going to go to Duffy whether she’s won it or not. Although given Elbow’s earlier win, it could still be a surprise. Or not. Apparently the last two years of Lily Allen’s life has taught the Brits a lesson about not dishing out prizes to the favourites.

21:42: Another break before PSB? Cotton, you’re killing me.

21:47: I might be somewhat biased on this one, but bloody hell the Pet Shop Boys are just fantastic aren’t they? Brandon Flowers’ intro almost made up for the Killers’ last two albums. If a man in his mid-50s stood at a keyboard wearing a pink wig isn’t exactly what pop music is all about, I don’t know what is.

And that’s that. It wasn’t by any means must see TV and Duffy’s career will probably end up going the same way as fellow Brits luminaries The Darkness, Orson, Daniel Bedingfield, the Kaiser Chiefs, the list goes on. But I dunno, if one person who’s thinking about forming a band saw the Pet Shop Boys’ performance and decided that it might be worthwhile making music that’s catchy and clever and happy and sad and literate and witty rather than just trying to sound like the fucking Jam, perhaps all this might be worth it. That seems far too positive a note to end on, so I’ll leave you with this thought- this time next year we’ll have to cope with at least three acceptance speeches from Florence and the fucking Machine. There we go, much better.