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Awards
A customary summary of last night’s BRIT Awards
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 21 February 2013
Hey, it was the BRIT Awards last night. I’m sure you already know that. You may even have the hangover as evidence. And if you do, can you actually remember what happened? No, I’d wager, so let’s have a quick recap.
As per current protocol, Muse and Emeli Sandé both played, thus assuring that the natural order of music-related events remained stable. Muse opened the show with their usual mix: a lengthy song and pyros to distract from the lack of any sort of substance in their more recent musical offerings. Meanwhile Emeli Sandé closed proceedings with that one about being a clown. And no, before you ask, her finale set didn’t mean she won the Outstanding Contribution Award. We’ll get on to that in a minute.
Also performing were Robbie Williams, doing his usual singing-the-song-as-if-he’s-trying-to-remind-you-what-it-sounds-like-rather-than-actually-singing-it thing, Justin Timberlake sang only slightly out of tune (though he’s out of practice, bless him), and Mumford & Sons and Ben Howard ensured that the folk angle was covered from both sides (slow and fast).
One Direction, meanwhile, ran around on a giant pinball machine singing their Comic Relief single, a cover of Blondie’s ‘One Way Or Another’. While singing a song about stalking someone was somehow endearing when Debbie Harry did it in the 70s, it really isn’t when five men start doing it. And inserting an excerpt from ‘Teenage Kicks’ into it for the bridge just makes it worse. Still, it is for charity, so let’s just pretend we didn’t notice.
The best performance of the night was from Taylor Swift, who went full dubstep with ‘Trouble’ and had a costume change. It was quite long though, so she had plenty of time.
As for the awards, the big winners of the night were the aformentioned Sandé and Howard, who both received two awards. Due to no artists agreeing to accept the Outstanding Contribution Award, this year it was given to the War Child charity (and renamed the Special Recognition Award). A short video about the upsetting situations in which children caught up in war can find themselves and how the charity helps them was shown, after which host James Corden shouted, “Anyway, back to this mindless decadence!” Well, he didn’t, but he could have. I did.
Also given a special award were One Direction, who basically took home the Special Made Up Award For People Who Didn’t Win Any Other Awards, last given to Steps in 2000 and The Spice Girls in 1998. And they didn’t even thank Capital FM.
Anyway, here are all the winners in full:
British Female Solo Artist: Emeli Sandé
British Male Solo Artist: Ben Howard
British Group: Mumford & Sons
British Breakthrough Act: Ben Howard
British Live Act: Coldplay
International Male Solo Artist: Frank Ocean
International Female Solo Artist: Lana Del Rey
International Group: The Black Keys
British Single: Adele – Skyfall
British Album Of The Year: Emeli Sandé – Our Version Of Events
BRITs Global Success Award: One Direction
And the ones we already knew about…
Critics’ Choice: Tom Odell
British Producer: Paul Epworth
Special Recognition Award: War Child
