The BRIT Awards, the night when the British music industry officially gets together to dole out awards to its homegrown pop artists and foreigners alike, went down on Tuesday night at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in West London. The ceremony, which in the past has seen some hilarious stunts – Jarvis Cocker’s 1996 stage invasion in which he mooned Michael Jackson’s performance of Earth Song being a particular highlight – has been dry since the late 90s, idea being to discourage unruly behaviour. (Seriously though, thousands of slightly bored Brits cooped up in a room together, loud music and free booze all night, who could possibly think anything bad could come out of that?) This year’s biggest winner was Lady Gaga who walked away with three BRITs; Best International Album for The Fame, Best International Female Artist and Best International Breakthrough Act. Dressed in her familiarly bombastic get up, she paid an emotional tribute to her fashion designer friend Alexander McQueen, and turned in a characteristically ‘crazy’ perfomance – check it out here. Also crowned on the night were Jay-Z, who nabbed Best International Male from under the noses of Bruce Springsteen and Eminem; Lily Allen, who took British Female Solo Artist and rapper Dizzee Rascal, who picked up British Male Solo Artist. Best British Group was (mystifyingly) adjudged to be pouting Midlands types Kasabian, and, finally, Florence and The Machine won Best British Album for Lungs. Florence then went on to perform a pretty awesome duet with Dizzee, replete with ten harpists. Viddy it here. Perhaps sadly, this year’s event seemed to go ahead without much scandal, although Liam Gallagher, although not before a customary expletive filled ‘speech’, took the opportunity of being invited on stage to accept Oasis’s award for the Best BRITs Album of 30 Years to throw both the award and his mic into the baying crowd. Good to know you can still rely on Liam to spice things up a little bit! (more…)
