Update: Now you can officially watch Beyonce's Brits performance on YouTube

And it looks like this.

Beyonce - XO

Good, huh?

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The Brits, a tragic love story and One Direction larking about with the PM

Hello! If it's Friday, it must be the weekly round-up of videos you "may have missed" (ie completely ignored) over the last seven days. Let's start here:

1) Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble: Live at the Brits

It really shouldn't have been this easy for Taylor Swift to steal the show at the Brits, but she was truly the Goldilocks in an arena full of dozing bears. I mean, it really was awful, wasn't it? Hideously, offensively dull. I've eaten chips with more personality than Tom Odell. None of the winners had anything to say, none of the performances had any spark, and anyone who dared raise the tempo above "snail in a headwind" was basically banned for life. Did the industry look at the Olympics and think, "we've had enough exposure for one year, let's just pretend we're running the b-stage at Latitude?" Because that's what it felt like.

Holy Moly posted a great analysis piece yesterday (headline "Emeli Sande is not the best at anything") which explained Ben 'Ken' Howard's mystifying double win: "If you have a vote where second choices are counted then you tend to end up with a winner who no one hated, rather than the best in their category." Meanwhile, I had a go at making sense of the whole night in a slightly less grumpy, BBC-approved format over here.

So, here's Taylor Swift, an American country music singer playing a dubstep rave track - thereby making her the most relevant act of the show. Well played, everybody.




2) Kodaline - High Hopes

Kodaline have been dubbed "the Irish Coldplay" but before you go and suffocate yourself with a damp towel, give this song a chance. Yes, it's a sorrowful, romantic power ballad. But the video will stay with you all weekend.




3) One Direction - One Way Or Another

There are two ways of looking at this video by perma-quiffed bumfluff pop band One Direction.

A: What a bunch of irritating little shitbags.
B: If I was in One Direction, I would be an smug little scrote, too.

Basically, it's five young boys who've hit the jackpot, making the most of their 15 minutes and looking like they're having incredible fun while they do it. It's all for charity, anyway, so you're not allowed to complain.




4) Duke Dumont ft A*M*E - 100%

Duke Dumont was previously best known for his DJ sets and remixes for the likes of Bat For Lashes and Metronomy. 110% is, as far as I can tell, his debut solo single and it's a fab calling card, with a pumping retro house vibe. I featured the audio in last week's "songs you may have missed" column, now it has a video to go with it. There's a cute little conceit about a man who's swallowed a cassette recorder (ask your dad) and a lot of very silly dancing. I like the guy with the blonde afro best.

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DC, JT and some other pop nuggets

Crikey - it's like David Bowie's surprise comeback has spurred the entire music industry into action.

First up, Destiny's Child have announced a brand new track, called Nuclear, will be included on their forthcoming compilation album, Love Songs. Sadly, a quick glance at the tracklisting, shows it's clearly going to be a ballad. But there's still hope as The Neptunes are on production duties. If you've heard their remix of DC's Emotions, you'll know what I mean.

Destiny's Child - Emotions (Neptunes Remix)



Then, pop star turned actor turned interior designer turned golfer Justin Timberlake announced his long-overdue return to music.

It came via a minute-long, spoken word YouTube video, which I hope and pray isn't a sign of what's to come. We want beatboxing and jaw-dropping dance moves, not a po-faced thesis on how he "nurtures his muse". I've said it before, and I'll say it again: GET ON WITH IT JUSTIN.



At the other end of the scale, here's a new song from Florence + The Machine, which has appeared out of nowhere. I Come Apart is duet with US rap prodigy A$AP Rocky and it is magic.

A$AP Rocky ft Florence + The Machine - I Come Apart


Finally, the Brit nominations came out last night. It's a pretty good shortlist this time around, and one which illustrates the increasing separation between the download market (represented by Olly Murs and Calvin Harris), the people who still buy albums (Mumford and Sons, Alt-J) and the music industry voters whose sole aim is confusing Cathy in Asda by nominating acts she's never heard of (Cat Power, Richard Hawley).

I wrote a brief analysis on the BBC - which is basically a string of bad jokes (what else?). But the best thing about the launch event was Jessie Ware playing an acoustic version of Running.

She's up for two awards: best female, which she'll lose to Emeli Sande, and best breakthrough, where she has an even chance of winning - but it's fantastic just to see her in the running. Haha, running. Like her song. I see what they did there.

Jessie Ware - Running

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I like to Mvula, Mvula*

The Brits announced their Critics' Choice shortlist this morning - with Discopop heroes AlunaGeorge sitting at the top... Alphabetically, at least. The actual winner doesn't get announced until 20 December, and they will join the likes of Emeli Sande, Adele and Jessie J in collecting a big trophy for a record they have yet to release. The modern world, eh?

AlunaGeorge's competition comes from floppy-fringed balladeer Tom Odell, and 26-year-old Laura Mvula who, I have to admit, had totally passed me by until today.

Formally trained in composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire, Laura later worked (as a receptionist) for the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She is now signed to RCA where she is being fast-tracked as a "priority act" for 2013.

In a year with no shortage of female singer-songwriters, she stands apart from the crowd by putting those years of classical training to good use. Her songs have a choral feel - with complex, layered harmonies breathing new life into well-worn soul sounds. Over the top comes Laura's voice, all smoky and resonant, lagging behind the beat like a modern Billie Holiday.

Apparently, she's already been Fearne Cotton's "Big Thing", so I'm hardly racing ahead of the pack here. But if you're new to Laura, too, here are two of the tracks she's released so far. I can't recommend them highly enough.

Laura Mvuala - She



* Sorry

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What we did at the Brits (we took badly framed photographs of pop stars on our phones)

Going to the Brits as a journalist is simultaneously brilliant and terrible. You get to see lots of famous people up close (they are all tiny) and you get to ask lots of famous people questions ("Hello will.i.am, how did you celebrate being number one last week?"; "My single didn't go to number one"; "Oh"). But you don't get to see the actual ceremony, and there is no alcohol in the "winners room" - which, by the way, is a makeshift tent in the freezing cold arse end of the O2.

Brilliantly, trained journalists can't be trusted to ask questions to anyone who has won a prize, so all the winners do a generic 90-second interview with Nihal off of Radio One. Nihal is a very nice man with incredibly neat hair, but he does tend to ask stupid things like "which member of the audience would you most like to snog?", which would be hilarious if you weren't trying to get clips for Huw Edwards on the Ten O'Clock News.

Minor grumbles aside, this year's bash turned out pretty well. The right people won the right awards and the whole Adele "incident" basically made a predictable event into a slightly more interesting one. Although if anyone genuinely thinks Adele giving the finger to a bunch of record company executives is a cause for complaint, wait til they find out what's been happening in Syria (Chris Martin told me to say that).

The main things I learned last night are that (a) if you put a picture of One Direction on the BBC's twitter account, people get very animated about it and (b) I am not very good at taking pictures on the red carpet anyway.

Here are some of those pictures, followed by some official Brits videos. I'm not pretending to be in the mood for anything more high maintenance than that.

Ed Sheeran checks to see if his fingernails are clean, shortly before appearing on the NEWS with LIZO MZIMBA

Jessie J turned up in her nightie and talked about weighing melons or something

You can't tell in this picture, but Tinie Tempah had glitter in his beard. I think he may have eaten one of Little Mix by mistake.

Kylie was very concerned about Adele. She said she was worried she'd be too overwhelmed to take the whole night in, then looked down the barrel of the camera and said "Adele, get your mum and dad to press record because you might not remember this night happened. And then you can look back at it in six months time." Ironically, Adele's mum missed the message because she was watching Neighbours.

This picture may have temporarily broken Twitter. Sorry about that.

Coldplay. I took this picture to stop myself doing something I'd regret later.

Adele can basically have my babies (don't worry, they're only jelly babies)

Adele - Rolling In The Deep



Rihanna - We Found Love (in a box)


Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are


If you've stuck around this long, you might want to head over to the BBC News site and read all the coverage we put together from the ceremony...
:: Adele wins, extends finger
:: Quotes and reaction to Adele's big night
:: Will.i.am, Tinie Tempah, Dizzee Rascal, Noel Gallagher & Little Mix on their new albums

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A rememborable night

You'd think that, with 30 years of practice, the Brits would have finally worked out how to throw a decent awards ceremony. But no, last night's effort was as shambolic and hopeless as ever.

Now, putting on a two-hour live television show is hard work and I accept that a myriad of things can go wrong. Sam Fox's stuttering intro to a video of "rememborable" Brits highlights, which then failed to play, could have been technical gremlins (or a snide tribute to the hopeless 1989 ceremony).

But there were so many more gaffes, mistakes and cringeworthy moments - Jonathan Ross, I'm looking at you - that you have to conclude the whole evening was as competently thought-through as my 1979 attempt to discover how many buttons I could fit inside my nose (Answer: four, before you need to go to A&E).

If they were really celebrating their 30th birthday, why were there no big performances from past winners? Why was the background music for the 30th anniversary award categories Rule Britannia, a classical piece written in 1740? And why did they hire a host whose only "joke" was to mock the music they were supposedly celebrating*?

On a more basic level, when the video inserts begin "here are the nominees for best xxxx", the script leading into those videos shouldn't say "here are the nominees for best xxxx". They teach you that on first day of TV school.

Then there were the terrible pregnant pauses, the inexplicable appearance of Prince Harry, the inexplicable failure to edit out the bit where Prince Harry mugged to the camera, and the ongoing problems with syncing the sound to the picture - which meant that even the acts who were singing live looked like they were miming.

Some people have suggested that, like Ireland entering Dustin The Turkey for the Eurovision, ITV is trying to sabotage its hopes of producing next year's ceremony. Lets' face it, if the BBC stepped in with the team behind the amazing Children In Need Rocks concert, we'd see a marked improvement.

But the real reason for last night's terrible, amateurish production is more mundane. The Brits still think they're organising a big party in London for their showbiz mates. They're not - they're making a TV show, one that is supposed to showcase the sheer brilliance of our artists to the rest of the world. In the future, they have to make that the priority.

Anyway, rant over... The performances saved the show, as ever. Here are the best bits.


Jay-Z and Alicia Keys - Empire State Of Mind


Effortless, energising, excellent. Easily the best performance of the night. As is so often the case, the Americans were there to show us how it's really done.

Florence and Dizzee - You Got The Dirtee Love


Should have been a mess, turned out to be excellent. But why didn't these two award winners get a performance to themselves?

Robbie Williams - Lifetime Achievement Medley


Unbelievably, Robbie managed not to pull silly faces, talk to the crowd, forget his words or act like a twerp. AND he did No Regrets. Masterful.

Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love / Show Me Love


Channelling the spirit of Janet Jackson, this wasn't as spectacular as her X Factor performance - and the mash-up with Show Me Love was a bit pointless - but Cheryl had the best choreography of the night by far.

Lady GaGa - Telephone / Dance In The Dark


Polarising as ever, GaGa ditched a planned medley of her hits for a heartfelt, idiosyncratic tribute to Alexander McQueen. It was odd, but mesmerising - and she totally drew us into GaGa world. The mark of a true artist.

* Actually, Kay had one other joke, about the ceremony being "20 minutes of entertainment spread out over two hours". He nicked it from Johnny Carson, who used it at the 1979 Oscars.

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Florence and the Brits

The Brit nominations come out later today, and it's a pretty good bet that Florence and the Machine (pictured right, with a duck) will have three nominations, for best female, best album and breakthrough artist.

My colleague and Brits guru, Ian Youngs, reckons La Roux could walk away with more nominations - as they're also eligible for best single - but I'd put money on Florence being the big winner on 16 February.

According to my predictometer, Paolo Nutini is a shoo-in for best male and JLS are likely to win the viewer's teenager's vote for best single. Lady GaGa should easily dominate the international categories where, bizarrely, they've cancelled the best international group prize. The Brits are weird, aren't they?

Anyway, in anticipation of Florence "sweeping the board" (this phrase always makes me think of my sister flipping her lid during a game of Monopoly and scattering all the pieces on the floor with one swift motion of her arm) here is her rather splendiferous cover of Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love, off the CD single for You Got The Love.

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ABOUT BLOODY TIME

Girls Aloud won a Brit -- and Coldplay got none. Divine justice.

Girls Aloud - The Promise (live at the Brits)

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Sing it like you mean it

According to the Brits website, "U2 will be performing their brand new single Get On Your Boots for the very first time" at tonight's ceremony. Clearly, they missed the Grammys last week... or maybe they're hoping that, this time, the performance won't be such a s crushingly bad, dad-at-the-disco fiasco.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Get On Your Boots is a fascinating song. Bits of it - particularly the supple harmonies in the chorus - are sublime. But all the great writing never combines into a coherent, uplifting pop song. I think the main reason is this: Bono sounds insincere.

I know lots of people will be saying "Mark, what did you expect? That massive Irish gasbag is genetically incapable of sincerity". But they are wrong. Bono can sell a song like One with the raw, emotional conviction of a gospel singer. Which is pretty awesome if you consider that Mary J Blige - a real gospel singer - completely trashed it.

No, the reason Get On Your Boots doesn't work is because Bono wants to be something he's not - cool. It's a craving that's derailed the U2 train in the past (cf Discotheque) and it's happening again - Get On Your Boots is only at number 10 in the midweek charts.

Of course, some artists make a career out of play-acting in song. David Bowie is the obvious example, but you could also mention Anthony Hegarty or David Byrne.

Funnily enough, I have real trouble engaging with their music, too.

When Bowie puts on that silly nasal voice in Space Oddity, or sings "Sound and Vision" like he's Goofy, it completely spoils the atmosphere. You know when you ask, "Is it Wednesday today?" and some guy in the office replies: "Yes it is - all day!"? That guy is David Bowie.

As someone once said: "Music is what feelings sound like". You can't fake a feeling. People around you know when you're forcing a smile, paying a false compliment or acting confident.

So why does Bono think he can get away with it in music? I suspect he genuinely believes he can be cool at the age of 49. To me, that's a worse crime than all the other nonsense that's levelled at him. He can squirrel away his money into a offshore tax havens, gladhand war criminals and wear those stupid fucking fly shades until he goes blind. But, please, please don't put your midlife crisis on record.

U2 - Get On Your Boots

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Brit nominations curated by Radiohead

"No alarms and no surprises"

Best British male
Ian Brown
James Morrison
Paul Weller
Will Young

Best British female
Adele
Beth Rowley
Duffy
Estelle
MIA

Best British group
Coldplay
Elbow
Girls Aloud
Radiohead
Take That

Best British live act
Coldplay
Elbow
Iron Maiden
Scouting For Girls
The Verve

Best British single
Adele - Chasing Pavements
Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Dizzee Rascal/Calvin Harris/Chrome - Dance Wiv Me
Duffy - Mercy
Estelle Ft Kanye West - American Boy
Girls Aloud - The Promise
Leona Lewis - Better in Time
Scouting for Girls - Heartbeat
X Factor Finalists - Hero

Best British Album
Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends
Duffy - Rockferry
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

Best British breakthrough act
Adele
Duffy
Last Shadow Puppets
Scouting For Girls
The Ting Tings

Best international album
AC/DC - Black Ice
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Killers - Day & Age
Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Best international male
Beck
Neil Diamond
Jay-Z
Kanye West
Seasick Steve

Best international female
Beyonce
Gabriella Cilmi
Katy Perry
Pink
Santogold

Best international group
AC/DC
Fleet Foxes
Killers
Kings of Leon
MGMT

Critics' Choice: Florence and the Machine

Outstanding Contribution To Music: Pet Shop Boys

A few things to note:
1) There are only four nominees for Best British Male, which has now overtaken Best British Female as the ceremony's joke category.
2) M.I.A. is the sole artist in this list with a semblance of edge or controversy. Jay-Z is welcome, but hardly surprising now that he's gone corporate.
3) Our predictions for the night's big winners are Elbow, Duffy and Kings of Leon.
4) Fuck Scouting For Girls Up Their Stupid Asses.
5) Girls Aloud are performing on the night, which means they have a bigger-than-normal chance of picking up a prize. No-one would dare give them best group over Coldplay, but Take That aren't in the running for best single this year, so maybe, just maybe...
6) We would love to see a performance by poprawk supergroup Kings Of Leona - a mash-up of Sex On Fire and Bleeding Love, perhaps?
7) Poor old Goldfrapp :(

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The Brits, then

In order of appearance...

Mika: Insufferable
Beth Ditto: Underused
"The" Osbournes: Grotesque
Take That: Bless
Klaxons: Which ones are the Klaxons?
Rihanna: Hoodie

Fearne Cottons... Now wait a cotton-picking minute (do you see what I did there?)

Why are the public being allowed to decide who wins the Best Single award? The shortlist is already based on the top-selling records of the year, so why not just give the prize to the one that sold the most (Leona Lewis). The phone-in element just ruins the pace of the show, and cheapens the whole affair. They don't let you phone in at the Oscars, do they? No wonder none of the important acts turned up. They thought it was the bloody X Factor.

Adele: Guv'nor
Mika again: Vomitous
Kylie: Not really dancing
Kelly Rowland: Not really Beyoncé
Kanye West: Numbskull
Mark Ronson: Even the voiceover lady points out he shouldn't be given Best British Male
Kaiser Chiefs: Just awful
Kylie again: Best International Female? What must Rihanna think?



Leona Lewis: Wow!



Foo Fighters: Sarcastic
Kate Nash: Fuck off. For the love of God, fuck off.
Foo Fighters: Cheeky
Mark Ronson and Adele and Daniel Merriweather and...
Amy Winehouse!!!!: Jaw-droppingly, monumentally fantastic.



Arctic Monkeys: Girls Aloud wuz robbed
Amy Winehouse again: Wobbly
Take That: Cuddly
Arctic Monkeys: Smirksome
Paul McCartney: Hello, granddad.

And that was the Brits. See you next year, eh?

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Inevitable Brits analysis thing

The Brits nominations were published yesterday and, according to Radio One, Gwen Stefani and My Chemical Romance were "glaring omissions". Which is a right old bag of balls if you ask me.

The shortlist is suprisingly good - rewarding the bands and artists who made an impact at the tills in 2007. Yes, that includes the Kaiser Chiefs and their mentally-retarded Ruby song, but it also means recognition for Arcade Fire, Mark Ronson, Kanye West and Foo Fighters.

Pop acts are finally being taken seriously again after what we can only call the "Steps backlash", which means Take That get an amazing four nominations (even though their album came out in 2006) and Mika gets another four (even though, technically, he is an awful cunt).

Best of all, the almighty Girls Aloud are up for best group. Obviously, they don't stand a chance of winning when the competition is Jo Whiley's Arctic Monkeys and Marks and Spencers's Take That, but at least they haven't been bumped off the list in favour of the fucking Pigeon Detectives.

Despite Radio One's petulance at two of their automatically-playlisted artists being ignored - because no-one really likes them - the really obvious omissions are Radiohead (not eligible, apparently), The Police (not as good at playing live as the Klaxons) and Prince (not really that popular in 2007).

Also - shortlisting Michael Buble for best international male is the best Brits in-joke since Jonathan King's Brits Dance Medley in 1990.

You can find the full list of nominees here because there's no way I'm typing all that rubbish out for myself.

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Blow-by-blow Brits

8:01pm ITV continuity announces that "anything could happen". I bet it couldn't. There won't be any tigers, for example. And Fearne Cotton won’t suddenly become a decent interviewer. Or will she? (Answer: no).

8:02pm The Scissor Sisters are re-creating their fabulous video with the puppets in it and their slightly-less-fabulous song with Elton John in it. This would be amazing if ITV stopped jump-cutting all over the place and just showed us the medium close up. Tsk, tsk.

8:08pm Russell Brand is here and he is better, although strangely reminiscent of, Chris Evans. Yay for Russell. He does a joke about Keith Allen being the first person to produce Lily Allen… through his willy. Guffaw!

8:15pm Snow Patrol do their song from the Grey's Anatomy advert. Mrsdiscopop shouts obscenities at the telly. Have you noticed how this song is just the same 16 bars repeated four times? It doesn’t build up to a crescendo or anything, it just gets a bit louder at the end. Next!

8:20pm Fearne Cotton is backstage with Muse, who say they deserved their best live act award (all the other acts are dead, ha ha). She tells us to vote for the best British single, but only gives us five choices. These include The Feeling?! Is she sure?!

8:25pm Here is Jarvis Cocker. Brits Trivia: He once waved his bum at Michael Jackson, who was pretending to be Jesus.

8:26pm Best Breakthrough Act goes to the Fratellis. Who the fuck are the Fratellis?

8:27pm Okay, I've heard their songs but until now I had no idea what they looked like. One of them, let's call him Hamish McScotsman, thanks his mum and dad. Rock and Roll, eh kids?

8:32pm Best International Group goes to Orson. Who the fuck are Orson?

8:33pm Orson tell MTV viewers, who voted for them, that they should be very, very ashamed of themselves.

8:33pm Not really.

8:35pm Amy Winehouse comes out. She seems to be having trouble with her beehive. She is also hula dancing like Baby's sister in Dirty Dancing. The Red Hot Chili Peppers look confused.

8:40pm Joss Stone, dressed like a hooker in a sci-fi B-movie, demands that we send out love to Robbie Williams "for what he's going through right now". Presumably she means cold turkey and not a humiliating defeat at the hands of Gary Barlow. Or the half a kilogram of coke he's shovelling up his nose.

8:41pm James Morrisson wins the best British male award. Who the fuck is James Morrisson?

8:42pm Morrison dedicates his award to "every singer-songwriter still playing in pubs". That means one of our regular readers, Dogboy, has won a Brit! Well done, Dogboy.

8:45pm I ordered a "romantic" Valentines-night curry an hour ago and it still hasn't arrived. Grrrr.

8:46pm Some guy comes out to do the intro for the best international male award. When he sees the result he goes "Oh no, not him!". See, literally anything can, and will, happen at this edgy, dangerous awards ceremony.

8:47pm Despite his protest, Justin Timberlake still gets the prize. This means JT is officially better than Bob Dylan. Who'd have thunk it?

8:50pm Hooray for The Killers, who turn out to be the first competent live act of the night. They have even brought along My Name Is Earl to play the drums. Hooray for The Killers.

8:56pm Amy Winehouse wins best British female - the first truly deserved award of the evening. I wonder if she'll have a drink to celebrate?

8:57pm Ricky Wilson is looking remarkably trim.

8:58pm Bloody hell! Nelly Furtado has won best International female. Justice at last! Nelly is wearing a terrifying dress, which threatens to reveal her busoms to the world.

Luckily, the spirit of Judy Finnegan is not with her and Nelly delivers a very touching speech about how the Brits are the most important awards because she was inspired by Blur and Tricky and Massive Attack. Nelly rules.

9:00pm Take That are doing their Patience song. Mark Owen has spotted something really interesting on the roof. Is Lily Allen about to jump? Sadly, no.

9:10pm Giles from Buffy is giving out best British band. The Arctic Monkeys win but they're not there. Apparently they're "busy" rehearsing for their tour. More likely, however, is that it's bath night and their mum won't let them out.

They are dressed up like they are in The Wizard of Oz, which is a trick they stole from Gnarls Barkley. But Gnarls Barkley aren't going to be given any awards tonight.

9:13pm Best international album goes to The Killers. Even they look surprised.

9:15pm Who is it that keeps spraying the bands with champagne as they walk up? When the camera panned around just now, there was no-one who could conceivably have had a bottle in their hands. Dare I suggest that the whole wastage of bubbly is a huge con perpetrated by the producers in an attempt to make this show seem somehow dangerous. Yes, I do dare.

9:20pm Steve Tyler and Sophie Ellis-Bextor come out to present the best international group prize. Tyler calls it best American band and Sophie corrects him in a very proper schoolmistress's voice, thereby fulfilling several hundred male sexual fantasies. As it turns out, all the nominees are American after all. The Killers win again and bring a tiny Italian waiter on stage with them. No, wait, that's Brandon Flowers.

9:25pm The curry still hasn't arrived.

9:30pm If I hear that Corinne Bailey Rae song one more time, I will have to damage a puppy. I swear.

9:31pm Luckily, I do not have to endure the song because the curry has arrived. But it's cold and the driver appears to have eaten one of the dishes on his two-hour, half-mile journey to our house. I might have a little cry now.

9:35pm Oh god, it's going from bad to worse. Alan Carr is on my telly. What is the point of this useless little cretin. I bet he's going to announce that Snow Patrol have won best single…

9:35-and-a-half pm Rejoice for the Take That band have won a prizes! Somewhere in America, Robbie Williams is opening another bottle of "prescription" drugs.

Howard (or is it Jason?) dedicates the award to his formerly-estranged dad. They cut to a picture of his dad, who looks like a character from Shameless. Brilliant!

9:40pm The last important award of the night is best British album. It goes to the Arctic Monkeys. This time they are dressed up as the Village People. Hilarious.

9:43pm Fearne Cotton has Take That standing beside her. Rather than ask the glaringly obvious Robbie question, she goes for "what's been your favourite moment of the night so far?". "Winning," says Mark Owen. Clang.

9:45pm Celebrate, for there is only one more thing to do and that is awarding Oasis with a "you're not very good any more" prize. I think I'll turn over for Desperate Housewives a couple of minutes early.

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Video of the week: Prince at the Brits

A slight departure this week, as I've chosen a performance film for the soon-to-be-coveted video of the week page.

And what a performance! At last week's Brits ceremony, Prince reunited with Wendy & Lisa (from the Revolution) and crazy drumming lady, Sheila E, for the first time in 20-odd years. Together they run through a 12-minute set that blew every other Brits act off the stage with the force of nineteen jet engines.

Perhaps only two other live acts, Radiohead and U2, have ever given me actual goosebumps. Prince manages it every time. Even this audience of jaded music industry bozos and Mastercard bigwigs is eating out of his hand. It's not normal, I tell you.



If this is the band for Prince's next tour, I'll be quitting the day-job and following them round in a big purple campervan. And that's a promise.

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Teeth! Hair! Spit!

Over at Sugababes HQ, claws are out, teeth are bared, and saucers of milky drink have been spilled. But this time the girls aren't fighting with each other. No, they're pissed off with the Brits.

"I'm surprised we've not been nominated," says Heidi Range about the Best Pop category, "I was shocked that McFly weren't in the category either and it's James Blunt and Katie Melua."

Rather than launching a protest - maybe chucking Mutya's bloated corpse into the reception area, KLF style - Heidi is philosophical:

"Maybe," she muses, "they've changed the way of doing things."

However, there's still hope of a ruckus at tomorrow's ceremony - someone has riled Girls Aloud.

Sarah Harding (the blonde one) told the Daily Mittor, "We aren't nominated for a Brit. It's a complete joke - we can't believe it."

"It's the likes of Madonna, who isn't pop and isn't British. Kelly Clarkson isn't British either. It doesn't give British pop acts like us a chance."

She's got a point - although it'd be nice if the girls had the confidence to say "actually, we're better than that Clarkson slag" instead of whining about her nationality.

Can't wait to hear what they say when they discover they've been left off the Mercury list.

Virgin Music News: Girl groups in fury at Brits snub

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James Blunt is more popular than Jesus

Not really. But Jesus doesn't have 5 nominations at the Brit Awards, does he?

Yes, the Brit Awards - the most useless gong show in the calendar (and we're including the MOBOs in that list). Like drowning cat ties to a brick, the Brit Awards are duty bound to recognise the "phenomenal achievement of British Artists" even when those artists are increasingly dull and pointless.

This year's nominations are suitably ghastly. Let's take a look at some of the 'highlights':

British Male Solo Artist
Antony and the Johnsons
Ian Brown
James Blunt
Robbie Williams
Will Young

British Female Solo Artist
Charlotte Church
Kate Bush
Katie Melua
KT Tunstall
Natasha Bedingfield

- As ever, the jury have an extremely limited choice in these fields, so they've had to bend the rules a little. For example, Natasha Bedingfield didn't release any new material in 2005, and Antony and the Johnsons aren't even British.

However, you should be thankful for these discrepancies: The only other British solo artists we have are Lee Ryan and Lisa Scott-Lee .

MasterCard British Album
Coldplay - X&Y
Gorillaz - Demon Days
James Blunt - Back To Bedlam
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
Kate Bush - Aerial

- In a just world, the best album gong would go to Gorillaz. Of course, this being the Brits, it will go to Kate Bush or Coldplay. And who doesn't like Coldplay? They're the third biggest band in the world (or so Q Magazine keeps trying to tell us).

Chris Martin will pick up his award dressed as a giant robot from space. Or maybe he won't. It's hard to tell because he's so unpredictable and charismatic.

British Single
Coldplay - Speed Of Sound
James Blunt - You’re Beautiful
Shayne Ward - That’s My Goal
Sugababes - Push The Button
Tony Christie ft Peter Kay - (Is This The Way To) Amarillo

- Now, really, what the fuck is going on here?


British Breakthrough Act
Arctic Monkeys
James Blunt
Kaiser Chiefs
KT Tunstall
Magic Numbers

- It says here that these nominees were chosen by Radio 1 listeners, but surely that's a typo. They must mean Radio 2. Don't Radio One play cutting-edge new music? Where are acts like Hard-Fi and The Ordinary Boys, then?

Note, once again, the presence of James "I used to be a soldier, so I'm definitely not gay - I'm just in touch with my feminine side" Blunt. It appears that our vocal coach has been wrong all these years, and it is actually better to sing everything through your nose and two octaves above your natural range in a whiny dirge.

Pop Act
James Blunt
Katie Melua
Kelly Clarkson
Madonna
Westlife

- No arguments with Kelly Clarkson and Madonna, and you can't really dispute the eternal popularity of the Westlife, no matter how mystifying it may be. However, they're all international acts, which seems to be okay in this category but not in others.

So, how much are you willing to bet that at least two of these acts are performing on the night?

Meanwhile, Katie Melua and James Blunt stretch the definition of pop to breaking point, and actual pop acts like Goldfrapp, Girls Aloud and Rachel Stevens are ignored.

International Album
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Green Day - American Idiot
Kanye West - Late Registration
Madonna - Confessions On A Dancefloor
U2 - How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

- Hey, maybe we should watch the Grammy Awards instead!

International Breakthrough Act
Arcade Fire
Daniel Powter
Jack Johnson
John Legend
Pussycat Dolls

- On second thoughts, let's just stop listening to music altogether and be done with it.

Bah and, indeed, humbug.

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