Brits 2008: View From The Sofa

 

I wasn't looking forward to The Brits this year. I normally end up tuning in, but this year MSN had asked me to be their roving man on the sofa.  It's a natural law that anything you're required to do, no matter how pleasant or whether you were going to do it anyway, is a chore.

 

In the first five minutes of the show I see Mika, The Osbornes and Chris Moyles. This is going to be tough.

 

Sadly, Mika is the perfect introduction to an awards show that's never truly about the music. It's about the industry. Those that shift the most units are rewarded and get to make a tedious thank-you speech which is ignored. The assembled luminaries can't hear and don't care; they're just here to get drunk.

 

It may as well be The National Ducting Awards and I find myself wondering why the nation is expected to want to watch it at prime time.

Mika has been a good little soldier this year so he gets to plug some fresh product before playing the hit. The product is Love Today. I've not heard it before - no doubt it's all over Magic FM - and once his limp performance has washed over me, I still haven't heard it.

 

The hit is the undeniably-catchy Grace Kelly. In between, Beth Ditto comes on to duet a bit of Standing In The Way of Control. She's a proper star, but you wouldn't know it watching her wasting her time here.

 

I like The Osbornes. The reality show was entertaining and I'm prepared to take them at face value. My dread worsens, though, as it becomes clear that it's Sharon who'll be running this. Last year's host Russell Brand was genuinely edgy and so she's here as the safety. Forget the Prince of Darkness, for the next few hours, we're in the hands of X-Factor and Asda.

 

I don't know about you, but I'm fed up of hearing about the 1989 Fleetwood-Fox Brits debacle. It's now an indelible part of our 50 Greatest TV Moments From Hell cultural memory.

 

It was such a disaster, we're told, that the Brit Awards was forced to reinvent itself as the slick and exciting show that the kids all love today. But as I watch Ozzy stumble his cues, it seems very little has changed.

 

Hang on then, if it's always a boring and irrelevant shambles, why do I watch every year? I think it's the swearing, mostly.

 

Paul McCartney's on, so national disgrace and village idiot Chris Moyles turns on his trademark wit by mentioning The Frog Chorus. Someone in the audience shouts "f**kwit" loud enough to be clear on the live broadcast. I'm thinking, God, I hope he heard them.

 

That's what you're watching for in an award ceremony like this. The veneer will slip and someone will do something silly, or be humiliated, or reveal something about themselves.

 

The other hope is that, against all the odds, you'll chance upon a great performance. It seems there are only two real shots at that tonight.

 

In what I'm sure the Brits would like me to refer to as the most recent of a tradition of "legendary Brits-teamups", first we have Rihanna with Klaxons. It looks great. The band are in a giant glowing scarlet pyramid.

 

Rihanna looks unearthly, Tron by Final Fantasy. The music is a mash-up of Umbrella and Golden Skans. This bootleg thing parties like it's 2001, but at least it's interesting. Things are looking up.

 

Until Take That win best live act. If they'd won best group, I wouldn't have had a problem. But there should be more to being a great live act than trying really hard. We're back to the industry awards jolly again. Take That turned their business around and that tour shifted a lot of tickets. What else is there?

 

Tonight, very little: Kylie spends a little bit of her goodwill pushing her new single and fits right in. A bit of Daft Punk aesthetic here for credibility and a tight shimmy for the dads.

 

The Kaiser Chiefs have a ginger bloke called Ricky in a grey suit singing the four decades old smug witticism that is "due to lack of interest, tomorrow is cancelled". Oh my God.

 

Kate Nash gets best female and is lovely, reminding the papers that "woman isn't a genre".

 

The other big hope for a great performance is Amy Winehouse. She mouths "I love you" at the camera, apparently aimed at her husband in jail. How romantic (no, really). She slots this message in between the lines "though you're a gambling man... love is a losing hand". I presume she meant nothing by it. But you never know.

 

She's every bit as fascinating and exhilarating as she is shambolic. Why didn't she get best live act?

 

The man behind Amy, Mark Ronson, becomes the first person to win Best British Male without being a singer. He seems genuinely pleased at the recognition. If you can ignore the over-exposure and Daniel-bleeding-Merryweather, you have to recognise that this has been Ronson's year and he deserves it.

 

You can also ignore the mid-Atlantic accent. Ronson's an honourary Brit because he showed up. Not one of the nominees for International Group could be bothered. Dave Grohl gives an uncharacteristically-sarcastic acceptance speech explaining that he's now graduated to the lofty heights of his co-award winners Huey Lewis and Kula Shaker.

 

He wouldn't have said that at the Grammys. So hold on a second, is British music really that irrelevant? Oh dear.

 

Which is why we need Paul McCartney to remind us that we were once world-beaters. I was pedantically-cynical about this step. As you might expect, The Beatles received an Outstanding Contribution Award at the very first awards more than 30 years ago.

 

So, as the nearly Beatles-free clip show that introduces Paul McCartney demonstrates, this is supposed to be an award for his solo work. I'm not sure it deserves that, but it's difficult to complain about the quality of the Beatles songs when they come along so the problem is forgotten.

 

I guess that's what The Brits should be aiming for. Thanks, Paul.