Playlouder - Music is the Network

Just moved in with somebody who has a telly and after being driven to joining inflamatory Facebook groups by my disgust for a certain Scottish politician who shall remain nameless I was last night subjected to the televisual holocaust of indecency that is the NME awards.

How long this obscure cavalcade of perinea has been prancing along for is a mystery I'm not for solving, but it's the industry equivalent of the video game Burnout (ask your video game geek buddy).

What's the worst of it all? Hard to say: so much to choose from. Here's a few lowlights:

1. A mash-up of seminal hits by broad-mouthed barkers of today and yesterday, Kate Nash and Billy Bragg (respectively). Select moments from 'Foundations' and 'A New England' are interspersed into one mega-bittah, mega-shit mega-mix. This serves to sandblast the last gristly shreds of credibility from the bones of Bragg's career, and to simultaneously pinpoint, quite cruelly, Kate Nash's place in the grand scheme of things.
2. The presenters - an anonymous, anomolous fat guy and (I think) that guy from Catherine Tate who looks blankly at the camera when the nan says rude things - referring to themselves as the funniest people in the room (then qualifying this statement and shifting themselves down the scale a bit in a self-deprecating manner) and that being the first moment it had occurred to me what their profession actually was: comedians, apparently, so it says on the CVs.
3. Industry darling of the moment, Lightspeed Champion, performing one of his songs; it was an extremely awkward few minutes: one felt the need to talk over it to save the squirming worms of embarassment rising in my bowels and forcing me to shit myself in sympathy. He's awful. Truly awful. He can't write songs for toffee and the orchestra backing him up (like a log truck backing up into a mini) knew it too. You could see in their eyes. Terrible.
4. The Killers accepting an award via satellite and that being the most entertaining moment of the evening. Brandon Flowers sat in a barber shop and celebrity rapist, narcotics abuser and pigeon-tender Malik Abdul Aziz (formerly (and subsequently?) Mike Tyson) reminded him to thank God. Bizarre. The sheer inarticulacy of all the other speeches by comparison, and the fact that a The Mighty Boosh crew without scripts is less amusing than a The Killers with, are both very revealling discoveries.
5. Kelly Osbourne.

Highlights (every cloud, and all that):

1. The Cribs were pretty good.
2. Gallows dedicating their recent average Ruts cover to departed (dead) guitarist Paul Fox, and playing a pretty decent version of the song ('Staring at the rude boys') and handing out daffodils to a bemused crowd to highlight how crap cancer is while Lethal Bizzle repeatedly, hillariously, referred to the assembly as "motherfuckers" in a nonchalant, seemingly affectionate, manner.
3. Glasvegas brushing by the stage momentarily and muttering "cheers" in response to winning the award for 'Band Who Haven't Done Much Yet' - and later pointing out that they hadn't done much yet.
4. Tom Clarke and Faris Rotter standing side by side and looking like some Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
5. Fatigue, and consequentially not seeing The Manic Street Preachers receiving their 'Being on Good Terms With The NME For Quite a Long Time' award.

The winners (a.k.a. the losers) are listed below. I refuse to link to that site.

 

Best British Band

Winner: Arctic Monkeys

Nominees: Babyshambles, The Cribs, Klaxons, Muse

Best Album

Winner: Klaxons (’Myths Of The Near Future’)

Nominees: Arctic Monkeys (‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’), Babyshambles (‘Shotter’s Nation’), The Enemy (’We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’), Radiohead (‘In Rainbows’)

Best TV Show

Winner: ’The Mighty Boosh’

Nominees: ’Heroes’, ’Never Mind The Buzzcocks’, ’The IT Crowd’, ’Skins’

Best International Band

Winner: The Killers

Nominees: Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, My Chemical Romance.

Best Live Band

Winner: Muse

Nominees: The Cribs, Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, My Chemical Romance

Best New Band

Winner: The Enemy

Nominees: Foals, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, The Pigeon Detectives, The Wombats

Best Live Event

Winner: Carling Weekend: Reading And Leeds Festival

Nominees: Glastonbury, Muse at Wembley Stadium, T In The Park, V Festival

Philip Hall Radar Award

Winner: Glasvegas

Best Video

Winner: Arctic Monkeys (’Teddy Picker’)

Nominees: Bloc Party (’Flux’), Justice (’D.A.N.C.E.’), Klaxons (’Golden Skans’), My Chemical Romance (‘Teenagers’)

Best Dancefloor Filler

Winner: The Wombats (’Let’s Dance To Joy Division’)

Nominees: Bloc Party (’Flux’, Foals (’Hummer’), Klaxons (’Atlantis To Interzone’), Justice (‘D.A.N.C.E.’).

Best Film

Winner: ’Control’

Nominees: ’Hot Fuzz’, ’Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End’, ’The Simpsons Movie’, ’Superbad’

Best Radio Show

Winner: Zane Lowe (Radio 1)

Nominees: Russell Brand (Radio 2, Chris Moyles (Radio 1), Colin Murray (Radio 1), Jo Whiley (Radio 1).

Best Solo Artist

Winner: Kate Nash

Nominees: Jack Penate, Amy Winehouse, Jamie T, Patrick Wolf

Best Track

Winner: Arctic Monkeys (’Fluorescent Adolescent’)

Nominees: Bloc Party (’Flux’, The Cribs (’Men’s Needs’), Oasis (’Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’), The Wombats (‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’)

Worst Band

Winner: The Hoosiers

Nominees: Panic At The Disco, 30 Seconds To Mars, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy

Worst Dressed

Winner: Amy Winehouse

Nominees: Johnny Borrell, Pete Doherty, Mika, Gerard Way

Villain Of The Year

Winner: George W Bush

Nominees: Johnny Borrell, Tony Blair, Amy Winehouse, Gordon Brown

Sexiest Man

Winner: Noel Fielding

Nominees: Julian Barrett, Nicky Wire, Holwin’ Pelle Almqvist, Patrick Wolf

Sexiest Woman

Winner: Kylie Minogue

Nominees: Jenny Lewis, Rihanna, Hayley Williams, Rachael Yamagata

Worst Album

Winner: Britney Spears (’Blackout’)

Nominees: (’1973’), The Hoosiers (’The Trick To Life’), Mika (’Life In Cartoon Motion’, Leona Lewis (’Spirit’)

Hero Of The Year

Winner: Pete Doherty

Nominees: Noel Fielding, Thom Yorke, Ryan Jarman, Matt Bellamy

Best Website

Winner: Facebook

Nominees:Myspace. Bebo, Last.fm, YouTube

Best Music DVD

Winner: Nirvana (’Unplugged In New York’)

Nominees:Babyshambles (’Up The Shambles’), Led Zeppelin (’The Song Remains The Same’), Oasis (’Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’), Amy Winehouse (’You Know I’m Trouble’)

Best Music Blog

Winner: The Modern Age

Nominees:The Hype Machine, Nothing But Green Lights, Spinner, Stereogum

Best Dressed

Winner: Noel Fielding

Nominees:Pete Doherty, Kate Nash, Gerard Way, Alex Turner.

Best Band Blog

Winners: Radiohead

Nominees: Foals, Lily Allen, Lightspeed Champion, The Streets

Best Album Artwork

Winners: The Good, The Bad & The Queen

Nominees: Arctic Monkeys (‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’), The Killers (‘Sawdust’), Kings of Leon (‘Because Of The Times’), Manic Street Preachers (‘Send Away The Tigers’)

 

Now I've linked to it a million times.

Whoops.