Awards for old rope(y performances)

You expect the Brit Awards to reflect the charts and the success of UK artists at home and overseas, subsequently the nominations should not really contain any major surprises.

That’s mostly true of this year’s rabble, with a couple of exceptions that you can only assume are there to create headlines and head-scratching from columnists and bloggers alike. The Amy nomination is mentioned here so doesn’t need my input except to say that in a year when female vocalists continue to dominate it is just dumb beyond belief.

My ire is stoked by 'British Live Act' of course, five nominations which is exactly the same number as the total amount of major gigs played during 2012 by the most pathetic nomination, The Rolling Stones. I appreciate that the award is not intended for the hardest-working band or the highest-grossing (if it was that might make some sense) but it is an insult to the many British acts playing tirelessly around the world to nominate some old icons who have only strolled up and played under ten gigs in the last five years. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Of course the list it is significantly ‘pop’ as that is the way of the World right now, which means I shouldn’t really have a hope of predicting the winners but I’m going to try anyway. The full list is here and my choices (not at all based on my personal taste but possibly influenced by it) are as follows:

 

British breakthrough act     Rita Ora (outside bet for Ben Howard or Jake Bugg)
British female solo                Emeli Sandé

British group                         Mumford and Sons (outside bet on One Direction)
British live act                       Coldplay or Muse
British male solo                   Plan B
British producer                   Paul Epworth
British single                         Olly Murs ft. Flo Rida – Troublemaker  (difficult one to call as I think it’s voted for by listeners of Radio 1 – it is crowdsourced anyway and in the absence of One Direction or anyone with a massively influential fanbase to swamp the vote it has to be Olly, doesn’t it?)

International female             Lana Del Rey or Rihanna

International group              The Black Keys
International male                Bruce Springsteen
Mastercard British Album   Emeli Sandé – Our Version of Events or Mumford and Sons – Babel

 

This was for ‘fun’ rather than betting purposes (I wouldn’t suggest you waste your money in this way) and there’ll inevitably be one random winner that no-one could predict. The albums and male solo are wide open and Michael Buble could be the easy-listening choice for International Male if they go against heritage.