Gordon in the morning: Star of the Brits 2013 says Brits was boring

This morning, Robbie Williams is expanding on how dull the Brits were:

He said: “It’s a lot of back-slapping."

Yes, Robbie. An industry-created awards ceremony handing out awards to people selected by the industry, mainly designed to increase sales would tend to consist of back-slapping. That's surely not news to you, is it? The Brits have been running like this since 1977.

Do you have a counterplan, Mr Williams?

I think people should be entertained.

Actually, for the Brits that does sound like a pretty out-there idea.

It's not clear if Williams has yet thought through the implications of his 'there's no Santa' moment - if he has yet to realise the constant booking and feting of Take That & himself is a major symptom of the problem.

“I was backstage and it was dead — it might as well have been a dentists’ convention."

Actually, a dentists' convention might have been a bit more interesting, as it wouldn't have been the same bloody dentists who turn up to every possible event of this sort. Watching root canal work might be preferable to watching Emeli Sande traipse through the album again.

Williams then goes on to list the same list of things that everyone lists when they say how great the Brits were:

I’m from 1996 and 1997 where there was CHUMBAWAMBA throwing a bucket of water in JOHN PRESCOTT’s face...

That was a thing that wasn't really "entertaining" for the audience as it wasn't shown as part of the ceremony.

or JARVIS COCKER getting up on stage and then being thrown off when MICHAEL JACKSON was on

Again, that didn't entertain people directly, as by the time the awards show was made to air, Jarvis' stage invasion had been edited out.

Or OASIS being nasty to MICHAEL HUTCHENCE

Wasn't that a bloke who was living in the 1960s objecting to getting a prize from a man famous in the 1980s? On a par with, say, a dental surgeon refusing to accept a prize handed out by a hygienist.

or me offering LIAM GALLAGHER out

Nobody other than you even remembers that happening, Robbie.

The trouble with this is that the incidents he mentions - mostly - happened during the height of the control-freakery period, when they didn't even show the programme live lest something happen. You can't force 'things' to occur, and if you try... well, you'll end up with James Corden presiding over a dental convention.

Brits 2013: On everyone's lips

They came up with a great wheeze at the Brits - this year, their website has hosted a Twitter index, designed to show how the expensive awards ceremony has added buzz to the artists involved.

Unfortunately, it really just shows the opposite.

Here's the tracker for the best band nominees:

The green line is One Direction. The yellow one, which you can see gets a tiny little pulse, is Muse. The others... well, the others are there somewhere.

Perhaps that's a little unfair - there are always a gazillion tweets about One Direction, so they've stretched the scale of the graph and crushed any other group's fluctuations. Let's take a different category, with lower peaks. Here's the breakthrough category:


Blue is Ben Howard, purple is Rita Ora. So, yes, Ben Howard did get a massive boost during the event - mostly hostile 'who the hell is this?' and 'some sort of wet dishtowel has dropped over my television' tweets - and then vanishes again.

One last one: album of the year (these are tweets about the artists, not the albums themselves):

Sande's in blue; yellow is Mumford & Sons; green is Paloma Faith and purple is Plan B.

If the idea was to demonstrate to BPI members that the awards generates a short, sharp spike in interest, but only for a couple of artists, the graphs do their job. Somehow don't think that was the plan, though.

Gordon in the morning: Liam! He'll tell us what to do!

There's a photo from the Beady Eye album sessions on Gordon's pages this morning:

LIAM GALLAGHER’s dour face could well be the result of watching this year’s boring Brits.

Yeah, boring Brits. I blame the sponsors, like, ooh... what was the newspaper column that was involved again?

Anyway, Gordon finds Liam laid back and able to take criticism:

But judging from this snap, the singer seems to be taking whatever is bothering him in his stride.

If by "in his stride" you mean "ignoring the nosie and fuss around him and wondering what pudding will be this evening", I guess you could be right.

Gordon in the morning: He didn't enjoy the Brits

Yesterday morning, we saw that Gordon Smart hadn't got round to updating his online column with any news from the O2. Today, we discover why - it wasn't torpor on Gordon's part. No, it was the Brits themselves that was torpid:

The opportunities were there to make the night less bland but nobody has been sacked, arrested or gone to hospital — so well done everyone.

Ooh, sarcasm.

It's not entirely clear what Smart means by "the opportunities were there" - on the day of the event he was getting excited at James Corden prepping for the show by having a little snooze, which is hardly a curtain-raiser to a modern bacchanalia.

Smart seems mostly convinced that - like a bad party - it'd have been totally different if some other people had turned up:

The Rolling Stones never showed up, and if they had they should have closed the show.

... and if they had, they should have played Jumping Jack Flash, and if they had, they should have had a giant robot on stage, and if they had, they should have had the robot shoot lasers from its eyes in time to the drums, and if they had they should have made those lasers set fire to Paul McCartney...

Really, the idea that very old men playing very old tunes in some sort of tax-efficient coda would have stirred things up a bit is sweet, but unlikely.

Well, The Stone Roses missed out on a nomination in the Best Live category despite entertaining 500,000 people last summer in fields up and down the country.

That's a fair point, you would have thought that The Stone Roses should at least have turned up on the shortlist.

But it's not obvious that Ian Brown, even had he won a prize, would have spent the evening before his 50th birthday (yes, really) throwing bread rolls at the audience.

Sadly, some of the personality has been lost along the Thames on the way from Earls Court to the cavernous O2.

Oh, yes. How we long for the old days of the intimate Earls Court. Nowadays, the Brits are held in the massive O2, with its capacity of 20,000; how happier we were when they took place at the snug 19,000 capacity Earls Court.

One of the reasons for the show becoming safer and - yes, blander - Gordon doesn't consider is the need to run an event which reflects warmly upon the sponsors. Giving of prizes is something which should be underwritten by marketing departments of multinational corporations will always lead organisers down a safety-first route.

Remind me again, Mr Smart - what was the newspaper column which was amongst those corporate sponsors?

You know what would make the Brits better? A lot more Brits

A startling and refreshing admission of failure from Jay Marciano, the European CEO of AEG, host of the Brits:

Eight out of ten people don't know the Brits is on tonight"

You're the man in charge of promoting what is meant to be the biggest musical event in the nation. It has a live slot on one of the main TV channels, and is co-sponsored by one of the UK's largest radio companies and the nation's biggest newspaper publisher. And still eight out of ten people have it drift by without them noticing. Now, it's not like this is an expedition to the North Pole, but I imagine you'd be proposing giving someone else the chance of promoting next year to see if they might be able to do a bit better?

Oh. No.

"so we plan to make it a week-long celebration."

Oh, of course. Having failed to get anyone to notice a massive gig on a single night, you think watering it down across a series of nights would somehow help.

The model Marciano is proposing is copying the Grammys - so not spinning the prize giving out over a calendar week, but boosting the main event by having a run of concerts running up to it.

It's not entirely clear how this is going to work. If this is to boost the 20% awareness rate, these extra gigs will have to be very special and very high profile.

How are you going to get the top-line acts you need to play this? It's unlikely ITV are going to want to televise a solid week of gigs, certainly not on ITV1, not during the European football season. Maybe ITV2 might pick them up, or one of the more distant music channels. But the more digits in the channel position on the EPG, the lower the audience, so the lower the chance of attracting top acts, and the lesser the chance of raising 'awareness'.

And that, of course, is a downward spiral.

And where are you going to find bands wanting to play one-off dates in a massive space like the O2? You might get someone to redirect an existing tour there, but is there going to be any enthusiasm for redirecting a European leg of a tour to London at the same time as everyone else?

Wasn't the idea of the Brits to support and promote British music - not for British musicians to be pressed in to service to support the Brits?

[Thanks to James in the Brits liveblog comments for the link]

Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the yesterday morning

Well, a big night last night for British music. I expect Gordon Smart's showbiz page is bubbling with news and excitement from the O2.

Let's have a quick look:

Emili Sande is going to close the Brits? Harry Styles was out late the other night? Isn't that... well, yesterday's news?

Yes, the showbiz editor's flagship column from the UK's biggest-selling daily title has responded to the Brits by... sleeping in.

The Sun does have coverage, just elsewhere across the site. Which might not matter overmuch, but... didn't the Bizarre column specifically co-sponsor one of the prizes last night?

It falls to Alison Maloney to try and capture the spirit of the event:

TAYLOR Swift dressed in a wedding dress to perform at the Brits – after an uncomfortable night listening to gags about ex Harry Styles’ love-life.

There's absolutely no evidence at all that Taylor Swift's night was "uncomfortable".

There's precious little evidence of "gags", either, come to that. Maloney bravely chronicles the supposedly rollicking moments:

Harry hid behind his programme as the host told him: “Sharon Osbourne is here, Annie Lennox is here. Who have you got your eye on?”
[...]
Introducing Nick Grimshaw, the Gavin and Stacey star said: “He’s the man who ordered a stripper for Harry Styles’ 19th birthday – which meant that, for a moment at least, Harry saw a woman with her clothes on.”
[...]
[Sharon Osbourne] said: “Where is that little Harry Potter boy? I want to see if he’s got his magic stick? That’s his willy.”

As Maloney was typing these in, did it occur to her that the best of them fall short of wit by quite a distance? In fact, ITV could have saved itself a lot of time if they'd simply flashed "Harry Styles has passed puberty" on the screen.

Gordon in the morning: Corden in the morning

Have you ever wondered how James Corden prepares to present the Brits? Not 'why', that philosophical question will have to wait for another time, but 'how'?

Gordon knows:

He has about an hour’s kip and sits playing FIFA minutes before he’s called to deliver gags to boozed-up nominees and millions of TV viewers.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/4803543/James-Corden-says-he-prepares-to-host-Brits-by-playing-FIFA.html#ixzz2LQKde4nJ

Judging by last year's show, he continues the kip through to roughly the Best International Female award.

Meanwhile, the point at which we can all return to everyday life tonight will be marked by Emeli Sande closing the awards.

Is this a rule now? Has some sort of law been passed that she has to take a key role in public events? Apparently she even showed up at Sports Personality Of The Year, which seems to confirm she gets booked because everyone else booked her, a constant log-rolling which never interacts with the awkward question 'yes, but is she any good?'

Still, if the show overruns a bit, no great loss if ITV have to roll the credits and hit the off button before things are finished. Because if you miss a couple of minutes of Sande, she'll be back doing the FA Cup semi finals, or Norwich Businessman Of The Year, or the Mirror Pride Of Britain Awards.

Gordon in the morning: Brits 2013 - Olly Murs has hopes

Olly Murs is making up the shortlist numbers - sorry, has been nominated in two categories in tomorrow night's Brit awards. He's not expecting much, though:

Olly said: “It’s an award that’s voted for by the industry, so I won’t win. If it was voted by the fans then I might have a chance."

Given that Olly is on Syco, part of Sony, and is a complete creation of the music industry, this suggestion that somehow it conspires against him is cute.

Even cuter the suggestion that if it was down to a fan's vote he'd stand a better chance - rather than the organisers simply putting all the prizes in a box and sending them off to One Direction before they'd even published the website.

“It’s great to be nominated this year, with those other guys, so perhaps it’s a step forward within the industry and with journalists. Maybe they’re starting to notice my achievements.”

It turns out Olly is wandering about with a sense that he doesn't get his due. Why don't people recognise his achievements? It's not everyone who can dress like Mickey Pearce and not be ashamed to leave the house, you know.

He said: “People come from The X Factor and they might stick around a year or two, so I’m proud to carry on selling records, to grow a fanbase and be on three albums.

“It’s a massive achievement and it doesn’t get highlighted enough, the three albums I’ve released and the sales I’ve achieved. I think it’s amazing and I’m really chuffed, but it doesn’t get written.”

Suggesting that getting a massive launch via a then-popular television programme and the support of one of the largest record companies in the world is somehow a challenge rather than an enormous leg-up - it's only a surprise he called his autobiography Happy Days instead of My Struggle.

Gordon in the morning: We are never, ever getting backstage together

I'm not sure how much credence I'm giving the story that Brits organisers have been rejigging rehearsal schedules to prevent a backstage meeting of Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, who are both performing at next week's awards.

I can't quite believe that Styles and Swift are both performing there, come to that, but let's let that one pass.

Gordon has a "source":

A source said: “It was a bit of an oversight to say the least. The original plans were drawn up a while back when Harry and Taylor bumping into each other wouldn’t have been an issue.

“But they’ve had to have a bit of a rethink now. Mumford & Sons were meant to be rehearsing on the Monday with ROBBIE WILLIAMS, EMELI SANDE and BEN HOWARD — but they were happy to switch.

“It could have caused a bit of a headache if the Mumfords kicked off — but fortunately they played ball.”

Thank god that Marcus Mumford split with Swift on good terms, eh?

The problem with this story is that, if we're too believe that Styles and Swift rubbing against each other could set off a disaster which Tom Cruise himself would struggle to survive, then wouldn't it be better for that to happen during rehearsals rather than, you know, the night itself? That night they're both going to have to be there anyway, right?

Unless this is all a barked-up story to try and raise interest in one of the least enticing Brit awards show in years. But... that would never, ever happen, right?

Gordon in the morning: Brits adds Timberlake

Gordon is excited this morning by the news that Justin Timberlake will be playing the Brits.

Gordon describes Timberlake as "excellent value at awards shows", which sounds like the sort of thing you'd stick on a weak CV that needed a bit of fattening up - probably underneath "Photoshop Elements trained" but above "Cub scout troop leader [2003-2004]".

The rest of the world is filtering this news as "extended advert for MySpace's latest spluttering relaunch planned for ITV".

Brits 2013: They've nominated the Rolling Stones

So yesterday, the shortlist for the Brits was announced. A chance to show the world how Britain is leading in the music industry; our steely glint staring into the future.

And how do we show this? By, erm, nominating The Rolling Stones for best live band.

Amy Winehouse is also in the running for a prize - best female solo artist. Yes, you don't need to go and check on Wikipedia; she'd died before the qualifying period for the 2013 awards. And although she had a couple of posthumous albums released in the qualifying year, neither was considered good enough to make the album shortlist. This has the feel of the way Annie Lennox always seemed to be automatically nominated regardless of if she'd done anything much, but with a ghoulish tint to it.

Ironically, Adele, who has been working through the period, and released a record considered good enough to be nominated, isn't considered good enough to go on the shortlist.

Here's the nominations in full:

British breakthrough act
Alt-J; Ben Howard; Jake Bugg; Jessie Ware; Rita Ora

British female solo
Amy Winehouse; Bat for Lashes; Emeli Sandé; Jessie Ware; Paloma Faith

British group
One Direction; Alt-J; Mumford and Sons; Muse; The xx

British live act
Coldplay; Mumford and Sons; Muse; The Rolling Stones; The Vaccines

British male solo
Ben Howard; Calvin Harris; Olly Murs; Richard Hawley; Plan B

British producer
Damon Albarn; Jake Gosling; Paul Epworth

British single
Adele – Skyfall; Alex Clare – Too Close; Coldplay ft. Rihanna – Princess of China; DJ Fresh ft. Rita Ora – Hot Right Now; Emeli Sandé – Next to Me; Florence and the Machine – Spectrum; James Arthur – Impossible; Jessie J – Domino; Labrinth ft. Emeli Sandé – Beneath You're Beautiful; Olly Murs ft. Flo Rida – Troublemaker; Rita Ora ft. Tinie Tempah – R.I.P; Rizzle Kicks – Mama Do the Hump; Robbie Williams – Candy; Rudimental ft. John Newman – Feel the Love; Stooshe – Black Heart

Special recognition award
War Child

Critics' choice
Tom Odell

International female
Alicia Keys; Cat Power; Lana Del Rey; Rihanna; Taylor Swift

International group
Alabama Shakes; The Black Keys; Fun; The Killers; The Script

International male
Bruce Springsteen; Frank Ocean; Gotye; Jack White; Michael Bublé
Mastercard British Album Alt-J – An Awesome Wave; Emeli Sandé – Our Version of Events; Mumford and Sons – Babel; Paloma Faith – Fall to Grace; Plan B – Ill Manors

Gordon in the morning: The Brits are coming

The worst thing about New Year is that each change of calendar means that, somewhere, a shady group is getting ready to put on a Brit Awards show. Gordon's excited, though:

IN only six weeks the The Brit Awards 2013 will burst on to your TV – and they are shaping up to be one of the best on record.

Really? One of the best on record, you say?

MUSE, ROBBIE WILLIAMS, MUMFORD & SONS and ONE DIRECTION have all signed up to perform live with more acts to be announced.

JAMES CORDEN is back on board as host, so the winning formula is almost complete. THE ROLLING STONES could just be that extra-special ingredient — and are preparing the Deep Heat after a Best Live nomination.

Those two paragraphs appear to be completely at odds with the first one, surely?