Great puzzling openings from music journalism of our time

You know it's going to be bad when a website tells you there are Six Things You Need To Know about a Bruno Mars gig. Six things? You only need three - where, when it starts and when it finishes. That's all you need to avoid the thing like an ebola-ravaged groundhog.

But when the MLive article starts, it gets even odder:

Bruno Mars is the most ubiquitous pop star to play Van Andel Arena in a long time.

What does that mean?

I suspect the idea they were going for was he's the most famous, or simply the biggest, pop star to play the venue for a long time, but it's a really odd way of phrasing it.

"Where are we going, lads?"
"To be ubiquitous."
"How ubiquitous?"
"More ubiquitous than most other acts."

Katy Perry's playing the arena in a few weeks. She's even more ubiquitous.

Bruno Mars discovers his own knock-off CDs

Bruno Mars has been playing some dates in Thailand, and during some downtime, popped into a local market. He found some bootleg copies of his own records there:

He also posted a picture of himself smiling as he showed off four pirated CDs of his own music. "Got these Bootleg CDs #WhatayaGonnaDo? #Bangkok," he wrote.

It also appeared that the vendor was not aware that Bruno Mars was checking out his pirated products.

Apparently Mars went up to the stall holder, showed him the CDs and said "I think these are a bit dodgy"; to which the market guy replied "yeah, mate, I agree but you can see why the record company wanted a slicker Michael Buble, can't you?"

Who lost the Superbowl?

It wasn't Denver.

Even before the Super Bowl show, Bruno Mars was a highly successful young performer – he wouldn’t have been invited otherwise. Though the typical football fan might not have been aware of Mars before the half time show, he’s had a pretty good thing going for a few years now. But, however big he was before, the Super Bowl is bound to make him bigger – especially given the great performance he gave.

We all lost the Superbowl.

On the other hand...

It's possible that ContactMusic might not have been on top of its game when it wrote this.

Brits 2014: The nominations

It's considered bad luck to not have your Christmas decorations down by the time the Brit Awards shortlist is released, so let's hope your tree is packed away.

Moving a large pile of baubles to one side, let's see what we've got this year.

Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding, Bruno Mars and Bastille are all going to play the event.

In totally unconnected news, Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding, Bruno Mars and Bastille have all been nominated.

For some reason, they've produced a shortlist for Critic's Choice, even although they announce the winner of that prize at the same time as the shortlist - so, congratulations Sam Smith; bad luck to Chloe Howl and Ella Eyre. Especially to Chloe Howl, who must be wondering why critics have favoured Sam Smith's plodding-about-in-a-dead-mans-coat over her work. It's like a fun fair losing out to a domino table.

Smith presumably helped through his work with Disclosure, whose name ripples through the shortlists alongside that of Bastille. It's actually quite positive to see this - two names that I don't think you'd have been able to predict having such resonance this time last year.

Elsewhere it's business as usual: Lady GaGa, despite her only having done a shit record last year. Pink, despite her not having done any records at all. Bruno Mars, despite him being Bruno Mars.

That godawful One Direction One Way Or Another record has somehow been picked as one of the best singles of the year.

It's unclear what's more surprising - that Olly Murs is considered to have made one of the best singles of 2013, or that - if we accept this as a fact - he's not considered to be one of the best male solo artists of the year.

Anyway, here's the slim pickings that some poor sods will have to weigh against each other in full:

British Male Solo Artist
David Bowie
Jake Bugg
James Blake
John Newman
Tom Odell

British Female Solo Artist
Birdy
Ellie Goulding
Jessie J
Laura Marling
Laura Mvula

British Group
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Disclosure
One Direction
Rudimental

British Breakthrough Act
Bastille
Disclosure
Laura Mvula
London Grammar
Tom Odell

Critics' Choice
Sam Smith
(Winner)

Chlöe Howl
Ella Eyre

British Single
Bastille - 'Pompeii'
Calvin Harris/Ellie Goulding - 'I Need Your Love'
Disclosure ft AlunaGeorge - 'White Noise'
Ellie Goulding - 'Burn'
John Newman - 'Love Me Again'
Naughty Boy ft Sam Smith - 'La La La'
Olly Murs - 'Dear Darlin''
One Direction - 'One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)'
Passenger - 'Let Her Go'
Rudimental ft Ella Eyre - 'Waiting All Night'

British Album of the Year
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Bastille - Bad Blood
David Bowie - The Next Day
Disclosure - Settle
Rudimental - Home

British Producer of the Year
Ethan Johns
Flood (Mark Ellis) & Alan Moulder
Paul Epworth

International Male Solo Artist
Bruno Mars
Drake
Eminem
John Grant
Justin Timberlake

International Female Solo Artist
Janelle Monae
Katy Perry
Lady Gaga
Lorde
Pink

International Group
Arcade Fire
Daft Punk
Haim
Kings of Leon
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

The Kings Of Leon. Nobody actually likes the Kings Of Leon, do they? They just exist to pad out this sort of thing.

Now, time to try and shove tinsel into a tube.

VMAs 2013: The year Miley Cyrus waved her arse about a bit

Seriously, who cares about the VMAs any more? MTV doesn't even show music videos, unless they happen to be being shot by someone in their never ending poor/rich/Amish/drunk constructed reality shows. I mean, thinking that the VMAs in 2013 are somehow culturally relevant is to show you don't really understand the modern world at all, right?

Yes, that's the Daily Mail not only getting excited by the VMAs, but giving it the sort of "clear the homepage" treatment it normally takes a former PM dying or an election to swing.

The VMAs, though, provide MTV and the Mail with the same thing, though: a little bit of content with women wearing push-up bras. Or no bras at all.

MTV is thrilled by it:

Miley Cyrus is queen of the twerk

The Mail, of course, is shocked:

I say "shocked". I mean "even more thrilled", of course. Seriously, the Daily Mail is so shocklighted that it takes two news stories to cover 'Miley Cyrus continues to do the sort of lungey-sexy thing she's been trying to do ever since she stopped being Hannah Montana'.

To get an idea of how terrible the VMAs are, you don't even have to worry about the winners: the categories themselves scream "executives who think they're still young". For what it's worth, here's the winners:

Video Of The Year: Justin Timberlake, Mirrors
Best Female Video: Taylor Swift, I Knew You Were Trouble
Best Male Video: Bruno Mars, Locked Out of Heaven
Best Pop Video: Selena Gomez, Come & Get It
Best Hip-Hop Video: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton, Can't Hold Us
Best Rock Video: Thirty Seconds to Mars, Up In the Air
Best Collaboration: Pink and Nate Ruess of Fun., Just Give Me a Reason
Best Video With A Social Message: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert, Same Love
Best Song Of The Summer: One Direction, Best Song Ever
Artist To Watch: Austin Mahone, What About Love
Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award: Justin Timberlake
Best Direction: David Fincher for Justin Timberlake's Suit & Tie
Best Visual Effects: Capital Cities, Safe and Sound
Best Choreography: Bruno Mars, Treasure
Best Art Direction: Janelle Monae featuring Erykah Badu, Q.U.E.E.N.
Best Cinematography: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton, Can't Hold Us
Best Editing: Justin Timberlake, Mirrors
Best Latino Artist: Tr3s

Justin Timberlake? Bruno Mars? Sheesh.

You might have spotted that 2012's awkwardly-named "most share-worthy artist" category has been quietly dropped; the suspicion was that was a made-up category to give One Direction a prize.

At least that hasn't happened this year, with the Direction getting, erm, "best song of the summer". Yes, it's a category that hasn't happened before, and will never happen again, but it's in no way a made-up thing to reward the band for turning up to the show. In no way at all.

One last footnote: the Mail lists all the winners of the awards. Except for the best Latino artist, with Tr3s' category mysteriously not making it onto the paper's list.

Liam Gallagher buys some slippers

It's okay, Liam Gallagher, it's okay:

He said: ''[Rock groups like] Palma Violets don't do it for me, and I'm not having that Peace, man. There's something about them that's not my thing.

''It's sad out there man, There's nobody to have a pop at any more, which is very f***ing disturbing. I like Emeli f***ing Sande. I think she's cool man. Bruno Mars' new single is mega, that ballady one on the piano.''

You're a middle-aged man. It's alright, Liam.

Maybe if you started to make the music you like, rather than a half-arsed attempt to sound like the music you made when you were young, you might start to be more comfortable in yourself.

Look, Liam: Elasticated slacks. Why not make an order, Liam? Go on.

Gordon in the morning: Mistaken identity

Could there be anything worse than being mistaken for Bruno Mars?

“Some guy at the airport came up to me and went, ‘Hey, Bruno!’

“I was bit taken aback so I just went along with it and started singing Grenade.

“He was none the wiser, although he probably thought I was acting like an idiot.”

Normally, that'd be a terrible person to be mistaken for, but given this was Jamie Cullum, perhaps being mistaken for Bruno Mars might be getting off easy.

Bruno Mars: singing vagina

As if Bruno Mars singing about vaginas wasn't awkward enough, he's now talking about singing about vaginas. Readers with toes which can curl are advised to look away now:

''It feels good to sing about. It feels...sexy. It puts you in a sexy frame of mind. It feels good to project. Sex is a great party starter.

''The verses to me are what really makes that song: 'Swimming in your water is something spiritual'.

''If you think it's blasphemous, then obviously you don't know that it's poetry.''

I don't think anyone thinks of it as being a blasphemous line, Bruno. Unless there's a religion which has a Thou Shalt Not Cringe commandment.

"Swimming in your waters". Bruno talks like a man who's never got beyond splashing about in the shallow end.

MTV EMAs: Eminem? EMINEM?

Trying to find a list of winners at last night's MTV EMAs in Belfast, I had trouble working out if I was reading results from last night or about five years ago. Eminem and Linkin Park? But there's Bieber and GaGa and Bruno Mars, so it must be for 2011. Or p... hang about: Bruno Mars? Two prizes for Bruno Mars?

Bruno Mars, a man so pointless you can't actually make an origami model of him because when you start with a flat sheet of paper it's already too complex a shape?

Bruno Mars, a man who milliners are offering money to stop wearing hats?

Bruno Mars, a man who would struggle to be picked out of a criminal line-up even if his victim had been his own mother?

Bruno Mars, a man who is so friction-free they rub his music onto slipways when they have trouble persuading liners to launch?

In a prize giving where 30 Seconds To Mars are judged to be the "best" alternative act (alternative to what?) and Bieber the best male artist, it's some going to pick a winner even more insulting to Euterpe, but giving a prize to Bruno Mars manages it.

Bruno Mars. A man so inert they pump him into mines during rescues to ensure there are no explosions.

Here's the winners in full:

Best Female: Lady GaGa
Best Male: Justin Bieber
Best Pop: Justin Bieber
Best Song: Lady GaGa - "Born This Way"
Best Rock: Linkin Park
Best Video: Lady GaGa - "Born This Way"
Biggest Fans: Lady GaGa
Best Alternative: 30 Seconds to Mars
Best Hip Hop Eminem
Best World Stage: 30 Seconds to Mars
Best Push: Bruno Mars
Best New: Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars. A man so devoid of charisma he makes Bruno Brookes ashamed of his given name.

Global Icon: Queen
Best North American Act: Britney Spears
Best Worldwide: Big Bang

It's been a shame that MTV has more-or-less given up on music programming in the last few years. Perhaps that explains why its prize-giving is so timid.