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How to get a Brit Award 2011

• 18th Feb 2011

it has been a good few years since i've bothered to tune into The Brits.

not through any real feelings of resentment of the annual event, more that i'd simply become bored of it and didn't think that it was worth my time.

but this year, sat in my new home with my girlfriend and having invited a friend over, i would have found it quite hard and socially awkward to have avoided this year's ceremony

i was out of the room when Take That kicked off the whole thing and only caught the very end of their performance, while i was busy putting away laundry my girlfriend informed me that Plan B had won the Best Male Amy Winehouse award (at least i think that's what she said) and then i heard a little bit of nattering about how Adele looked like she had lost weight and started 'dressing posh' as i hung out the wet bed clothes to dry

when i rejoined the viewing in the front room i added my two cents worth by contributing that since Arcade Fire had picked up Best Album at the Grammies, i fully expected them to repeat that success in the Brit's International Album category, and i was right

as the programme plodded along and a handful more Vivien Westwood designed awards were handed out a rather obvious pattern seemed to be emerging.

Arcade Fire who had picked up two awards performed their song, Ready To Start, early winner Plan B performed a couple of tracks from The Defamation of Strcikland Banks, Rihanna picked up Best International Female after prancing around for a while and briefly miming three tracks merged into one, and winner of Best Single and Breakthrough Act, Tinie Tempah took to the stage to breeze through a medley of his own recent hits.

It appeared that the awards had organised some kind of trade-off – 'here, have an award in exchange for performing, thank you very much!'

other nominations that had us slightly thrown were International Breakthrough, surprisingly won by Justin Beiber who had been convincingly sat at a table near where the awards were handed out while no other nominees seemed to be in sight, and the biggest guessing game was for Best Female since all of the nominees were actually in attendance and none of them had been up for their turn to sing

(Adele presumably had traded her performance this year for 2012's award and Laura Marling seemed as pleasantly surprised as we were when her name was read out)

one of the biggest awards, Best Album, seemed to be wide open, if not for that fact that Mumford and Sons were still waiting patiently in the wings for their chance to thank their management for setting up such a lucrative sales boosting exchange for three minutes of singing, after Take That had already swooped in for Best Group (nice performance earlier lads, well done)

and the height of ludicrousness was when Cee-lo Green undone all of gobby James Corden's hard work jabbering on about this years's awards being carbon neutral or eco-friendly or some other equally green buzz-phrase, when he casually let slip as Corden questioned him about his travel arrangements, that his record company had laid on a private jet for him to fly into the country following his star turn at the Grammies.

all in all, 2011's Brit Awards proved to be a rather un-exciting and pedestrain music industry pantomime, headed up by a chosen few that will no doubt see the difference in their record sales next week.