BRITs Hits!

A couple of weeks ago, on Wednesday 21st February 2018, some of the best loved music acts came together to celebrate the biggest singles, albums and overall acts of the last year. Hosted by Jack Whitehall, it was a night of celebration, playful insults and, as ever, slight controversy! So...what were the big moments of the night?

Little Fix?

I thought I would get the slightly controversial moment out the way. Every year, the award for Best British Video would allow the public to vote on Twitter for their winner. The award starts with 10 nominaitons, which are announced on nomination night. Each week, until the Friday or the Monday before the BRITs (depending on what day the votes close; last year it was the Monday, this year it was the Friday), an act gets eliminated until we are left with 5 nominees ready to battle it out on the actual BRIT Awards night.

Here is where it gets controversial...every week Little Mix were number one on the votes leaderboard and to through each week. When the votes were opened on the night, Little Mix were, again, consistently on the top of the leaderboard, with Harry Styles being second. However, when it came to the announcement of the winner...Harry Styles won.

Cue mass hysteria amongst Little Mix fans on Twitter accusing the BRITs of being rigged. Now...not to cause any controversy myself but is it really a big deal they lost? I know how big a fan you can be of a music act (believe me, I've been there done that...I had lots of Steps memorabilia and cried when they split up) but surely you should be happy that Little Mix at least got nominated. Have they split up? No.  Have their sales fallen since they lost? No. Have they won awards before and after they lost? Yes. As long as they continue to make music, fans will still have Little Mix.

Anyway...the BRITs released a statement saying that the last leaderboard wasn't a valid representation of the outcome, considering the votes needed to be counted and verified. However...it seems that the whole thing was too little too late for Little Mix fans...

Jack Whitehall was less controversial...but still made a few playful digs!

I felt that the 2018 BRIT Awards host, Jack Whitehall was a breath of fresh air. Sure...the likes of Dermot O'Leary, Emma Willis and Ant and Dec are the hosts with the mosts but I couldn't imagine them saying any of the insults that Jack Whitehall came out with.

Whitehall came out with many insults about topics such as Paul from S Club 7's attempt to sell his BRIT Award on Ebay (There ain't no auction like an S Club Auction!), calling Sam Smith a less upbeat version of Adele, and making Liam Payne and Cheryl say hello to their little one (Hello Niall). Oh...and the awkward moment when he reminded Jesy Nelson from Little Mix about THAT attempt of doing a Jamaican accent...



Performances

2018 was probably the most varied show since 2014, in terms of performances (I'm sorry BRITs that's just my opinion!). It started off with a performance from Justin Timberlake, which unfortunately I found a bit lacklustre. However, I have to admit, I only started watching the BRITs halfway through, so I can't really comment having only watched the end of the performance!

Elsewhere, Ed Sheeran provided a typically tear-jerking performance of his new single, Supermarket Flowers, which I think could be considered an "Adele moment." Everyone went silent and you could hear a pin drop as Ed performed. Ed's fellow chart topper Sam Smith also performed. However, I know Too Good at Goodbyes is one of his biggest songs but do we really need to hear it again? I would have preferred to hear One Last Song.




Meanwhile, two of the biggest rock acts came to perform completely contrasting performances. On one side the Foo Fighters decided they would perform The Sky Is a Neighbourhood on the roof of a specially built cabin, which thankfully didn't collapse! On the other hand, Liam Gallagher came to perform a special performance of Live Forever, in tribute to the victims of the Manchester terror attack.  This was preceded by a speech from Gary Barlow, which paid tribute to those who died. The BRITs itself was dedicated to those who lost their lives.

Awards

The big winners of the night were Dua Lipa and Stormzy, who both walked away with two awards each; Dua won Best British Female and Best British Breakthrough, and Stormzy for Best British Male and British Album of the Year (yes...I thought Ed Sheeran was going to win both awards as well).

Elsewhere, Foo Fighters won the best International Group Prize, and Rag n Bone Man won the Best Single award.  Furthermore, Lorde won Best International Female and Kendrick Lamar won Best International Male, despite his disastrous performance, which involved technical difficulties, as well as most of his performance being muted on TV, due to his not-so-family friendly lyrics (this moment hilariously made my Dad think there was problems with our TV!).

Finally, the most ironic thing to ever happen on the BRIT Awards (as far as I know) was when the Gorrillaz won the Best British Group. "Why?! What's ironic about that?" I hear everyone reading this post shouting at their screens. Well...cast your minds back to 2012 when Adele won the Best British Album Award and James Cordon had to cut Adele's speech off in order to allow Blur to perform, due to the BRITs time constraints. Gorillaz happen to have Damon Albarn as a sort-of frontman (Damon Albarn is the voice of the Gorillaz lead singer), who is also the frontman of Blur. Gorillaz were cut off after Damon decided to launch into a drunken rant about politics and swore in the middle of his speech. Cue Jack whitehall to make the situation even worse/ more hilarious: "I don't want this to be another Adele moment!"

We'll...there you go...the highlights and the low lights of the BRITs...I wonder what next year will bring?

Em x