Whilst I was in Memphis I became a reporter for The Daily Helmsman newspaper for one semester. The University print newspaper had daily editions in both digital and print formats distributed across the city.
The Daily Helmsman
The Daily Helmsman
An icon, a queen, and everything the world needs. The BRITS 2019
By Luke Chapman
If you’ve read some of my previous pieces you’ll know Hugh Jackman has never made the cut in my opinion. He opened the show this year and I couldn’t help but feel like he just proved that, his dodgy vocals and weird performance didn’t set the night off right, showing how maybe Hollywood should stay his true home. The Critics choice award (decided weeks before the show) has gone to a good home this year with Sam Fender being the tipped next big talent. With Indie music forever growing in popularity, the Brits seem to have taken notice of what the public are truly listening to, and not just the money. This decision was very welcome, Sam is a great talent so make sure to keep an eye out for him in the next few years.
The Prius of pop” as quoted by Jack Whitehall was a large feature of the night. Taking home Best British Male, George Ezra provided a particularly “standard” performance of his huge hit “Shotgun”. I love George, but I do feel like “normal” or “standard” are generally the first words to come to mind when referencing the singer.
Little mix were up next taking home the most pointless award in history, best British video. With very little credit to the artist themselves, and fan voted, I don’t see why the Brit is a thing, but the girls were happy and the incorporation of raw British talent impressed me when they invited along Ms Banks to perform “Woman like me”. One of the most notable winners and performances of the night was the incredible Jorja Smith. To my surprise, she took home Best British Female against the likes of Florence and the Machine and Lily Allen, and I wasn’t disagreeing. Her voice is phenomenal, and she more than proved her talent with her performance of “Don’t watch me cry” which saw her album re-entering the charts.
Other winners of the night included Ariana Grande, The Carters, Drake, Tom Walker and Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa for Best Single. Unfortunately The 1975 SOMEHOW managed to also take home Best British band and Best album, I just find them way too pop for Indie, and just too weird and pointless for anyone. The worst part of the night was when Calvin Harris took home Best British Producer. I am in no way saying that he shouldn’t have been given the award, but did you know this award runs every year? This is the first time the award has been given out on TV as they normally just throw it into the ad break. The fact that all British producers are just shunned for a fan voted Brit is disgraceful! The only reason it made an appearance on the TV this year was because it was someone famous, but next year will it just be thrown back into obscurity? Calvin did pull off a great performance assembling Dua Lipa, Rag n bone man AND Sam Smith with his sassy hair flip, I was living for Sam!
With the annoyances out the way, we need to mention the icon, the queen, and most certainly everything the world needs. P!nk. This year Khalid appeared to present her with the award for contribution to music, which notably, she is the first ever non British artist to win. I am in constant awe of this phenomenal queen and I believe she is everything the music industry needs to be, her performance just cemented this. Still doing the rounds on social media, her five track performance included old and new songs, and even a cheeky feature with Dan from Bastille. The woman is an icon that everyone should look up too, she’s incredible and there are truly not enough positive words that can describe her. She made the night one to remember, and saved the entire show.
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If you’ve been living under a rock and missed out, the Brit awards took place last week at the O2 arena. The culmination of international talent happens every year under the tent in February and is arguably the biggest event in the British music calendar. The Brit institution is known for its championing of new artists, upcoming talent, and celebrating global successes, however it doesn’t come without its backlash. In the last few years its faced criticism of not being inclusive of true British culture. To combat this, they seemingly just gave every award to black artists the following year, and it yet again felt insincere. However they genuinely do seem to have taken notice and appear to have got their shit together a little more. But what went down this year?