Brit Awards Nominations

I was reading on Stereogum this morning that the Brit Awards nominations are out.

Stereogum and its commenters had the expected snarky comments about the awards and the status of British music "the performers list is a vertitable who's whom of acts you love to be indifferent about, like Corrine Bailey Rae, Snow Patrol, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Take That, The Killers, Amy Winehouse ..."

My favorite comment was "You're bound to be indifferent, and rightly so. The British music scene is currently plagued by Indie bands with their knowing winks and 'realism' in their lyrics. Hell, I still haven't been involved with any of the stuff most of these bands talk about, nor do I know anyone who has. Realism, my arse."

Oh, horrors! Indie bands with their knowing winks! That separates them from US bands how exactly?

Here I am, once again, beating the drum for the British pop music, but it is enormously entertaining. I adore Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, and many of the nominated bands. Corinne Bailey Rae is very talented and, though I am not crazy about her album, I love her cover of Munich. I hope she can become a British Alicia Keys, who also had crappy over-produced first album and then used her live shows and her covers to demonstrate the depth of her artistry before releasing a great second album and using her power for good.

I am actually looking forward to seeing the Brit Awards - they put together unexpected pairings and performances and something interesting usually happens.

I have a couple of songs from past Brit Awards below. Frankly, they are not great covers, but I am glad to have them because they fill out my covers collection.

Mp3: From Brit Awards 2004: LoveCats (The Cure cover) by Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua.

Mp3: From the Brit Awards 2005: Ain't Nobody (Rufus and Chaka Khan cover) by Daniel Bedingfield and Natasha Bedingfield. (It's an especially icky cover since they are siblings.)