Sinister: Yet more edit on the Brits

[Arthur Chan]

Manic Street Preachers, Robbie Williams Top Brit Awards 



02/17/99 06:32
Saw this and thought it was worth posting...if anyone is interested....the
pictures are missing but..oh well....
Photo: The Manic Street Preachers won for Best British Group and Best Album.


SonicNet Music News reports
<http://www.pointcast.com/cgi-bin/sonicnet.cgi?location=www.sonicnet.com/new
s>: LONDON -- There was no big controversy at this year's Brit Awards, just
some small curiosities.

A band that's been releasing albums for three years was named Best Newcomer.
Fans began leaving during a reunion performance by the Eurythmics, which was
supposed to be one of the night's highlights. And the night's biggest
ovation wasn't for a musician, but for a boxer.

There were three big winners at the U.K. equivalent of the Grammys, held
Tuesday night at the Docklands Arena: pop star Robbie Williams won three
awards, while Australian pop singer Natalie Imbruglia and Welsh rockers the
Manic Street Preachers, each won two.

There was no incident to match Chumbawamba member Danbert Nobacon's dousing
of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott with a bucket of ice water at the
1998 ceremony, or Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker's disruption of Michael
Jackson's performance in 1996 -- Cocker jumped onstage and mooned the
audience.

The Preachers were named Best British Group and also won the award for Best
Album, for This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. The album, which includes the
single "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next"
<http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Manic_Street_Preachers/If_You_Tol
erate_This_Your_Children_Will_Be_Next.ram> (RealAudio excerpt), has yet to
be released in the U.S.

"We are the people's group," Preachers bassist Nicky Wire told an audience
that was part industry, part fans. "We believe if you've got something to
say, you should say it to as many people as possible."

The Preachers performed their forthcoming U.K. single, "You Stole the Sun
>From My Heart," during the ceremony.

The night's first award went to Scottish indie rockers Belle and Sebastian,
who beat out the boy band 5ive and pop group Steps to be named Best British
Newcomer -- despite having released three albums and several EPs over the
past three years. The most recent of those albums is The Boy With the Arab
Strap (1998), which includes "It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career"
<http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Belle_And_Sebastian/It_Could_Have
_Been_A_Brilliant_Career.ram> (RealAudio excerpt).

Culture Club singer Boy George, who presented the Best Dance Act award to
big-beat DJ Fatboy Slim later in the night, said, "I'm very excited about
Belle and Sebastian!," when asked what his highlight of the evening was.

U2 singer Bono dissed the upcoming celebration of the new millennium while
speaking on behalf of Jubilee 2000, a lobbying effort aimed at asking the
world's richest countries to cancel the debts of poor countries.

"This whole concept of celebrating the millennium, the whole concept of
celebrating a moment in time, what is it -- it's bollocks [nonsense], isn't
it?" Bono said.

But he said the Jubilee 2000 plan, which supporters have compared to the
1985 charity concert Live Aid in terms of potential impact, is "the biggest
idea I have ever heard, an idea that might give the millennium some meaning.
We've just got to stop asking starving people to give back the money our
governments have loaned plus interest."

Bono then walked to a table where former heavyweight boxing champion
Muhammad Ali, another supporter of the movement, was sitting. He gave Ali an
award recognizing Jubilee 2000, and the boxer received a prolonged standing
ovation.

Another ovation might have been expected for Eurythmics Dave Stewart and
Annie Lennox, who accepted an award for Outstanding Contribution to British
Music -- Motown legend Stevie Wonder presented it to them -- and then ended
the show by performing together for the first time in seven years.

But the crowd starting leaving during the five-song set, during which they
played such '80s hits as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Here Comes
the Rain Again," with Wonder joining in on harmonica and keyboards.

Lennox and Stewart, who are working on a Eurythmics reunion album wore
matching Union Jack outfits, and Lennox made a plea on behalf of two black
murder victims who are at the center of a controversy over police
investigations in the U.K.

Another performance highlight was the pairing of David Bowie and Placebo --
glam-rockers old and new -- for a version of '70s rockers T. Rex's "20th
Century Boy," a song Placebo performed in the movie "Velvet Goldmine." Bowie
wore a full-length leather coat and a hairdo that harked back to his
mid-'70s, Low image.

Robbie Williams, former singer for the pop group Take That, won awards for
Best Single ("Angels"), Best Video ("Millennium") and Best British Male. He
opened the show by descending to the stage, via a cable, from the arena
ceiling, and performing the single "Let Me Entertain You" surrounded by a
horde of futuristically clad dancers.

Charlotte Heatcote, 23, a Williams fan, said he was "the most fanciable man
alive" and "better than everybody else there."

Imbruglia, an Australian actress-turned-singer whose "Torn"
<http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Imbruglia,_Natalie/Torn.ram>
(RealAudio excerpt) was a major hit in 1998, was named Best International
Newcomer and Best International Female.

"I came to London to act, and I hadn't any idea of the struggles that were
coming," she said. "I'd like to thank Britain for all the challenges it
presented me." 
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