It was ‘carnage’ at the O2, according to Jack Whitehall, but Nile Rodgers just called it a ‘vibe’. Dua Lipa and Stormzy were the big winners – the latter’s politically charged on-stage freestyle a fitting closer on another year
- Brit awards in pictures
- Report: Stormzy and Dua Lipa beat elders to snatch top prizes
- Stormzy asks ‘Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?’
The pizza’s congealed, we avoided having to swig a full bottle in the drinking game, and Ed Sheeran’s going home (almost) empty-handed (save for the one award he already knew he’d won). The Brits 2018 is over.
For anyone who hasn’t been following our intrepid liveblogging, here are the results in brief:
And breathe. It’s all over. Here’s the breadth of Twitter’s responses to Stormzy’s performance and calling out of Theresa May over her handling of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Love that Stormzy called out Theresa May over Grenfell! #BRITs2018 #BRITS
How tf is stormzy doing so good with all that water I can barely keep my eyes open when I’m the shower #BRITs2018
How is the Itv allowing someone to say we should burn down the https://t.co/0LOMyJplsP House down and think it is okay? @ITV #BRITs2018
"Glory to God, he made this happen"
Also, your hard work and graft, your talent, your fans for buying it, your PR team, managers, street team, radio stations.. But sure, God did his thing too I guess. (Real talk, I love the album but this shit annoys me) #BRITs2018 #BRITs
Some poor sod at ITV trying to type Stormzy subtiles #BRITs2018 pic.twitter.com/6iCOicIJ7n
Man called out Theresa May and Daily Mail live on the stage at the countries biggest music event. What a hero. #BRITS
Last year, he debuted the really rather good Shape of You remix with Ed Sheeran. This year, it’s time for the man they call The Problem, Stiff Chocolate, Wicked Skengman, or – if you’re even a little bit white – just plain Stormzy, to take to the stage himself. He does so under pouring rain to deliver Blinded By Your Grace Pt 2, backed by a gospel choir – the second of the evening! Stormzy’s though, dressed in the balaclavas of his album cover, is just that little bit gnarlier than Justin Timberlake’s.
I love: the sound of breaking glass on Stormzy’s table as he and his cohort celebrate Gang Signs & Prayer winning best British album, and the fact that his suit is long gone (he’s about to perform). Once more, he thanks God, and acknowledges how strange some people might find that in this day and age: “But if you know God, you know this is all him,” he says, continuing to thank album producer Fraser T Smith, his #Merky crew, his family – all here tonight – and admit to how much his debut album took out of him. “I’ve never worked on something like this in my life, never given my entire being, my entire emotion,” he says. “I didn’t have anything left after.”
This is thoroughly, thoroughly deserved for Stormzy, whose debut became the first grime album to debut at No 1 on the album charts (and on his own independent label, #Merky, to boot) last February. The Brits’ efforts to atone for the #BritsSoWhite debacle of 2016 (they diversified their voting academy to bring in 17% BAME panellists – still a long way off decent representation) are evident this evening, though you’d hope Gang Signs & Prayer would have triumphed any year, especially in a fairly weak category such as this: only J Hus’ Common Sense could even hope of touching it.
Jack Whitehall is claiming it’s “carnage” at the O2. It’s unclear whether he means genuine anarchy, or, y’know, things getting a bit out of hand at the end-of-term ball. Anyway, if it’s the former, please can ITV endeavour to actually show a bit of the mess during next year’s show. Nile Rodgers calls it “a vibe”! He can’t read the teleprompter. It’s fine, nobody’s paying attention any more.
The Brits hasn’t come in for accusations of sexism in the same way as the Grammys, mostly because unlike its US counterpart it still divides categories along gender lines, meaning that the disparity in recipients isn’t as pronounced. Still, fans are noticing some inconsistencies when it comes to the platforms offered to male and female performers:
So of the three women who performed tonight only one (Dua Lipa) was allowed to perform solo, ie without an unnecessary male accessory. Cool.
@LittleMix were leading when the voting was CLOSED and Harry won? Sorry, but something can't be right here. So sick of this doppelstandard when it comes to awarding women. #BritVoteLittleMix #BRITs2018 pic.twitter.com/VHDG2I8AvQ
There was a worry that thanks to spreading herself across TV, film and music, Rita Ora would never excel at any of them, and instead be mere eye candy for time-poor gossip columnists – a snack of all trades, if you will. But happily, she guested on the only good Avicii single ever, and released Anywhere, which is like a tropical house version of a forgotten Sound of Music song – ie pair it with a jug of woo-woo and all is well in the world.
The last award left for him to win is British album. To refresh your memory, the contenders are...
This is voted for by fans, of course, meaning essentially this category was battle of the ex-One Direction members, with Liam Payne, Zayn Malik (plus Taylor Swift) and Harry Styles all in the final five. Each video had good things going for it: Payne’s Strip That Down wasn’t nearly as gross and sleazy as the song’s lyrics (though it was boring), and Malik’s I Don’t Wanna Live Forever was a literal translation of the lyrics, which is always good in a pop video; but the promo for Styles’s debut solo single was effortless and elegant – plus it gave us this timeless image of his stunt double flying through the air, wearing a horrifying mask of Styles’s beautiful face. He’s not here to collect it and he hasn’t even sent a video message, because Styles is the cool one and 1D sat through more than their fair share of tedious Brit awards during their lifespan.
Tonight’s surprise guests arrives amid a European tour that is frankly incredible, where vituperative broadsides against police brutality are paired with films of him achieving karmic alignment inside a glowing vagina. There seems to be a false start with his performance – and maybe a second and third one – as he begins a rendition of Feel lying above a Lamborghini in a glass case. Ironic wolf whistles sound around the arena, but it coheres eventually.
It’s time for yet another ad break so let’s have a look at Twitter:
Uncle Damon's had a shandy and he's doing a speech
Jesus are Gorillaz still going...
Fuk sake... they should be home with their teenage kids confused watching it on TV
Why couldn’t they have muted the audio this much during Foo Fighters
not drunk, just living my truth https://t.co/WTARWSCenR
Sam Smith has a voice that I can appreciate is technically very good while also wishing it would stop immediately. #brits2018
This Kendrick Lemar performance is the worst thing Iv ever seen in my life. #BRITs2018
You know you’re old when you can’t work out if there is a technical issue or whether this is how the song is meant to sound #BRITs2018
A not-terribly-well-looking Elton John introduces the global success award via video message. Then Ronnie Wood arrives to give out the gong itself, obliquely referencing his notorious barney with Brandon Block at the 2000 Brit awards.
Nice to see DRAM up there with Gorillaz. Here’s a reminder that he brought us the greatest album artwork of all time.
Singing through the feathers, he’s perhaps spitting at being rather overlooked here – though he is still, Rag’n’Bone Man-style, eligible for next year’s awards – Sam Smith delivers Too Good for Goodbyes. This is his masterpiece thus far – wryly catty at himself, his top line has the kind of circuitous, searching melody that returns with absolute logic to its starting point, perfectly clear-eyed in his own romantic self-destruction. His slight lisp is his secret timbral weapon, and he can’t help a little swagger as he strides out; on his own, marooned from his backing singers, he still manages to completely command this vast stage. He encourages the crowd to clap on beat, something I generally think destroys the song in question, but here he turns it into a far more powerful gospel moment than Timberlake did with a massive choir earlier on. Underrated – though unlikely to be remembered amid the melee of next year’s pop.
Cartoon band member Murdoc delivers a video speech, while Damon Albarn and the other human members appear on stage for the evening’s most sodden moment! “I’ve got one thing to say,” says Albarn, quite possibly slurring, “and it’s about this country.” What follows teeters on the brink of addressing Brexit and cultural colonialism, but never really goes anywhere. “This country is, believe it or not, quite a small little thing, right, but it’s full of – it’s a lovely place, and it’s part of a beautiful world – but what I wanna say is don’t let it become isolated, don’t let yourselves become cut off, considering our size we do incredible things in music. We’ve got a real spirit and a real soul, and don’t let politics get in the way of all of that shit, alright?”
Ariana Grande was due to anchor a tribute to the victims of the Manchester Arena terror attack, but pulled out on doctor’s orders, so Liam Gallagher took her place. The same Liam Gallagher that told this paper earlier this week, re the Brits, that “they can fuck off if they think I’m going to go there and clap some fucking idiot … Get down there with your little fucking suit on and put your arm around Stormzy and Rag’n’Bone Man, do all this bollocks? That ain’t me, mate.” Well, even Liam, whose ego has its own magnetic field, isn’t above swallowing those words for people from his home city.
Ariana Grande was due to fly from the US to the UK for this, until doctors told her she couldn’t travel. Instead, Liam Gallagher is performing the Oasis classic Live Forever, introduced by Gary Barlow.
The battle for best video, voted by fans, is really heating up online. There’s a lot of emotive pleas from Directioners for their three horses in the race, like this:
our boys used to own the brits that was their territory and everyone knew it im sad they aren’t sitting there together having a group hug after group hug as they snatch every award they’re nominated for im sad harry isn’t there to ask “what did we win” because they were THAT band
MAKE MORE ACCOUNTS NOW MIXERS #BRITs
Solid presenting from Ellie Goulding and Adwoa Aboah, looking profoundly awkward as they reference Time’s Up, and Goulding makes a veiled reference to Grammys president Neil Portnoy’s comments that female artists needed to “step up” that absolutely nobody will understand.
If you’re wondering about that reference to Jesy Little Mix’s Jamaican accent, familiarise yourself thus. It really is something.
Just a reminder here's Jesy attempting a Jamaican accent#BRITS pic.twitter.com/lPAi8YZYtK
Dua’s second award of the night. Fair dos, especially given that “cor hasn’t she slogged away” is the de facto narrative around her at this point, but you can’t help but feel that her competitors – particularly Dave and J Hus – had to fight a bit harder to swim up pop’s toxic stream.
Who are these children! Barron Trump? The cast of Stranger Things 3? Oh no, it’s little Gary and Susan Lipa, here for big sis Dua to show them that, as she promised in the liner notes to her album, magic is real!
Foo Fighters are a weird band to be playing, because despite them having won four Brits (including one tonight), gone many times platinum and being able to headline any festival on the planet (even some really weird electronic one because everyone ultimately quite likes Dave Grohl), they haven’t written a really big tune since The Pretender, and that was more than a decade ago. What are they even going to play?
This was meant to be his night after going home almost empty handed from the Grammys, but so far he’s been pipped to British single and British male solo artist. There’s still British video and album to play for, but it’d be un grand scandale if we went home without either of those. (We already know he’s won the Global Success award.)
In a minute they’re going to reverse-engineer last year’s sales figures and deny Sheeran even the Global Success Award. #BRITs #conspiracy
But a slightly nicer one this time. Is Ed Sheeran married? People are looking at the ring on his finger and loudly wondering things like this.
Has @edsheeran secretly married?? #BRITs2018 #BRITs ring on the wedding finger ❤️❤️
We shouldn’t really swear that much on here so I’m using this message by a fairly random Twitter user to express my thoughts.
HOW THE FUCK WAS HUMAN A BIGGER SINGLE THAN NEW RULES IN 2017?!?!?!?!
You’d never have predicted this one given that he was in the country on tour when the rest of the nominees aren’t, but leaving behind awards ceremony cynicism for a sec, obviously he’s the worthy winner: a key social voice, musical innovator and – as anyone who caught his brilliant UK tour last week knows – a very funny man. (Good job he’s not wearing his white dressing gown tour outfit, though, otherwise there’d be some awkward backstage moments with Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne.) Kudos, Kung Fu Kenny.
THIS SONG CAME OUT IN 2016. Far be it for me to suggest that Rag’n’Bone Man is a record industry plant, but he’s definitely a record industry plant. Still, we have the pleasure of hearing the noted orator’s acceptance speech – completely inconsequential until he swears, ITV mutes the audio and that’s one swig.
Britain’s biggest pop star continues to be a confounding figure, impossible to truly hate or love – he has more pros and cons than an oversubscribed prison. On the pro side: everyman charm, nifty with a loop pedal, Thinking Out Loud being actually a really nice choice for a first dance at a wedding, and Shape of You even though I actually never need to hear it again. On the con side: being a glamour vacuum, the creepiness of casting too-attractive women in his videos who definitely aren’t his childhood sweetheart, and a sense that he would make Balinese gamelan instrumentals if it meant he opened up a lucrative Balinese gamelan market and got the Balinese gamelan Christmas No 1. So which side does this performance of Supermarket Flowers fall?
Dermot O’Leary: “I can’t help thinking there’s just something lacking from this year.”
Emma Willis: “Female co-host?”
A couple of years ago there was a sense that Dua Lipa was like the word “fetch” in Mean Girls, ie just not going to happen. After her third single Mwah barely scraped the Top 30 I was sure I could hear knives being sharpened in the Warner Bros kitchens – but then Scared to be Lonely arrived, followed by New Rules, giving jilted lovers an entire mope-to-sass axis to work through, and she went supernova. Her aesthetic – as if the creative directors of Missguided, Pretty Little Thing, BooHoo teamed up Avengers-style to make the most zeitgeist-pretty look possible – helped.
Yer da is loving Dua Lipa:
I don’t have kids, but if I did, and they listened to music like this, I’d disown them. #britawards #brits2018
Fuckin hell did #DuaLipaBRITs forget to dress on way to #BRITs2018
She's forgotten to put her trousers on. #britawards #BRITs2018 #BRITS
Put some clothes on please dua lipa #BRITs2018
Did Anna Friel not quite off-mic say “I can’t believe this is true” when Foo Fighters were announced? If so, #TEAMFRIEL. #brits
I definitely heard someone say this but confess I was paying closer attention to my pizza than the screen at that moment.
Just in case Jack Whitehall wasn’t posh enough, here’s Anna Friel and Damian Lewis to present the award for best international group, which always feels like a bit of an afterthought. The Foos win. “Ayyyyy! Ayyyyy!” Grohl roars.
Este from Haim, fresh from delivering very ostentatious bass faces, quietly upstaged Cheryl and Liam’s sex chat:
This woman behind Liam Payne and Cheryl gives me life #BRITs pic.twitter.com/IPReZZrgrM
Pretty much this:
Ed Sheeran be like...#brits2018 #BRITs pic.twitter.com/Y4wlxhRk47
God, this is awkward isn’t it? We’re having a good time, aren’t we? It’s like the visual equivalent of one of Guardian Weekend’s 4/10 Blind Dates.
HANG ON A MINUTE: who knew that Liam Payne and Cheryl Cole would actually provide the night’s most brazen moment. “Is there a safe word?” Jack Whitehall asks, trying to do a saucy riff on Payne’s appearance on the 50 Shades Freed soundtrack. “She knows that,” Payne replies, gesturing to Cole. “Don’t stop,” she replies back without missing a beat. Jack Whitehall regrets ever asking this. My skin is crawling, either in revulsion or admiration, or maybe the effects of the drinking game starting to set in. “Don’t go anywhere!”
A surprising snub for Sheeran, given that the Brits looked set to shower Britain’s most business-savvy busker in bonuses after the Grammys ignored him almost completely. Sure, he has his millions, his devoted fans, the approval of his peers, but Sheeran goes about his work with Wolf of Wall Street-worthy ruthlessness, so he’ll certainly be kicking a filing cabinet over this missed sales target. Just imagine how many little blue “Best British Male!” stickers Atlantic will have to peel off the bumper edition of the already overstuffed ÷ that they were inevitably going to announce tomorrow. Regardless: the only good choice prevailed: Stormzy’s first Brit award! He’s the rare male solo artist dressed for the occasion! Loyle Carner’s great, but not really at this level yet; Liam Gallagher would make a better host than recipient (please, Brits, hear my prayer), and Rag’n’Bone Man reminds me far too much of all the earnest “blues” “men” I witnessed performing in Cornish beach bars as a teenager. Plus, nobody loves winning awards as much as Stormzy, though he seems taken aback! Maybe later he’ll even update the Mobo-referencing lyrics to Shut Up in tribute.
Last year’s Critics’ Choice award winner, Rag’n’Bone Man, duets with this year’s, Jorja Smith, in an autocratic vision of music industry synergy. After three years of reliably predicting which tremulously emotional white man would be clutched to the bosoms of Asda album buyers (Tom Odell, Sam Smith, James Bay), there was a wobble in 2016 when the tremulously emotional white man Jack Garratt became as culturally relevant as a blacked-up morris dancer. The Brits don’t want that to happen again, so the phenomenally successful Rag’n’Bone Man is being used as a kind of Trojan bear to smuggle Jorja Smith into the consciousness of the ITV faithful.
An insider tells the Guardian that receiving the critics’ choice award isn’t just a matter of the record company putting a new sticker on the deluxe re-release of your album, but a solemn ceremony in which the winner is anointed with the blood of the Eurythmics.
Yes New Rules is a massive banger and yes Lipa has had a massive year (she’s the first British female solo artist to be nominated for five awards) but come on, really this is an award for the music industry for actually giving a young female solo artist the time to develop her music and style without panicking and sticking her in a room with Zedd, Marshmello or any of the other tepidly reliable EDM cyborgs. (We’ll forget the short-lived career wibble that was that Martin Garrix collaboration.) Still, to be fair to Lipa, she’s pure zeitgeist in a way that none of the other nominees are (let’s not forget her other big award nod this week – she’s up for Music Week’s best music and brand partnership award for her Foot Locker campaign), even if Jessie Ware or Paloma Faith almost definitely had more fiery acceptance speeches up their glittery sleeves.
I wanna thank every single female that has been on this stage before me that has given girls like me – not just in the music industry but girls in society – something to look up to, and has allowed us to dream this big. Here’s to more women on these stages, more women winning awards and more women taking over the world.
Here’s what Justin’s choir looked like from down on the floor, from our roving/wine-quaffing reporter Nadia.
Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head was released three years before Millie Bobby Brown was born, FYI.
The public vote on the British video award, so let’s head over to YouTube to see if we can glean any clues as to the winner from the comments section:
Ed Sheeran: Shape of You
The last time Timberlake played the Brits was in 2013, he came promoting a critically derided new album with a handful of kickass singles, so this should feel like Groundhog Day. He comes primed for big-stage performance after his Super Bowl show a couple of weeks back, a pop mashup that was almost avant-garde in its insane complexity (or maybe just a bit of a mess) – he didn’t actually seem to do much singing, choosing instead to make occasional personal trainer “hup!” noises and bounding around like a funky televangelist. So what do we have here?
Jack Whitehall has all the gravitas of a student union president telling the new intake of freshers that “we work hard and play hard at Warwick”. Enjoyed his ribbing of Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith, but enjoyed more the fact that his weak Little Mix diss went down like a lead balloon.
Just thought you’d like to know that Z-list celebrities are already turning up at the afterparty.
Chris Stapleton: a name that means nothing to British viewers. Timbo might as well have got someone who works at Carphone Warehouse up there for all the applause poor Chris got. Anyway, the viewers (music critics) are loving it!
Timberlake’s come as Bruno Mars. That’s like a pastiche vortex. #BRITs
"I can do better than this," sung Justin Timberlake, taking to the stage. Yes hun. Yes you can. #BRITS
Jack “did you know I’m posh” Whitehall doing a skit with Big Shaq was as inevitable as Annie Lennox getting a nod for British female in the 1990s. Is his big coat also a surreptitious Talking Heads tribute? Probably not. Also “uckers” being blanked out by ITV means one swig for anyone following the drinking game. Anyway, here’s Justin Timberlake onstage!
Earlier today, reliably acerbic commentator Peter Robinson was rummaging through the Popjustice archives and turned up a programme from a Brits ceremony of yore. First up is the then BPI chairman wishing that more young people were in work so that the industry’s “natural customer was flush with cash to buy our records”. Given today’s unemployment stats, I’m looking forward to the economic analysis from the show floor.
First off here’s the BPI chairman hoping for an end to youth unemployment so that labels can flog more records. (Wish two — people are still wishing for that. Wish three — “more of the same please!!!”) pic.twitter.com/lh6Uz2ChfH
Nadia has bumped into Jess Glynne, above, about her decision to wear a white rose. She says:
I’m wearing a rose to show solidarity with the Time’s Up movement. Women in music should use their platform to help enact change because you’re a role model to so many people. We’ve all experienced sexism. In the past I’ve been shut down, not had my opinions listened to. So I would say to all young women: stand for something, and believe in yourself.
The night’s biggest winner is evidently the person behind Mastercard’s Twitter for these seamless brand integrations.
Who’ll be rocking their body when @jtimberlake takes back the #BRITs stage to #StartSomethingPriceless? pic.twitter.com/3Mwhd37q2Z
When music does truly #StartSomethingPriceless pic.twitter.com/iEf45ssAiT
Our reporter Nadia Khomani is sat on actual table in the actual Brit awards while we look like the very picture of pasty journalists under our office strip lighting. Here’s what’s being advised booze-wise.
Rich the Kid has posted this backstage, with Ed Sheeran. Given the rapper guests on a currently hot track with another certain rapper whose name rhymes with Schmendrick Shlamar, the rumour mill is going into overdrive about potential surprise performances ...
B I G O V E R S E A S D R I P TAKING ED TO MEET THE PLUG
The performers have got their own emojis for this evening; in lieu of an official avatar, Anne Marie has gone for the next best thing, and come dressed as the dancing lady emoji.
I’m the actual emoji @BRITs pic.twitter.com/OS3ik8ITrf
Confirmation from BPI boss Geoff Taylor: Ariana Grande was meant to fly over to participate in a tribute to victims of the Manchester Arena bombing, but was ordered not to travel by her doctor. It’s speculated that Liam Gallagher will take her place …
Boss of the BPI Geoff Taylor just told @bbc5live that The @BRITs will have a tribute to @ManchesterArena . @ArianaGrande was flying over to sing it, but has been ordered not to travel by her doctor.
My guess would be that Liam Gallagher will stand in.
More schlebs! First up the xx, who have finally been taught to smile for the camera with very neatly varying levels of success.
So far, everyone on the red carpet seems to have incorporated a white rose – either a flower or a pin – somewhere on their outfit, in keeping with the Brits’ suggestion to show solidarity with the Time’s Up movement. Here’s the pin:
Here’s the white rose pin being given to everyone at tonight’s @BRITs on support of #TimesUp pic.twitter.com/B3XgldzgkA
Some more red carpet arrivals. If you look closely enough you can see Paloma Faith and one of Clean Bandit reflected in Stormzy’s suit.
We’re going to get through these next few hours together via the solidarity of the liveblog and possibly the intake of alcohol. Should you wish to make things interesting, here are the rules to the Guardian’s Brit awards drinking game:
One swig:
Celebs have already arrived, and if Dua Lipa, Rita Ora and Perrie Edwards are anything to go by, the look is very much “upstaging the bride”.
Fatted on pizza and a responsible amount of beer, we are here to bring you all the action from tonight’s Brit awards. Maybe action is too strong a word – after the political atmosphere at the recent Golden Globes, Grammys and Baftas ceremonies, the Brits, despite its white-rose pin initiative, looks less like a protest and more like Good Old Fashioned British Entertainment. Expect:
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