Brit Awards 2024: the real winners and losers

This year’s Brit Awards are ones for the history books – with pop star Raye taking home six trophies, including Best Artist, Best Song and Album of the Year.

“Will it ever get better than this?” » asked the overwhelmed 26-year-old backstage. ” What is going on ?

But the British always have much more to offer than the awards themselves.

On a night of tears, beers and career celebrations, who were the real winners and losers at the O2 Arena?

Six Brit Awards in one night is astonishing.

David Bowie only got six in his career. George Michael had three. Adele, the biggest British artist of the last decade, has a dozen.

In other words, Raye is officially half of Adele.

Her record is made all the sweeter by the fact that two years ago she described herself as a “downer” in the music industry.

Prevented from releasing music by a label that didn’t believe in her, she had to fight for her freedom, finally becoming independent in 2022.

Since then, his career has exploded: Escapism, a song written in the depths of despair then rejected by his label, became a monster hit. Number one in the UK, it was the best-selling song by a British artist in 2023 and went platinum worldwide.

Tonight she won song of the year, proving that success truly is the sweetest revenge.

“It was the best night of my life,” Raye told us afterward. “And luckily they filmed the whole thing so I could watch it again.”

Last year, an American pop artist called Taylor Swift experienced massive success. I sold a few records, played a few concerts, dated a footballer. You may have heard of it.

So it was a shock to Swifties when actress Joanne Froggatt opened the envelope marked “top international artist” and read someone else’s name: Missouri-born R&B singer SZA.

But the shock was short-lived. This was not a David defeats Goliath moment.

SZA’s second album, SOS, is a modern masterpiece: a 23-track opus where she dissects love from every angle imaginable, nimbly jumping between genres and delivering beautiful jazzy vocal tracks that blur the boundaries between rap and singing.

If anything, the Brits did a better job here than at this year’s Grammys, where SZA had more nominations than any other artist but was shut out of every major category.

Best pop nominee Charli

Marni’s custom outfit also made the British dinner somewhat impractical.

“When I have to sit down, it comes up in my throat,” she says. “It’s not great.”

But all that discomfort was worth it.

“That’s the part that matters to me. The look. Does the rest really matter? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

Here’s something you might not know: Joe Keery, aka Stranger Things’ Steve Harrington, currently has a top 10 single in the UK.

End Of The Beginning, a dreamy indie-rock song he recorded under the pseudonym Djo two years ago, suddenly went viral, landing him a spot at the Brit Awards.

But while he was happy to talk about his music, he was sworn to secrecy about the next (and final) season of Stranger Things.

“I’ve seen the scripts and that’s all I can tell you,” he said. “I have received papers with words written on them that may or may not involve people I know.

“Nothing more, I can’t say.”

Not since Jarvis Cocker brandished his posterior at Michael Jackson have the British seen such depravity.

As Clara Amfo presented, Irish singer CMAT walked into the back of her photo and turned around to reveal what could euphemistically be called her “Irish craic.”

American punk rockers Green Day were present among the British to present the prize for best British group.

But the show’s co-host, Roman Kemp, managed to throw a subtle jab at the group as they took the stage.

“To present our next award to the British band, these are two true rock gods,” he said. “They have sold more than 75 million records and released 14 albums… They truly are the American Busted.”

If only the rest of the dull and lifeless storyline had been so eager to ruffle the feathers.

Kylie won the Brits’ Global Icon Award – a lifetime achievement award without the cruel “your career has seen better days” subtext.

She celebrated her career with a medley of hits including Padam Padam, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, Love At First Sight and All The Lovers.

Appearing on a pedestal above the audience, she performed four costume changes, serving up movements like a choreographic vending machine.

Better yet, she seemed to be having the time of her life: she was running down the podium and congratulating her dancers with a big, exuberant smile.

Like her performance at Glastonbury five years ago, it was a reminder of why she is so loved.

Other artists want you to see the effort, the sweat and the tears. Kylie sparkles.

Taking the Brit Awards to Royal Ascot, Ella Henderson showed up in a voluminous hat, which she then insisted on wearing throughout the ceremony.

And what about the people sitting behind her?

“I’m going to turn around and tell them what’s going on,” she laughed.

It’s uncharitable to bring it up again, but Dua Lipa’s first ever UK performance in 2018 was so stilted that it spawned the “go ahead girl, don’t give us anything” meme.

She has since described the exam as “really painful”.

“I thought, ‘I’m finally going to be able to do something that I love to do, and I’m closed off, I just can’t do anything good,'” she told Rolling Stone.

Dua has since proven her critics wrong – but her opening performance at this year’s Brits was unforgettable: Wearing a cropped leather jacket and shorts, she strutted down the catwalk towards ‘a rotating tower of male dancers.

Then she was hoisted into the air by two acrobats, without a quiver in her voice, before returning to the stage to finish the song.

In a night filled with eye-catching and creative performances (shout out to Rema, Tate McRae and Becky Hill), this was remarkable.

Did someone put sedatives in the champagne? The atmosphere in the O2 was as dead as a doornail driven into a Dodo and buried in a concrete bunker.

The television audience was not impressed.

“There is something very disgusting about this year’s #BritAwards,” wrote Keiran Maddison on X. “The mood is so bad and the crowd is so dead.”

“Is there anyone in the audience?” » asked Hayley Davies.

“Bring back the days when everyone was well-oiled and were rock stars,” concluded Ally Fothers.

Next year, maybe put the fans front and center and the industry tables somewhere else. Like the parking lot.

The British screenwriters were strangely obsessed with drinking jokes – almost as if they were trying to create a Brandon Block moment.

Roman Kemp even challenged Calvin Harris (who is teetotal) to a drink, before revealing a bottle labeled ‘Harry Styles Bath Water’.

“I call it the Saltburn,” he winked, referring to a scene from a movie that I won’t describe if you haven’t seen it.

Kemp later persuaded Kylie Minogue to do a “shoey”, in the Australian tradition of drinking a beer out of a shoe.

“Do I do this?” she asked the crowd, who roared in approval.

Kemp duly poured some of Kylie’s signature rosé champagne into a high heel, before they both took a generous sip.

Co-host Maya Jama then joked that Kemp had athlete’s foot, which would have been a good joke if they drank out of his shoe.

Twenty years after their formation, Bring Me The Horizon won their first ever Brit Award, for Best Rock/Alternative Group.

On stage, frontman Oli Sykes suggested their victory over bands like Blur, Young Fathers and the Rolling Stones was entirely down to a technicality.

“Well done to the Brits for making the electoral system so complicated that only our fans could be mad about it,” he joked.

Behind the scenes, the band was equally impassive. When asked what he plans to do with his trophy, Sykes said: “I think it will be a very useful doorstop for the summer months to come.

“With global warming and all that, we’re going to have to keep the door open to let some of that heat escape.”

Raye’s final award of the night was the biggest: Album of the Year, for her multi-genre debut, My 21st Century Blues.

For her last speech from the podium, she mentioned her grandmother, Agatha, to give her moral support.

“She raised me,” the singer (whose middle name is Agatha) explained backstage.

“My parents worked full time, so she came from Ghana to raise us, she lived with us, she took us to and from school, and she put so much love and heart into us” .