Eighteen hours later, and I'm back again sitting at the same desk, having not left the building since returning from the Kraftwerk concert, which now seems like it happened several weeks ago, if at all. Strangely, I am less tired now than I was this morning, when I wrote the blurb above about the Kraftwerk show. I have little recollection of what I wrote, and in fact I am rather afraid to read it for fear of fainting from embarrassment at what must be some of the most incoherent and hazy sentences that have ever appeared on these pages.

I've got an eye on an experiment and two ears getting blasted to bit by various live mayhem courtesy of Spacemen 3 and Fennesz. When I feel the need to kill time even more blatantly, I head over to $0u1$33k to check on my newest acquisitions and to browse through other people's files. I never have to get out of my chair ever again. Half of the fun of going to other people's houses is to browse their CD collection. Now I can uncover countless musical identities from the comfort of my own home. No more must two people go through the trouble of talking to each other and making plans to meet in order for such a private viewing to take place ... I don't need permission (except from the firewall) and the person doesn't have to be home. It's the musical peeping tom! What could be better?

I think I need to sleep.

What a long, long, day and morning, he writes on zero sleep caught in the indecision between surrendering to sleep or slogging on at work.

The Kraftwerk gig was easy to find, I just got off the S-Bahn and starting following all the freaks with coloured hair and dressed in leather. The Tempodrom, from the outside, could be mistaken for the architectural love child between an oversized big top circus tent and the Sydney opera house. Inside, the spacious lobby greets me with a veritable social gathering, I feel more like I'm in the off-side lounge in a hotel than a few metres from a giant auditorium (where if you look toward the rooof, bares a strange ressemblance to the Sony Centre at Postdamer Platz).

It's my first concert away from the North American continent, and I barely had the time to get excited about it (see posting above). When I gave my name at the box office to pick up my ticket, the ticket girl asked "from Toronto?" in confirmation. It's like I'm the city delegate here.

Once the lights dim, everything gets massively noisy. But it's quiet during the songs, most of the patrons in the stadium seats are sitting, and there's very little dancing or movement of any kind. Is this the typical show of support from Berliners? Watch quiet, thank loud? The immense racket that's made during the breaks between encored does more than anything to convince me that this band is adored in this city. That, and the spirited reaction given to "Autobahn". I'd be proud of a tune written to celebrate my country's culture (at a time when few other bands were doing it).

Ralf Hutter is the most German-looking person I have ever seen. The slick hair, the dapper suit, there's something about him that just roars "Teuton". That said, he and Florian look great considering their ages. That said, the new songs from "Tour de France Soundtrack are quite welcome in a set list that hasn't changed much since 1981. That said, those Tron Suits may just be the coolest things ever. That said, the Metal on Metal portion of TEE blows my damn mind every time.

The last two days are starting to blend together, good thing I have pictures.

$0u1$33k has been working overtime for me yet again, with another gig of stuff coming in over the last few days. As predicted, I am getting bored with the thirty or so CD's I brought with me on this trip. No "Twinlights" this time ... I was all set to pack it, but decided it was time for a change and packed CD2 of the Cocteaus' "BBC Sessions" (which has "Half-Gifts" on it, so it wasn't a complete break with tradition). I also brought the Cure's "Disintegration" ... yes, I bought it, I own it, it's fifteen years of twisted history coming to an end yet AGAIN! But I haven't heard it yet, I'm still waiting for the right moment, i.e. an uninterrupted session where I can play it as loud as I want. Six in the morning on one of these long work nights should probably suffice.

I downloaded (finally!) the new Fennesz album, "Venice". My initial, cursory scan suggests a very noisy, abrasive effort, which is gold for those who love tha noize, but probably a bit too harsh for those who preferred the calmer, Beach Boys filtered campfire guitar strum moments of "Endless Summer".

I tried to make a visit to Dense this weekend ... and it's gone? I rode up and down Danziger Str. but couldn't find it anywhere. Stupidly, I'd forgotten to take the address with me but the good thing about all the streets turning into new streets every three blocks in Berlin is that address numbers are somewhat superfluous. You don't have to search very far once you're on the right street. So I made the trip further downtown to Neurotitan, spent about two hours there listening to about fifteen CD's and came away with some quality noise and messed up beats. I got a couple of crazy good deals on discs that will be hard to find anywhere else (including some local stuff), and now $0u1$33k will take care of the rest.

Most importantly, I had a moment of weakness last week and was rightfully reamed out for it. I was told about the gig that day by our research director Erik (he with the Speedy J background on his computer) and I totally sputtered. Shocked. Go to a concert? But I'm poor! I shouldn't spend that kind of money.

Screw the money ... thank you ILM.

Berlin Teyl Dray. We meet again. This time I came REALLY prepared, having gone bezerk on $0u1$33k for five days before this trip, and coming away with about three gigs of mp3's to keep me occupied. So, there's little chance of getting bored with all my music after two weeks. Nevertheless, the pop station has remained popular in the lab. Already, I've heard the dance remix of "Mad World" far more times than is necessary.

Despite an all-nighter that left me in dire need of sleep (finally admitting defeat after being awake for 32 hours and passing out at work), I arrived home at our quaint little riverside apartment (having gotten lost on the bike ride home -- it was actually the first time I'd gone home via bike since arriving) ready to crawl in bed, only to be greeted by my old buddy, that leading light of Deutschlander TV entertainment and one of the few beacons for the English language on our video airwaves. Yes, it was old reliable, MTV Germany, with a short look at the year 1990. This was not a Behind The Music :1990 "let's make everything look as important as possible and give ego-stroking interview time to has-beens". It was all about the vids, introduced and bookended with the occasional informative or goofy comment from VJ Markus (complete with new, greasier haircut). I forgot all about sleeping and enjoyed the following "classics":

NKOTB -- Step By Step. Of course, I'm using their latter-day, smoother-sounding name (at least that was the plan). Their 1993 comeback failed horribly, although unbeknownst to anyone, a certain Ron Perleman was sitting on a plane and wondering why it couldn't happen all over again. At the height of alternative/grunge's commercialism, he went back to Orlando and created New Kids Mk II and III. And it turned out that he was right -- it DID happen all over again. Life is funny sometimes. Anyhow, Donnie wears about three different PE shirts during this fiasco, but unlike the others, he is fortunately spared by not having to perform the horrid sub-MC Hammer jive dancing. Probably New Kids' best single, though. As is the case with just about every act on this retrospective, they became irrelevant post-grunge, although that may have come to pass regardless, since you always take the chance of becoming irrelevant overnight when your fan base mostly consists of preteen girls.

Enigma -- Sadeness, Part I. It was all downhill from here. "Mea Culpa" was pretty good, and the "MCMXC A.D." album was actually quite awesome, but the second and third albums descended into New Age floaty crud and are best never mentioned again. This first single, however, was perfect, more or less trumping The Orb at their own game by nailing ambient house on the head on the first try, and triggering a short-lived Gregorian Chant revival in the process (note: there was no Rickie Lee Jones revival). I had the cassette single and must have listened to it more times than any other single in 1990 save "Enjoy the Silence". Too bad the video is crap, though.

At this point, I flipped channels to VIVA, and there was a girl taking off her clothes to Massive Attack's "Be Thankful For What You've Got". As yes, I thought, it's more of those soothing Berlin late night girlie ads, but this time they're advertising the 976 numbers with Massive Attack tunes. What an impressive choice. But NO, it turned out to be the video! I had no idea that a) there were videos from "Blue Lines", b) this tune was a single (it's one of my least favourite on the album), and c) stripping!! nudity!! In a Massive Attack vid!!! Who knew?

Leila K -- Got to Get. Leila K has never been, and will never show up in a Behind The Music special. But remembering 1990 isn't always about the biggest and brightest names. I would have gone to my grave and not remembered this song at all. And despite not giving this tune the slightest thought for the last fourteen years, I instantly remembered it and enjoyed it. As Beyonce has shown, horn samples tend to work like a charm. 1990 -- the days when you could make a video with your friends and a shoestring budget and get it played on MTV.

Phil Collins -- I Wish it Would Rain Down. Clapton's in this video! How did I not notice this before? The guitar solos are so obviously him too. Was I paying attention at all back in 1990? This is a really really good song for Phil Collins, full of emotional hooks and wails that would have curled Joe Cocker into a pretzel had this song been written for him. In this way, it's not the least bit subtle, but I like it anyway.

And the video is the typical Phil Collins Lighthearted Humour For Young and Old, in which our hero dreams of a rags-to-riches life whose vault into stardom begins with a chance opportunity to perform this very song in a play. I *think* he's partly taking the piss out of himself -- the newspaper headlines declare a gigantic movie debut for "Bill" Collins, whereas "Phil" Collins' actual movie debut ("Buster") was a gigantic flop. But these same headlines carry a story about an Oscar win for Collins, which of course DID happen (Best Song, from "Tarzan"). So who knows. Collins is pompous enough to have dreamed up these things for himself for real.

KLF -- What Time is Love? What a great mix of stuff here. This is why MTV Germany rules it. The song may be familiar to many, but I'd wager that most of those people would have never remembered this video. It's basically three long shots of a car driving down a long road in the desert. Nothing about it has any relation to the song, and was likely thrown together haphazardly because the song became more popular than expected and they needed a video to send to the music stations. Either that, or it was a deliberate anti-video concocted by Bill and Jimi as a giant up-yours to the collective musical establishment. You never can tell with those guys.

A-Ha . Crying in the Rain. You might think that any A-Ha song that isn't titled "Take on Me" isn.t worth your time (as I did) but you'd be wrong -- this one is a pleasant surprise. The line "I'll do my crying in the rain" is a powerful visual image, the video isn't as cheesy as you'd expect from such a weepy little love song, and the band (and their hair) are in handsome form.

Technotronic -- Get Up. P. Diddy is going techno on his next album, or so say the reports. He could do worse than steal a few tricks from Technotronic's rap/dance template. They were so far ahead of their time, courtesy of a great techno producer/svengali (Jo Bogaert), not to mention putting the rap/techno hybrid high up in the charts years before anyone else.

Torfrock -- Beinhart. And now for the show.s bonus German content, and it's a boisterous novelty tune with an animated movie tie-in (at least that's the jist I was getting). It's sung in German, so it's obviously unknown from a North American perspective. But it's an interesting example of the oft-ignored German sense of humour (it's not Rammstein all the time here, you know).

I'm a sucker for lists, as I've stated many times. I'm such a sucker that I always find myself stuck watching MMM's "Listed" even if it's a list that I've already seen (plus, I like staring at Karina Huber's chest). Today, it was the "10 Best and 10 Worst of the 80's", which they seem to replay every single week. And every week, their choices appear dumber.

The 10 worst includes luminaries such as MC Hammer, Jack Wagner, and Rick Astley. First of all, let us all be in agreement that one cannot create novel criticism against the 80's on the basis of bad hair, clothes, and dancing. Yes, Hammer's dancing looks ridiculous viewed through the lens of 2004, but so do the dance moves in any 80's video by a performer without the last name "Jackson". I can barely look at video footage of the Smiths in their early days without having to shield my eyes from their hair. Everything about the 80's looks cheesy now, take it as a given and move on. Hammer was crap for a million reasons other than his dancing and his clown pants.

Jack Wagner was a one-hit wonder, but there were zillions of those in the 80's so that's not why he's on here. It's because he was a crossover star and somehow MMM equates "crossover" with "embarrassing", which is ludicrous because they get plenty of airplay from J.Lo and Hilary Duff these days. A soap star showing up in the charts for six months on the back of a lone corny ballad mega-hit hardly characterizes him as a prominent embarrassment over an entire decade.

Rick Astley is crap, but tell that to the millions of teenagers who voted for John Stevens last week on American Idol.

Number 1, predictably, was Milli Vanilli. Have any artists in recent memory gotten more of a raw deal than MV? Of course, they are on this chart for exactly one reason : the lip-synching. Without it, they'd have been allowed to fade away in peace just like all the other musical acts that got turfed by grunge. They'd have their late 80's number ones, the millions of albums sold, the relatively disappointing 1991 follow-up, and a quiet post-grunge retirement until showing up as judges on "Deutschland Sucht den Superstar" (note that if you replace "Superstar" with "American Idol", you get Paula Abdul's career to a tee).

MV had good things going for them, namely, the songs were good and they were strong, charismatic performers. The former were provided for them, whereas Rob and Fab's sole task was to put 100% into becoming the latter and selling themselves as stars, a task which they handled extremely well. They were hardly the first artists to employ vocal "ringers", even though you'd because any discussion on lip-synching post-1991 begins and ends with MV. One of their only defenders at the time was no less than George Clinton, who pointed out that ringers were nothing new in black pop (I take him at his word, although I'm not certain precisely which artists he had in mind, the usage of ringers is in itself undisputable). Phil Spector frequently had Darlene Love sing on other artists records (most notably, the Crystals didn't sing a single note on some of their huge hits). On a related note, Spector's "Wrecking Crew" played nearly every note on hits by the Byrds, the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas (among MANY others), while sometimes those bands themselves happily mimed along on their instruments during their "live" appearances on TV shows but no disrespect is aimed their way due to this.

Ah, but that's ages ago, that stuff just doesn't happen anymore, right? It's like with baseball post-1920, Pete Rose is pretty much the only prominent gambler in the game, so of course the attention is focused on him. How we forget that both Black Box and C&C Music Factory employed ringers at the same time as MV. Black Box had a skinny, attractive singer pose as the lead for "Ride on Time", and were later sued by the actual, fat, unnattractive singer once the song became a big hit. Both these acts were nominated for Grammys THE YEAR AFTER the lip-synching scandal, but the Best New Artist award went to the impressively bland Marc Cohn instead of one of the massively popular ringerified groups. But nobody remembers this stuff now, because the Grammys were never awarded (and therefore couldn't be revoked) and nobody from those bands died a pitiful death from a drug OD.

I listened to the highly-touted Feb. 20th "Smile" performance, and it is, as advertised, all that and a bag of chips. And I really had my doubts about this one, because after so many years of absorbing the "Smile" myth, the idea of it actually existing in the year 2004 didn't seem possible. And even if it could magically appear, would it honestly bear any ressemblance to its 1967 ancestry? That is, Brian Wilson 2004 couldn't hope to capture Brian Wilson 1967 anymore than Barry Bruner 2004 could capture, say Barry Bruner 1990 -- too much time has passed, people change, and musical tastes change (and all this stuff is virtually axiomatic, isn't it?).

Yet it has arrived, and it sounds like everything you've ever heard about it. It's "Good Vibrations" spread over 45 minutes. It's a roiling stew of wierd barnyard sounds, clucking and banging, and four part harmonies passing in and out like winds through an open window. The melody seems to do an about-face every minute or so, tunes appear and then return three minutes later. It's bonkers. It's unpredictable. It's a fascinating listen.

This Outkast/Grammy thing has been blown far, far out of proportion. Perhaps the post 9/11 21st century is the era of ethnic oversensitivity (a statement which I'll make no attempt to prove or support, I just wrote it off the top of my head. It's something to think about, but probably not too much).

Recent articles in NOW (Toronto) and this one from CNN reporting on CBS' apology for the "incident", frankly, baffled me. NOW, Toronto's wannabe social conscience, essentially destroys the reasoning behind Outkast's supposed wrongdoing while (somehow) still claiming that an apology from the band is in order.

CNN's usual disgustingly splashy sensationalist reporting is in fine form (via Reuters) in their article, where NAAC board member Sean Freitas claims the performance was the most disgusting racial stereotype of Native peoples he's ever seen on TV. Without consulting specific counterevidence, I'm quite sure that minorities were represented in FAR worse fasion in movies and TV fifty or sixty years ago than in Outkast's performance. But quotes like Freitas' = ratings and readers and controversy, therefore his extreme hyperbole is apparently acceptable

The recent attention given to Outkast has placed them on a lot of new maps, and therefore a lot of people have no contextual basis for evaluating their performance because of their very recent exposure to the band. If they had seen a previous Outkast performace (or even the Brit awards performance a few days later) then they'd notice that Outkast performances frequently consist of flashy costumes and sexualized dancing. It so happens that this time they did it while dressed up as Native people. That is completely different than racially exploiting a particular ethnic group or culture in the name of an awards show performance (or worse, to sell records).

Oh sure, it's easy for me to say that I wasn't offended, because I'm not a Native Canadian. However, I am Jewish, and Freitas also likened the performance to "white people dancing sexually in black face or yarmulkes". I am going to say this as succinctly as possible, to avoid any possible misinterpretation ...

Andre, PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE, I want to see a Outkast performance with people dancing sexually while wearing yarmulkes.

I'm serious. The CJC and the ADL would freak, but screw them, they'd be guilty of the same miscontextualization that the NAAC is. If you want to see actual Anti-Semitic depictions of Jews, this ADL page is a good place to start. Outkast incorporating Jewish clothing into their stage show would be a blast, and it wouldn't offend me at all. It's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from having a man dress as a rabbi and proclaim Michael Jackson as his personal Messiah, as was the case at the 1996 Brits. Anyone who can't see the difference would have to be incredibly shortsighted.

"... because reviewing a cost-benefit analysis for every military base in the country is as mind-numbing as a Radiohead concert"

-- Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford), last night on "The West Wing". See, even the White House understands.

--------------------

Pilate's "Melt Into the Walls" achieves the dubious distinction of shamelessly ripping off both Mogwai's "2 Rights, 1 Wrong" and (of course) every Coldplay song ever. Way to make Canadian musicians appear bereft of creativity, boys. All hail the Nickelback of dadrock.

Brit Awards broadcast in Canada on Much!

:00 Another year goes by, and it's another year that I recede from my Brit-centric music focus (which is no longer Brit-centric at all), so I'm even more out of the loop with regard to who everybody is on this show. So keep that in mind if I make any dumbass comments. But from the opening montage, it won't appear to a problem with this show because most of the people appearing aren't even British.

:02 It seems they've overhauled the arena setup yet again (it's at Earl's Court). It's a Keplerian arrangement of concentric semicircular (2D, so not precisely Keplerian, but this is a good excuse to make up such a word) shells. First there's the stage, then a huge pit for the fans, then a catwalk with the podium in the centre (like last year) and finally the peanut gallery of dimly lit tables for the stars. The Brits awards own the semi-classy party vibe (the MMVA's own the tailgate party vibe).

:05 BEP open with a rockingly decent "Shut Up", it's the best version I've yet heard. Host Cat Dooley rides in on a giant champagne bottle to Primal Scream's "Rocks", a song whose shamelessly retro chops serve as a fine bit of foreshadowing for the evening.

:06 International Male Solo Artist. I love how they mix the songs together in the nominations (like last year), it's a small but slick touch I love. And here we go with some CanCon right off the bat with Shania. Sure, she may live in England now with her English husband, but she's come ALL THE WAY FROM CANADA TO REPRESENT OUR FINE COUNTRY. Uh, yeah. JTim wins, just like at every other awards show.

:08 As usual, I can't keep up with the Brits, for we're on to Best British Group (so soon?). And as was publicized all week (the show was four days ago), it's the Darkness.

:14 Busted are ... the new Ash? ... Silverchair's younger siblings? One smashing version of "Teenage Kicks" later, and I'm wondering what John Peel thinks about this.

:18 Somebody impersonates Mel B better than she can, babbling about breasts and fags in a leopard skin dress. It's nice to know that the Brits haven't forgotten about the Spice Girls. Hell, I miss them too. Anyhow, Busted win for best Pop Act. :26 Beyonce and Outkast (in the apparent tradition of wacky mismatched performers at the Brits) perform "together". Yes, who could forget Tom Jones and Robbie, Kylie and Justin? Well, I forgot them until about five seconds ago. But you know what I won't forget too soon? Andre 3000 outdoing himself yet again by dressing as part of a skeleton jumpsuit crew, with a bunch of backing singers and dancers who move as wildly as he does. And he kicks it off by proclaiming "are you ready to have a good time -- I can feel it in my bones!" -- oh ha ha. The words "HEY YA" flash in gaudy yellow letters behind him. This is brutally fun. And then they segue right into "Crazy in Love". Sure, play the best singles of 2003 back-to-back and show up everyone else at the Brits, why not? However, Andre has disappeared. I guess Jay-Z freaked out and didn't want Andre or anyone else with a Y chromosome too close to his girl.

:34 Best Rock Act ... the Primals are nominated? They haven't had an album for two years. Feeder? I thought nobody admitted to liking them. Slim pickings here. Obviously, The Darkness win.

:36 Brit Album nominee number 2 is The Coral, whose record was produced by Ian Broudie? Damn, that guy seems to produce a major Brit award nominee every year.

:41 It's a crazy diverse bunch for Best British Male, from Pop Idol Will Young to anti-pop idol Dizzee Rascal. And the winner is Daniel Bedingfield, who isn't even there! He gives an acceptance speech over the phone, which I can.t recall seeing before on the Brits. Nobody's interested, most likely because if he's not there, what's the point?

:44 We hit a pre-taped fake news report claiming 50 Cent was detained on the way to the Brits, complete with interrogation and jailbreak skit. Ever heard of just shut up and perform? Ooh, he's such a nasty boy, I so want to buy his record now. Just like the brits like the Strokes because they look like the way Brits want their New Yorkers to look, apparently somebody thinks that Brits need their American rap stars to look and act like thugs as well. There may be something to this. Eminem's UK tour was delayed for months in 2000 due to various legal issues (if I remember correctly) and he probably gained more pub through the controversy and endless anticipation than he would have if he'd just played as per the original schedule.

Any Brit performer who needs to set up his performance with a pre-taped video montage instantly recalls the 1996 MJ ego-trip. Sad, but true (at least for me, but for the post-Britpop teens it likely makes no difference). A rather ordinary "In Da Club" follows all this, yes there's homies, there's hoochies, blah blah blah.

:50 Best British Urban Act. NERD, in true American awards show stylee, stop everything to pimp the upcoming release of their record. Lemar wins the award, and apparently he was a Pop Idol runner up? And he has urban cred, wow. He accepts the award with his posse. I've never seen Ruben or Gary Beals with a posse.

:53 Best British single, damn, all these huge awards and we're still not even an hour into the show. Another nice thing about the Brits -- fans vote for nearly every award, and they show which groups of fans vote with each nomination (i.e. Radio 1 listeners, Kerrang UK readers, etc). It's yet another nice subtle touch. What the ... Gareth Gates did "Spirit in the Sky"? The British are the kings of making covers into megahits on multiple occasions. But the winner is Dido for "White Flag", and SHE's not there either? Huh? What is this, the MMVA's?

:56 Speak of the devil, it's a cover version of the "Love Cats" . And it's way better than the Cure's version, because it.s jazz done properly (by proper jazz artists).

1:04. Muse make an incredible amount of noise for only three people, which is a sure fire way to get me to take notice of a band. Amazing, do these guys actually keep up this pace throughout the whole of all their gigs? Wow.

1:08 Best International Female. They drag LLCoolJ out of the attic to present Beyonce with the inevitable. And what's with all the long speeches tonight (by Brit standards)?

You know, with all the awards and accolades Beyonce.s been getting, you might be fooled into believing that she's a singular talent, rather than a hot piece of ass who's been marketed to Mars and back, has an equally famous boyfriend, and owes all of her sound to the hottest bunch of pop music producers in years. Similar to the early 60's, with producers like Joe Meek and Phil Spector sculpting unique sounds and pushing boundaries on a weekly basis (and becoming more famous than anybody they worked with in the process), the likes of The Neptunes and Timbaland are the wizards behind the curtain, and I think history will come to recognize that (although *right now*, clearly Beyonce is more famous than any producer).

1:10 There's no time to breathe, because it's time for Best International Group. Speaking of dragging performers out of the attic, it's Lionel Ritchie, who's suddenly half as famous as his daughter, whose music career can't be too far removed from our radios. White Stripes do the Japanese overdub treatment and present themselves with the award for Best Band in All the Land.

1:14 OK, now it's actual collaboration time, with Alicia Keys and Gwen Stefani (another!) cover of Prince.s "Kiss". Later, Missy hijacks the performance, thankfully not wearing the same dress as the other two, and we segue into a verse of "Pass That Dutch".

1:20 Breakthrough Artist -- are The Darkness nominated in every category tonight? But the winner for the second time tonight is Busted. With their huge sales, why do they get no luv on this side of the pond while The Darkness get a boatload? Oh yeah, The Darkness look poncey and have long hair, which is exactly how Americans like their British rock stars to look.

Like with Blur and Oasis winning big at the Brits in the 90's after seemingly coming out of nowhere, it's no shock that The Darkness are all over this show because the Brit Awards know how to strike when the iron is hot. If this were the Oscars, for instance, The Darkness would never be winning all these awards because Hollywood makes sure that you "pay your dues" before winning the big awards. Thus, you get a lot of cases with actors winning because it's "their turn", not because they were the best in that particular year. The Darkness were the biggest story in British music this past year, and thus the show is centred around them, regardless of how long they've been plying their trade.

1:23. Ronan Keating!! Where's he been hiding? Dido wins for Best British Female. And she's still not there.

1:24 The awesome comes next, as it.s the Contribution to Music Award for yes yes yes!! Duran Duran!! It's strange how quickly one can go from a quaint embarrassment to legends, from retro relics to the people who "defined" the 80's. Pop is cool these days, what else can you say? It also involves would involve striking the "Thank You" and Electric Barbarella album from the annals of history ... but damned if they don't show a clip of the "Barbarella" video as soon as I write that! Duran Duran are bulletproof, it's official. The award is presented to them by JTim of all people. I can't picture him sitting on his porch as a kid with his mom and singing Duran Duran songs on the porch along with all the Johnny Cash ones. They pass the mic, and Nick Rhodes classily thanks Warren Cuccarello (sp?), the non-original member who toiled with them throughout the 90's. That's cool, because bands that reform with their original members normally pretend that all non-original members never existed (Kiss being the most recent perpetrators). Count on the Brits to give Duran Duran the classy tribute that the MTV awards screwed up so royally last September.

As for the performance, Simon can't quite hit the notes he used to, but the songs sound awesome as always, so it's no surprise that the live shows have been so well received. The "wedding" album was seen as a return to form ten years ago, and the all the live shows were well-received then as well, so this isn't solely a retro wave that they're riding -- the songs really are that damned good. Say hello to "Hungry Like the Wolf", "Ordinary World", and "Wild Boys". Other awards shows, particularly the Grammy's, need to learn from this -- if you're going to make a big deal about somebody and label them lifetime achievers, give them 15 minutes.

1:41 The Brit award album nominees are now complete, with the Darkness, Dido, Blur, Daniel Bedingfield, and The Coral. If these were the Oscars, Blur wouldn't win because they've won before, the Darkness have never been nominated and haven't paid their dues, the Coral are also young and thus have the time to win some other year, and Daniel Bedingfield is too pop, he's the equivalent of an actor getting nominated for a role in a comedy, or Johnny Depp's nomination this year. Thus, Dido would be the winner.

1:45 International Breakthrough (= a much better name than Best New Artist, because you can justify using the term to describe artists like Sean Paul who have been around for a while) and the winner is 50. Duh. International Album features the usual suspects (JTim, Beyonce, White Stripes, Xtina, Outkast), and the winner is Justin. Huh. It's only my first record, he says, so we still have depression and drug addiction to go through. Best line of the night by far.

1:50 But Cat is right, the night does belong to The Darkness and they prove it by storming through the final performance of the night, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love". Sure, they've set the business back thirty years, but so did Britpop (at the time). Expect the full disco and punk revivals to come along in a few years. Oh wait ...

I knew if I kept my hair long then it'd some back into style again. I am fashion.

1:55 Mmm Scarlet Johanson presents the Darkness with their Best Album award for "Permission to Land".

1:58. Uh, no, I'm sorry, I just noticed the feathered mane on Justin Hawkins. back, no this is not cool, maybe I should cut my hair.

This was a decent, if predictable show, partly due to show's placement in the awards show calendar because all the same people have appeared all the other award shows already and received all the same awards. But the Brits (the people) don't take awards shows (and the honour of winning the statues) as seriously as we do in North America, so as long as everyone had fun ...

Post show, Much Weekly shows some red carpet action, with Pharrell and Gwen Stefani complimenting Hannah Sung on her creepy Poltergeist hair, Alicia Keys arriving in a horse and carriage (??), and The Darkness pulling up in their custom painted muscle car. OK, that's cool, I am keeping my hair long after all.

I had another encounter with the evil Sonic Boom today. Evil as in awesome. There was a girl who arrived about the same time as me, and flipped through every last CD on the New Arrivals rack. She said she goes to SB almost every week. It's good to know that others are as sick as I am.

It is all part of my master plan to never pay more than ten bucks for a CD ever again. No more gems in the cardboard bins (I must have already bought all of the good stuff) but lots for under seven bucks. Nine discs later (twelve actually, since three were doubles, but NO, it did NOT work out to more than ten bucks per disc in those cases) and I once again have more music than I know what to do with. I did such a good job of catching up in December and January, and now I've fallen off the wagon again.

Flipping through the bins is mindless work, so I thought about ...
Daft Punk's "Digital Love" has a sticker which reads "featured in a Gap ad". Note to self : never buy a CD with such a sticker. This should be self-evident.

Saw a few techno compilations with "rave" in the title. See Daft Punk comment above.

This morning, I dusted off my cassette of "Pretty Hate Machine" and blasted my way through side one. Damn, it's such a great album after all these years. Hearing it makes me feel seventeen again. And suddenly, there I was in SB, staring at a $4.95 copy of this album, which has eluded (read : somehow never got around to buying) me on CD. And I stared at it for a few moments before continuing to flip. Because part of feeling seventeen again means crouched on the floor with headphones in my ears, killing my hearing with my cassette copies of NIN's music. It wouldn't be the same on CD. Wierd, huh?