A Manchester move, Shaun Ryder’s bleeped-out anecdote and the odd leftfield flourish added some life to a slick ceremony – yet when it came to the prizes, commercial heavyweights tended to reign The Brit awards have perhaps borrowed a trick from the Mercury prize, which last year unexpectedly applied the defibrillator to an event that’s been on the verge of extinction for years by the simple expedient of moving it to Newcastle and packing the audience with music fans rather than music biz grandees. The Brits’ relocation to Manchester had the effect of adding at least a slight edge of chaos to a ceremony that’s become increasingly slick in recent years, largely by dint of involving Shaun Ryder, who almost immediately enlivened proceedings by telling an anecdote about being busted for drug possession during the Brits in the 90s that ITV found it necessary to bleep out in its entirety. The show itself was too varied to suffer from the blandness that’s cursed Brits past, offering performances ranging from Rosalia’s Björk-assisted opera/gabber hybrid to Alex Warren (“what you get if you order Ed Sheeran on Temu”, as Whitehall put it) performing Ordinary with a smoking-jacket-clad James Blunt on piano, via the unexpected sight of Ghostface Killah dad-dancing with Dua Lipa during a medley helmed by outstanding contribution to music winner Mark Ronson. Continue reading...