I’ll be honest, I’ve found most of Chicane‘s recent output a bit perplexing, and this “cover version” of Sigur Rós is definitely in that category. It’s nice enough, definitely – it just seems completely unnecessary – it’s as though he (for Chicane is just a he) has decided to spend unnecessary amounts of time creating generic dance versions of other people’s songs. Never mind, it’s not doing any harm – here’s Poppiholla:
The 1981 ceremony was held on 8th February 1982, to celebrate the music of the preceding year. The ceremony took place at the Lyceum, London, and was presented by Dave Lee Travis and Sue Cook.
Winner: Toyah
Winner: Adam Ant
Winner: Adam and the Ants
Winner: Shakin’ Stevens
Winner: The Human League, for Dare
Winner: Ultravox, for Vienna
Winner: unknown
Nominees included Duran Duran.
Winner: unknown (but not Duran Duran!)
If you would like to see the comparison, the 1982 BRIT Awards are covered here. While the nominee list was similar, Toyah Willcox and Shakin’ Stevens failed to win, and Ultravox and Bananarama weren’t even nominated.
A great video from the great early Depeche Mode, here’s Get the Balance Right.
The 1980 ceremony was held on 24th February 1981, to celebrate the music of the preceding year. It was presented again by Dave Lee Travis. It was also broadcast on BBC Radio 1, with commentary from Andy Peebles. A full recording of the audio is available online here, and the introduction of the TV coverage is here:
Winner: The Police, for Zenyatta Mondatta
Winner: The Police
Presented by Mickie Most. Winner: Sheena Easton
Presented by Una Stubbs. Winner: Cliff Richard
Presented by Suzi Quattro. Winner: The Jam, for Going Underground
Presented by Sue Lawley. Winner: The Nolans
Presented by Lulu. Nominees included:
Winner: David Bowie
Presented by Mike Read. Winner: John Lennon, and accepted by Yoko Ono
Showaddywaddy were listed as having been “in attendance”. There was also a suggestion that Ultravox may have won a video award for Passing Strangers, but this appears not to have been true.
A little bit late, this one. I don’t know Westbam particularly well apart from a couple of remixes, but as is probably apparent to regular readers, I do know The Beloved. With shades of Be Angeled, they return together with this, Sky is the Limit. I haven’t made my mind up about whether I think it’s The Beloved‘s finest lyric or even vocal delivery, but it’s definitely a great song.
August saw flashbacks to 1990, with the return of The Beloved to the charts with their debut studio album Happiness. From a humble re-entry at number 4 at the start of the month, it climbed gradually to the top spot, sitting there for the latter half of the month. For the final week, their 1989 single Your Love Takes Me Higher finally climbed up to the top spot on both the Singles and Catalogue Singles charts, finally deposing Pet Shop Boys‘ latest recreation of West End girls from both charts after eight weeks. Meanwhile, Sparks continued their domination of all the charts, with three previous chart-toppers remaining in the top ten for the whole month.
Here’s the album chart for the final week of the month:
While you were looking the other way, Róisín Murphy has been quietly slipping out astonishing slow dance albums for some time now. She’s onto her fifth now, Róisín Machine. This is Something More:
The 1979 ceremony was held on 26th February 1980, to celebrate the music of the preceding year. It was simulcast on BBC TV and BBC Radio 1, and took place again at the Café Royal, London. It was presented by Dave Lee Travis and Sue Lawley, with commentary by Mike Read on the Radio 1 broadcast.
Winner: Kate Bush
Winner: Paul McCartney
Winner: The Police
Winner: Gary Numan
Presented by Rick Wakeman, with remote help from Anne Nightingale.
Winner: The Police, for Regatta de Blanc
Winner: Boomtown Rats, for I Don’t Like Mondays
Presented by John Peel.
Winner: Jerry Dammers with Radio 1’s Disc Jockeys’ Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Pop Music for his work with The Specials
Winner: unknown
Presenters included Barron Knights, Kate Bush, Marianne Faithfull, Andy Gibb, and Leo Sayer, and possibly also Thereza Bazar of Dollar.
It was reported the following year that Gary Numan supposedly won “multiple awards”, which may tell us that he won the All-Round Family Appeal award, but we can’t tell that for sure.
Ronnie Hazlehurst and His Orchestra performed the music again, with Apollo performing dance routines.
Music for stowaways 