Best Brits 2013

So it's the Brits 2013, introduced as the biggest night of the year in British music.  It's awards month for sure, being hot on the heels of the Grammy's earlier in February, and the warm up for the Oscars.

Sure enough the Brits had big stage shows and sets to help fill out the O2 Arena in London.  The Grammys the previous week saw Fun perform in the rain, proper wet rain.  As if to continue the weather theme, the Brits had Robbie Williams and Taylor Swift performing with a snow effect of course.

Some engaging and articulate stories by selected artists of all their journey and hard work behind the scenes.  Perhaps the best take away quote was from Lana Del Ray, winning best International Female, who was grateful for being able to "...turn my life into a work of Art.".    Then there's the insight from Emily Sande.... "I was an underdog,  nobody wanted to sign me.....when people don't believe in you, you want to prove them wrong. I want to encourage any underdog to achieve their dreams.  This is an album I wrote because I didn't have the confidence to say these things in person. For me, that so many people have connected with this album and found strength in these words makes me feel incredible and it doesn't make me feel as lonely."

Some great lighting effects too to create atmosphere.  Lots of large scale, fast paced, beat synchronised lighting too. No mean feat - given that light travels faster than sound - to make that work well at scale and distance. That said, less can be more and provides interest and variety too, so for Ben Howard's acoustic performance had some powerful but effective static beams.  For an overtly music show, the shrill glass breaking audio effects before and after each set of nomination did detract a bit.

Interesting that there's increasing commonality between the Grammys and Brits, as the gap between breaking into the respective music scenes reduces as the music markets are better and quicker connected now through the virtual world. Maybe with that convergence  it's not such a surprise then that year's Brits 2013 were described by the Guardian, as "Nothing more than a mirror to the charts".   Anyway, it's still nice to know that Brits has invested £14m helping budding musicians over the years.....

Here's that list of categories, winners and nominees....


1 British Group 

Mumford And Sons - WINNER
Alt J
Muse
One Direction
The xx

2 British Live Act 

Coldplay - WINNER
The Rolling Stones
Mumford And Sons
Muse
Vaccines

3 British Male

Ben Howard - WINNER
Calvin Harris
Olly Murs
Richard Hawley
Plan B

4 British Female 

Emeli Sande - WINNER
Amy Winehouse
Bat For Lashes
Jessie Ware
Paloma Faith

5 Global Success 

One Direction -WINNER
Mumford And Sons
Adele

6 British Single

Adele - Skyfall - WINNER
Alex Clare - Too Close
Coldplay and Rihanna - Princess of China
DJ Fresh FT Rita Ora - Hot Right Now
Emile Sande - Next To Me
Florence And The Machine - Spectrum
James Arthur - Impossible
Jessie J - Domino
Labrinth FT Emeli Sande - Beneath Your Beautiful
Olly Murs FT Flo Rida– Troublemaker
Rita Ora FT Tinie Tempah - RIP
Rizzle Kicks - Mama Do The Hump
Robbie Williams - Candy
Rudimental FT John Newman- Feel the Love
Stooshe - Black Heart

7 International Female

Lana Del Rey - WINNER
Rihanna
Alicia Keys
Cat Power
Taylor Swift

8 International Group

Black Keys - WINNER
Alabama Shakes
Fun.
Killers
The Script

9 International Male

Frank Ocean - WINNER
Bruce Springsteen
Gotye
Jack White
Michael Buble

10 MasterCard British Album of The Year 

Emeli Sande - Our Version Of Events - WINNER
Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
Mumford And Sons - Babel
Paloma Faith - Fall To Grace
Plan B - Ill Manors

11 Special Recognition Award 

War Child

12 Critics' Choice

Tom Odell

13 British Producer 

Paul Epworth

Grammy Awards 2013

So it's the 55th annual Grammy awards.  Staring back in 1949 it's been getting bigger and bigger.

Introduced as the greatest music show on earth, that's a lot to live up to, and included 81 awards.  But sure enough some big performances, Ed Sheran with Elton John of particular note.

We believe that great lighting has such a big part to play in enhancing the musical performance and atmosphere, but the Grammy's have gone that step further.  Now there's weather to add into the mix.  Sure enough, when Fun performed it started raining, and properly raining.  Those big drops created especially to be visible on camera.  As Fun also won best new artist  then the challenge is surely on for next year's new artists.  Adele winning best pop solo performance with "Set Fire to the Rain" might not be a co-incidence.   After all, maybe rains's just a natural progression from using "Fog" to enhance lighting effects....

While always looking for new ways of keeping our discos full of great sound and light, but we'll be keeping things dry for the time being at least.

Wired for Sound

Wired is the monthy lifestyle magazine with a focus on..."Ideas, Technology, Design, Business".  interesting that February's issue seemed to be awash with fascinating and curious music related items, so here they are....

1.  Tasteful Music.

Researchers at Oxford University have shown some really interesting links between the taste of food and the influence of sound and music.  Sure enough sound is explicitly linked to some foods,  so crisps come in a crunchy sounding packet, not at all necessary but a simple illustration of that relationship.  Researchers found that there are "synaesthetic correspondences" between taste and sound through a range of experiments.  So give people some toffee to munch in a darkened room while listening to different music in the background.  When the music at a higher pitch, the toffee tasted sweeter.....[p.26]

2. Dancing Robots

Robots while able to replicate lots of human moves, just can't dance. Dancing takes agility and speed which is pretty challenging for a robot to perform naturally.   Not any more, there's a dancing robot on the cards. Testing it's environment 100 times per second and considering it's own momentum, inertia and friction, to balance better and move more quickly and smoothly....[p.36]

3.  3D Vinyl

How about a vinyl record that rather than being a disc is in fact a sphere.  So this has been created by an enthusiastic traveller, a globe of vinyl that represents earth and plays the music associated with the location of the stylus on that world.  The next project is a vinyl record that would play for 24 hours, and would need to be 3m wide.... [p.69]

4. DJ Lounge Booth

So a bespoke DJ booth which would be at home in the lounge, even playing lounge music.  About £750 buys a solid wood DJ booth based on the designs of legendary early disco clubs like Studio 54 and Paradise Garage.  So maybe that's full circle, some homage also to those original front room wooden gramophone and radio cabinets of previous generations....[p.54]

5. Sound to Light

How about turning an audio track into a picture.... At songle.jp a music track can be rendered into various styles of animated infographic. [p.78]

Given hearing is one of a limited number of senses (the actual number is not fully agreed) it's perhaps not surprising that these sorts of curiosities and innovations enable us to better understand end enjoy the audible world around us.