2009 is approaching fast and so it’s time to look back at 2008. Here we’ll see the high and lowlights of the first three months of the year, with a selection of stories we covered between January and March.
January
The month began with Queen being named as the best British band of all time, beating The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Take That, and Oasis. Sad news in the middle of the month when Lily Allen suffered a miscarriage. She later split with boyfriend Ed Simons.
Geri Halliwell claimed that the Spice Girls wouldn’t make a penny from their huge world tour despite …read more

The Ivor Novello Awards are an annual celebration of the best displays of song writing over the past twelve months. It’s British biased, but also highlights songs from abroad which sold particularly well.
This year’s nominations have been revealed, and there is one woman head and shoulders above the rest. Amy Winehouse has managed to secure three nominations, two of which are in one category. All despite Back To Black, the album that the songs come from, having been out for over two years.
Winehouse has Love is A Losing Game and You Know I’m No Good both up for best song …read more

At last week’s Brit Awards, one of the many highlights was the collaboration between Rihanna and Klaxons.
The two artists, whose styles vary wildly, made a mashup of Umbrella and Golden Skans work as if the songs had been written in unison, and were always meant to go together.
Now, Rihanna has expressed an interest in releasing the collaboration as a single. She told BBC 6Music (reported here via Digital Spy):
“[It was] really different, very cool, unexpected. But when I hear it, I just want to hear it more. It makes it so much more rock and roll.
“It’s a different tempo …read more

8pm – Mika opens the show with his distinct brand of high pitched camp goodness. There’s no flashy backgrounds or staging, with the focus seeming to be on his actual singing, and stage presence instead. Which is a refreshing change.
Beth Ditto arrives on stage, and the two of them embark on a duet combining Love Today and Standing In The Way Of Control. Once she’s disappeared behind the curtain, Mika goes in to a bit of Grace Kelly.
Already I can see that the crowd is the combination of enthusiastic fans, and industry types who are just there to get drunk …read more

I’ve been writing this blog for over 3 months now, and hopefully some of you are reading and enjoying Brit Music Scene. I’ve strived to bring you all the latest news, reviews, gossip and low-down on everything to do with the British Music Scene, and I think I’ve done a good job.
So in a further effort to educate my readers and bring some good music to your ears, here are 10 British music artists you should discover.
Now some of you will know all of the groups I talk about, especially if you happen to be in the UK, but …read more

The Vodafone Live awards are one of those small awards ceremonies that is quickly getting bigger and getting more attention. They’re still not on the scale of The Brits or anything, but it ended up being a good show, and the list of winners ticks virtually every box for me. Here are the full list…
Best Live Male: Mika
Best Live Female: Amy Winehouse
Live Impact 2007: Gossip
Best Show Production: Kylie Minogue
Best Live Return: The Police
Best Live Music DVD: Oasis: ‘Morning Glory – A Classic Album’
Best Live Music Venue: Wembley Stadium
XFM Live Breakthrough Act: Klaxons
Channel 4 Festival of the Year: Glastonbury
Kerrang! Live Unsigned …read more

The Klaxons have won this year’s Nationwide Mercury Music Prize for their debut album ‘Myths Of The Near Future’. The New Rave band beat stiff competition from 11 other artists including Arctic Monkeys, The Young Knives, Dizzee Rascal, The View and Amy Winehouse to win the award at the annual awards ceremony.
But it was Winehouse who came away with most of the headlines, after she put in a surprise appearance at the event and sang a beautiful acoustic version of ‘Love Is A Losing Game’.

The evening awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London saw each band play one …read more

The Oxjam festival is a month long UK wide musical extravaganza organised by the charity Oxfam. It started last year and the first event took place during October 2006 raising over £500,000.
This year’s event is due to be even bigger, with 3,000 gigs and events happening all over the country during the whole of October. The aim is to hold the event for the next 10 years and try to raise £10 million in that time.
There’s already some big names attached to the festival, including Hot Chip, Kaiser Chiefs, DJ Shadow and Fatboy Slim. And now some even …read more

The Klaxons are a weird bunch, when I first heard them I wasn’t too impressed, but over the last few months their brand of art rock/new rave has converted me. Now I’m a fan. There’s something brilliant about them which I can’t quite put my finger on. They seem amateurish but you know when it comes to recording or playing live they’re going to be as professional as you like. This song is called ‘It’s not over yet’ and has actually been out almost a month now, but I didn’t want to let it pass without a review.

Like the …read more