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 it selling out everywhere. She was later proved a liar when it was revealed the girls had made $20 million apiece. Then the once-great girl group canceled the tour and split up again.

The Cribs took Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, on as a fourth member, while Amy Winehouse finally entered rehab.

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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 of the year, where she will compete with Ben’s Brother for their top 40 hit Let Me Out.

Rehab, which actually won the award for best contemporary song last year, is up for best selling British song this time around. Winehouse will be competing with Beyonce and Shakira for Beautiful Liar, and Mika’s Grace Kelly.

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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 and everything. But I actually want to release a version like that. Maybe the same version. I really, really liked it.”

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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 and nothing else.

8.05pm - The whole Osbourne clan come up out on to the stage, all dressed in black, and all looking fantastic… yes, even Kelly.

8.08pm - Chris Moyles takes the stage to present the award for Best Live Act. It’s a good job he’s on radio more than telly as he’s put more weight on, if that’s possible.

Nominations - Muse, Take That, Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Kaiser Chiefs. And the winner is…

Take That!

That’s a shocker, from boy band to man band, to winner of best live act. Muse have won for the past two years in a row, and I fully expected them to get it again, but there you go.

Gary Barlow does the speech, and is as down to earth/boring as ever.

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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 some of you may not have heard of any of them.

Seeing as most of my readers are from the USA, I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet. So in my opinion here are 10 bands or singers who you should discover, listen to for a bit and maybe even grow to love as much as I do.

For your pleasure, I’ve made a play list with my favourite tune from each artist, and you can listen to it while the read the rest of the post below, you lucky so and so’s.

They are all British, they are all absolutely brilliant, and you need to hear about them right now. Enjoy…

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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 Act: The Flaming Monkeys
Best International Live Act: The Killers
Sony Ericsson Tour of the Year: Muse
Best Roadie: Geoff Buckley [roadie for James]
Freddie Mercury Lifetime Achievement Award in Live Music: Iggy Pop

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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 song from the album they were nominated for, before a team of industry judges retired to decide on a winner.

Each artist gave a good account of themselves, but Amy Winehouse‘ performance at the event had a special significance after her recent well publicised trials and tribulations.

The Klaxons were the last to perform, playing ‘Golden Skans’ before the break and the announcement of the winner.

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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 bigger names have sworn their allegiance to the cause, with the big K trio of The Kooks, Kasabian and The Klaxons all signing up.

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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 last single I reviewed, this is also a cover, although it’s a much better song than the original in my opinion. From the moment the screeching kicks in at the beginning of the song, you know you’re in for a ride, and that’s what the Klaxons give you. The drums and bass are strong throughout as with the whole of their album, the Mercury music prize nominated ‘Myths of the near future‘, of which this is the fifth single released from.

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