Form An Orderly Q

Amy Winehouse has got a brand new bag – fun bags that is: full of silicone or saline solution, or maybe she’s just started eating her greens. The Winester sent the tabloids into a bullshit frenzy following the singer’s “controversial” appearance at the Q Awards on Monday.

“Controversial” in quotation marks, lest we remind you, is now the de rigueur word for the best and brightest of this fine land’s press to bandy about whenever the minuscule singer (the rich and famous are all about 2ft 4” in real life) so much as buys a pint of milk. So over used is the word that it has been rendered meaningless and not much use to denote anything other than a lazy mutant at the Daily Mail throwing together a steaming pile of slop for the next edition. Curse these peddlers of words.

The (non)controversy amounted to Amy turning up to the awards over an hour late despite, apparently, staying in the very hotel where the event was held. She was due on stage to present The Specials with a shiny trophy for achievement in music or some such category (more on the inspiring awards for inspirational inspiration later) but arrived in the room when the two-tone outfit were halfway through their acceptance speech. This didn’t stop Winehouse interrupting them to let the audience know that they were the most inspirational band of all time (The Specials not the audience – that would just be plain weird) and demanding a rapturous round of applause from all in the room.

From this frankly shocking! and! disturbing! (yawn) scene, the word donkeys at the papers rolled out the clichés of a shambolic performance and had much delight in spurting their load in faux-outrage at the singer’s breast implants like they were weapons of mass destruction that could be launched at us in 45 minutes.

Pretend newspaper Metro went with a front-page headline of: “’Nightmare’ Amy Winehouse steals Q Awards winner 2009 Lily Allen’s thunder.” Alriiiiighty then; but I was there and no such thing happened. Let’s not let something as trivial as the truth get in the way, though, eh? You can see the thinking at work here; take two big-name celebrities stick them together and people might read our organ instead of wiping their arses with it. I digress. Allen won the award for best track with ‘The Fear’. Clearly the panel haven’t heard The Killers and Rhythms Del Mundo with their cover of ‘Hotel California’. (Full blog on the travesty to follow, but I’ve inserted it below so you can prepare yourselves…)

Anyway, back to the show and on to all those lovely awards for being an icon. There was Robert Plant winning the Icons’ Iconic Award For Being An Icon, Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) taking home the prize for Legendary Classic Songwriting Legend, Sonic Youth scooping the Innovators For Innovating Innovation In Sound award and Marianne Faithfull bestowed as the People’s Icon.

Joking aside, these people are all clearly deserving of huge recognition, and it was genuinely heart-warming to see Edwyn Collins receive a Legend award, but when these words (iconic, legend, classic) are thrown about with the same kind of abandon as the tabloids on a “controversy” spree they risk losing the very real meaning that should come with such a weighty word.

So, what did we learn? A lot of free booze was drunk and a nice jolly was had by all and most importantly the symbiotic relationship between news editors looking for easy copy and an award show getting the all-important publicity continued unabated. End of story. Oh and, importantly, Arctic Monkeys won, a much-deserved, Best Live Act and Kasabian didn’t (shame they got Best Album, though).

The full list of winners is below:

Best New Act: White Lies
Breakthrough Artist: Mr. Hudson
Best Track: Lily Allen – ‘The Fear’
Best Video: Lady GaGa – ‘Just Dance’
Best Live Act: Arctic Monkeys
Best Album: Kasabian – ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’
Best Act in the World Today: Muse
Classic Song: Frankie Goes to Hollywood – ‘Relax’
Q Classic Album: U2 – ‘The Unforgettable Fire’
Innovation In Sound: Sonic Youth
Classic Songwriter: Yusuf Islam
The Q Idol: Spandau Ballet
Outstanding Contribution to Music: Robert Plant
The Q Inspiration Award: The Specials
The Q Icon: Marianne Faithfull
The Q Legend: Edwyn Collins

Eddie Devlin