The most boring Brit Awards in history

From Alex Turner forgetting what rock ‘n’ roll means, to anything-but-priceless jokes, last night's awards show was entirely forgettable

Beyonce at the Brit Awards 2014 (Getty Images)

I find it hard to remember much of what happened during the Brit Awards last night, such was the cloud of monotony that settled on my brain immediately after Arctic Monkeys’ lacklustre opening performance, and refused to budge for the remainder of the evening.

In fact, it gathered and grew and became so large that I sat staring into space for a good 20 minutes after it was all over. I was genuinely questioning where my career was heading if watching two meaningless hours of shameless self-promotion is considered ‘part of the job’. And that was down to a number of reasons.

Firstly, it was presented by James Corden - a man so bafflingly unfunny, he makes a gay night with Vladimir Putin seem like a hilarious alternative. Watching him bound around like an oversized Andrex puppy, sycophantically screeching “One word: Wow!” after every predictable performance, and attempting to shove his tongue down as many famous throats as possible, was irritating to the extreme.

Secondly, there were the ‘Priceless’ MasterCard jokes. As if, in some freak memory-wiping incident (entirely possible after that Artic Monkeys’ opening performance), everyone had forgotten that a) they worked in pop music and b) it was an awards show. Shock of all shocks, there might be a few commercial sponsors involved. And slamming corporate companies in a weird pseudo-punk attempt at anti-capitalism by saying their biggest advertising slogan live on air is about as stupid as you can get.

Thirdly, the winners. When will it become less obvious that awards are dished out in a vain attempt to get famous people to show up? Nice try with Bowie. Have Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss and an inflammatory reference to the debate on Scottish Independence instead.

Fourthly, that Beyoncé show. Dress was nice, love, but seriously? Why do the Grammys get a thong-flashing extravangza featuring Jay Z and we get five minutes of warbling tedium and a few random columns of light?

And then there was the Arctic Monkeys Album of the Year speech. We get the message. You’ve sold loads of records, people still like guitars, and you’re the living, breathing example of a band surviving against the odds in a Cowell-controlled music industry down-turn. But was the most rock ‘n’ roll thing you could think of doing, Mr Turner, really dropping a microphone on the floor? And do you also realise that YOU’RE AT THE BRITS? Surely the least rock ‘n’ roll place to be in the history of rock ‘n’ roll?

I’ll conclude this rant by adding that the most exciting – and indeed most tweeted about – event of the evening was that fact that someone really awesome didn’t actually play. Many endured the entire two-hour length of the show only to be bitterly disappointed by a lack of live Prince action after he gave the British Female Solo Artist award to Ellie Goulding at the start… And then disappeared. One can only suspect that he, too, had failed to recover from what was surely the most turgid and uneventful Brit Awards in the show’s 37-year history.