BRIT Awards 2024: real winners and losers

This year's Brit Awards are set to go down in history with pop star Ray taking home six trophies, including best artist, song of the year and album of the year.

“Can it get any better than this?” the overwhelmed 26-year-old asked backstage. “What the hell is going on?”

But for the Brit, there's always more to it than the award itself.

On a night of tears, beers and career celebrations, who were the real winners and losers at the O2 Arena?

Winning six British awards in one night is amazing.

David Bowie won the award only six times in his entire career. George Michael scored 3 points. Adele, the greatest British artist of the last decade, has 12 songs.

In other words, Ray is officially half Adele.

Two years ago, she was a self-proclaimed “dropout” in the music industry, which made her record-breaking accomplishment all the more impressive.

Prevented from releasing music by a record label that didn't believe in her, she had to fight for her freedom and finally became independent in 2022.

Since then, her career has exploded. “Escapism,” a song she wrote in the depths of despair and rejected by her label, became a monster hit. The UK number one song became the best-selling song by a British female artist in 2023 and went platinum worldwide.

Tonight, the song won song of the year, proving that success is the sweetest revenge.

“This was the best night of my life,” Ray told Us afterward. “And luckily they had everything on camera so I could look back at it.”

Last year, an American pop artist named Taylor Swift achieved considerable success. He sold a few records, gave a few concerts, and dated a football player. You may have heard of it.

So it came as a shock to the Swifties when actress Joanne Froggatt opened an envelope labeled “Best International Artist” and read someone else's name: Missouri-born R&B singer SZA.

But the shock didn't last long. This was not a David-defeating-Goliath moment.

SZA's second album, SOS, is a modern masterpiece. With her 23-track body of work, she dissects love from every conceivable angle, nimbly jumping between genres and delivering gorgeous, jazzy vocals that blur the line between rapping and singing.

If anything, the Brits did a better job here than they did at this year's Grammy Awards. There, SZA received more nominations than any other artist, but was shut out of every major category.

Best Pop nominee Charli XCX appeared in a stiff resin bustier that she had been hugging around her belly button all night, just in case she wowed the audience by playing Janet Jackson.

Marni's bespoke outfit made a fancy British dinner a little less realistic.

“When I have to sit down, it goes up to my throat,” she says. “That's not great.”

But all the discomfort was worth it.

“That's the part I care about. Looks. Does any of the rest really matter? I don't know. Anything is fine.”

Here are some things you may not know. Joe Keery, aka Stranger Things' Steve Harrington, currently has a top 10 single in the UK.

'End Of The Beginning', a dreamy indie rock song he recorded under the pseudonym Djo two years ago, suddenly went viral and earned him a spot at the BRIT Awards.

But while he was happy to talk about his music, he was sworn to secrecy about the upcoming (and final) season of Stranger Things.

“I saw the script, but that's all I can say,” he said. “I received several documents that had words written on them that may or may not involve people I know.

“I can't say more than that.”

Not since Jarvis Cocker shook his ass at Michael Jackson have the British seen such depravity.

As Clara Amfo was introducing, Irish singer CMAT stepped behind her shot and turned around to reveal what one might euphemistically call her “Irish craziness.”

American punk rockers Green Day attended the Blitz to present the award for Best British Group.

However, the show's co-host Roman Kemp managed to subtly attack the band as they took to the stage.

“The next award to a British group will be presented by two true rock gods,” he said. “They've sold over 75 million records and released 14 albums…They're American Busted.”

I wish the rest of the dull, lifeless script had been so eager to ruffle feathers.

Kylie received the Blitz Global Icon Award. This is a lifetime achievement award without the cruel “your career has seen better days” subtext.

She has scored career-spanning hits such as “Padam Padam,” “Can't Get You Out of My Head,” “Love at First Sight,” and “All the Lovers.” celebrated with a medley of

Appearing on a pedestal high above the audience, she changed costumes four times and performed choreographed movements similar to a vending machine.

Best of all, she looked like she was having the time of her life. She ran down the catwalk, smiling widely and high-fiving the dancers.

Like her performance at Glastonbury five years ago, it was a reminder of why she is so loved.

The other performers want their hard work, sweat, and tears to be seen. Kylie is just glowing.

Mistaking the Brit Awards for Royal Ascot, Ella Henderson turned up wearing a voluminous chapeau and insisted she keep it on throughout the ceremony.

And what about the people sitting behind her?

“I turn around and tell them what's going on,” she laughed.

It's rude to bring this up again, but Dua Lipa's first British performance in 2018 was so formal that it spawned the meme “Go Girl, Give Nothing.''

She has since described the investigation as “really painful.”

“I thought, 'I'm finally able to do what I love, and I'm so closed off that I can't seem to do anything right,'” she told Rolling Stone.

Since then, Dua has continued to prove the haters wrong, but her opening performance at this year's Blitz was timeless. Wearing a cropped leather jacket and shorts, she strutted down the catwalk toward a rotating tower of male dancers.

Then, without a tremor in her voice, she was hoisted into the air by two acrobats before returning to the stage to finish the song.

In a night filled with eye-catching and creative performances (kudos to Lema, Tate McRae, and Becky Hill), this one was a standout.

Did someone put a sedative in the champagne? The atmosphere inside the O2 was as dead as a door nail driven into a dodo and buried in a concrete bunker.

Television viewers were not impressed.

“There's something very unpleasant about this year's #BritAwards.” Kieran Maddison wrote to X. “The atmosphere is very bad and the audience is very dead.”

“Is there anyone in the audience?” Hayley Davis asked.

“Take us back to the days when everyone was good and rock stars,” Allie Fothers concluded.

Next year, we might put fans in the front row and the industry table elsewhere. Like a parking lot.

The British screenwriters were strangely obsessed with drinking jokes, almost as if they were trying to force a Brandon Bullock moment into existence.

Roman Kemp challenges Calvin Harris (banned) to a knockdown shot, then reveals a bottle that says 'Harry Styles Bathwater'.

“I call it Saltburn,” he said with a wink, pointing to a scene from the movie. I won't explain it to people who haven't seen the movie.

Kemp then convinced Kylie Minogue to do a “shooey”, following the Australian tradition of drinking beer on shoes.

“Do you want to do this?” she asked the crowd, who roared in approval.

Kemp duly poured Kylie's signature rosé champagne on the heels, and the pair then took a hearty sip.

Co-host Maya Jama joked that Kemp had athlete's foot, but it would have been a decent joke if he had been drinking water from Kemp's shoes.

Twenty years after forming, Bring Me the Horizon won the first-ever Brit Award for Best Rock/Alternative Act.

On stage, frontman Oli Sykes suggested that their victories over bands like Blur, the Young Fathers and the Rolling Stones were all down to technical factors.

“Cheers to the Brits for making the voting system so complicated. Only our fans will be pissed,” he joked.

Backstage, the band remained expressionless. Asked what he planned to do with the trophy, Sykes said: “I think it's going to be a very useful doorstop for the summer ahead.”

“With things like global warming, we have to open the doors really hard to let some of the heat out.”

Ray's final award of the night was his biggest, for Album of the Year for his genre-hopping debut, My 21st Century Blues.

In her final speech on stage, she brought up the story of her grandmother, Agatha, for moral support.

“She raised me,” the singer (whose middle name is Agatha) explained backstage.

“My parents worked full time, so they came from Ghana to raise us. They lived with us, took us to and from school, and gave us so much love and heart. .”