Bowie still winning awards

He has been gone for over a year but music icon David Bowie is still winning prizes for his album Blackstar. Last week, Bowie and his last album were among the big winners at the 37th Edition of the British Phonographic Industry’s pop music awards held at the O2 in London last Feb. 22. Better known as The Brits, the annual awards honor British music excellence for the year just past. 

Bowie was named the British Male Solo Artist of the Year while Blackstar won the MasterCard British Album of the Year award. These came barely two weeks after the 59th Annual Grammy Awards where Bowie was honored for the first time ever in his long, extremely successful career with five wins. He tied with fellow Brit Adele for the most number of trophies given to a single artist that evening. Bowie won for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for the single Blackstar while the album was named Best Alternative Music Album, Best Engineered Album Non-Classical and Best Recording Package.

Maybe it is true what they say about swan songs. Legend has it that the swan, which is not considered a songbird, sings its funeral song beautifully before it dies. Bowie’s swan song is Blackstar, his 25th album. It was recorded within a year when unknown to any but his closest family and friends, he was in the later stages of liver cancer. That must be the reason why Blackstar turned out to be extraordinary.

Bowie was never known for being conventional and was never scared of experimentation. He went for the extremes in Blackstar though. He eschewed genre categorization. The album is rock jazz with strong hints of hip-hop. He re-recorded some old songs Tis A Pity She Was A Whore and Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) into how he felt they should sound today. He went the entire gamut of pop music in Blackstar going from rock, jazz, folk, hip-hop to house. He also sang about a dying man in Lazarus, a song from his stage musical of the same title.

I do not know if Blackstar is the best of Bowie’s albums but performance-wise, I think it is his most affecting. This is the kind of music you cannot listen to without getting involved with his emotions.  It is sad, grand, scary and very beautiful. He knew all the while that he was recording his swan song.

Blackstar was released on Bowie’s 69th birthday last Jan. 8, 2016. He died on Jan. 10, 2016. It has since then sold over two million copies worldwide. Also included in the album are Girl Loves Me, Dollar Days and I Can’t Give Everything Away. 

The other Brit winners for 2017 were Emeli Sande, British Female Solo Artist; The 1975, British Group; A Tribe Called Quest, International Group; Rag’n’Bone Man, British Breakthrough Act and Critics’ Choice Award; Shout Out To My Ex by Little Mix, British Single of the Year; Drake, International Male Solo Artist; Beyoncé, International Female Solo Artist; History by One Direction, British Video; and Adele, Brit’s Global Success.

A sweet moment during the show was when Britain’s favorite boy group Take That presented the Brit’s Icon Award to its delinquent former bandmate Robbie Williams. Robbie’s medley of The Heavy Entertainment Show, Love My Life and Mixed Signals was one of the highlights of the star-studded evening.

Little Mix did Shout Out To My Ex; Bruno Mars performed That’s What I Like; Emeli did Hurts; The 1975 did The Sound; Katy Perry and Skip Marley did a duet on Chained To The Rhythm; The Chainsmokers were tickled pink to sing with Coldplay; and Ed Sheeran joined Stormzy for his new singles Castle On The Hill and Shape Of You.

All in all The Brits Awards 2017 was a well-produced, very entertaining show. That is reason enough to watch out for replays or wherever it is available online.  But I must say that the biggest reason why everybody should watch this is to get the chance to enjoy the tribute to the departed George Martin led by his former Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley. This one included Coldplay frontman Chris Martin singing one of George’s songs, A Different Corner. It was a totally transfixing moment. What a voice! What a song!