The 2009 EGGIES...Day 14

And so, we reach the end. Just one last award to take care of; Most Exquisite Female (Non-Music) for 2009. This was tough. Horribly tough. Agonisingly difficult, and...oh, enough.

Here she is: OLIVIA HALLINAN



I have only one thing to say to anyone who may disagree with this verdict: did you *see* her on Children In Need??!!! Case closed. Everyone gone home. End of.

ALSO NOMINATED:

LAUREN CRACE (Eastenders)
LUCY GRIFFITHS (Robin Hood, Collision)
EVANGELINE LILY (Lost)
LOUISA LYTTON (The Bill)
JACQUELINE McKENZIE (The 4400)
EVE MYLES (Torchwood)
LAILA ROUASS (Primeval, Footballer's Wives)
RITA SIMONS (Eastenders)
SARAH SMART (Wallander)
KELLY SOTHERTON (Athletics)
LACEY TURNER (Eastenders)


PS. Yes, I am aware of all the Eastenders actresses on the above list. Guilty as charged, m'lud.

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 13

Our penultimate award - Most Exquisite Female (Music) - is traditionally the second-most tedious and unpleasant to choose. Imagine, all the beautiful females out there who make records, and you have to sit and decide on which one is the loveliest. Ugh.

So, after great deliberation, the 2009 winner is: NORAH JONES



The biggest mystery is why it took until late last year to realise how gorgeous she is. What *was* I thinking?!


ALSO NOMINATED:

Colbie Caillat
Alesha Dixon
Lisa Hannigan
Little Boots
Katie Melua
Nerina Pallot
Taylor Swift
KT Tunstall
Kimberley Walsh

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 12

With all the music-related awards out of the way, it's time to concentrate on beauty. Tomorrow and the next day, we'll be focusing on people (namely, ladies) who look lovely. But first, the almost-as-important matter of album sleeve design and packaging.

BEST DESIGN/PACKAGING: KRAFTWERK - THE CATALOGUE



The original Kraftwerk album covers were already fairly iconic; from the motorway scene of Autobahn, the retrofuturism of both Trans Europe Express and The Man Machine, to the sparser, angular styles of Computer World and Electric Cafe. The band had long since reduced their visual identity to the four Robots, either behind banks of keyboards or simply headshots. The latterday covers for The Mix and Tour de France Soundtracks mirrored the stripped down, recycled approach of the music itself, which had ceased to move forward in the way it had done in the 1970s and early 1980s and instead seemed content to fiddle with itself at great length.

In some ways, The Catalogue represents one long bout of Kraftwerk fiddling with itself, reprocessing and tweaking every imaginable facet of the music and, naturally, the packaging as well, in an attempt to present a definitive and unified body of work. To this end, for the CD outer slipcases some of the sleeves have been replaced with either an existing, earlier alternative (Autobahn's roadsign) or a version which removes the band's image, though the heads remain on Computer World and Techno Pop (formerly known as Electric Cafe, but now reverting to its intended title).

Most of these adjustments are pleasing on the eye; the new Trans Europe Express outer cover is absolutely sublime, and Radioactivity is arguably another improvement. Less so the loss of The Man Machine's group photo design, although as pictured above the original sleeves are still part of the inside cover packaging.

Individually, some of these designs would have been notable contenders for the award, but taken as a whole, The Catalogue boxset trumps anything else released in 2009 for sheer gorgeousness; even EMI/Parlophone's fine job with the overhyped Beatles Remasters project.


ALSO NOMINATED:

BAT FOR LASHES (Two Suns album)
THE BEATLES (Stereo Remasters deluxe boxset)
FLORENCE + THE MACHINE (Lungs album and boxset)
FOO FIGHTERS (Greatest Hits deluxe edition)
LITTLE BOOTS (Singles & Album)
PET SHOP BOYS (Yes deluxe edition)
PORTICO QUARTET (Isla album)
SAINT ETIENNE (Method Of Modern Love singles bundle)
WHITE LIES (To Lose My Life album & various singles)

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 11

Fittingly, the winner of the eleventh award goes to a band who have always been proud to be loud. Maximum volume for them has never been 10.

BEST DANCE/URBAN ACT: THE PRODIGY



In 2009, Liam Howlett and co. found their mojo again. True, Invaders Must Die was no Fat Of The Land, that would be too much to ask for. But more importantly, it was no Baby's Got A Temper, the wretched one-off single from the early 00's that nearly did for them. Some dozen years after their epochal apex, when they would drive the industrial dance music genre forward in exhilarating ways rather than follow it, The Prodigy finally made another decent album. Phew.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Beyonce
Brandy
Taio Cruz
Jay-Z
Alicia Keys
Lady Gaga
Rihanna
Royksopp
Kanye West

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 10

We're into double figures, which is more than can be said for the next catgeory; Best Dance/Urban Single. Another victim of 2009's bare cupboard syndrome, even finding a handful of viable nominations nearly proved too strenuous a task. Next time around, this award will probably be quietly dispatched into a bling-filled sunset.

What could be the final winner of this award, then, is:

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND, Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys



Just when it seemed all was lost in Hip-Hop and (what used to be) Soul, along came this wonderful track. Rap's glory days - in the opinion of yours truly, of course - are long gone; even Outkast's finest hour was several years ago, and Public Enemy and their ilk seem an eternity ago. Jay-Z's an adequate rapper and a passable lyricist...well, sometimes...but what raises Empire State Of Mind to the realm of the sublime is the chorus, provided on record by Alicia Keys but even when performed live on Later With Jools Holland by a different vocalist the effect was much the same.

This single proved to be my final #1 of the year, and therefore of the decade. Not a bad way to see out the Noughties.


ALSO NOMINATED:

POKER FACE Lady Gaga
RIGHT HERE (DEPARTED) Brandy
SWEET DREAMS Beyonce
THE GIRL AND THE ROBOT Royksopp ft. Robyn

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 9

Just six EGGIES to go, and today it's the turn of an award which in previous years has always been split into British and International categories. In 2009, however, there simply weren't enough candidates who fulfilled the criteria for separate gongs; in fact, there weren't the usual 10 names even when combined.

BEST NEWCOMER: FLORENCE + THE MACHINE



Despite the paucity of contenders, this was still quite a strong line-up to choose from. White Lies and Passion Pit had particularly good claims to take this award, but the frequent brilliance of the Lungs album, and the huge success on my charts of its main clutch of singles, tipped the scales in Florence + The Machine's favour.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Jon Allen
Empire Of The Sun
Paloma Faith
La Roux
Lady Gaga
Passion Pit
White Lies

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 8

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEMALE SOLO ARTIST: LADYHAWKE




Towards the end of 2008, I happened across the Ladyhawke album - one of those skinny cardboard-sleeved promo CDs often lurking in second hand music shops - for what soon transpired to be the best £1 that I'd spent for a long time.

More than a year on, and that album is still on high rotation chez EG and Paris Is Burning (the song which piqued my interest originally) can still be found charting on my weekly listings. A nicely embellished 2009 tweaking of the track certainly helped, but the whole album was chock full of a retro 80s synth-rock sound which was endlessly attempted during the past decade but rarely wuth such delightful panache.

In short, she wins.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Beyonce
Enya
Norah Jones
Alicia Keys
Jenny Lewis
Jordin Sparks
Taylor Swift
Hayley Westenra
Zazie

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 7

And on the seventh day....

BEST BRITISH FEMALE SOLO ARTIST: LITTLE BOOTS



Okay, so this was never going to be the most surprising choice. What may surprise some of the more casual pop fans is the picture above; yes, before she turned into a cute blonde pixie hybrid of Kylie and Goldfrapp, Boots was a cute brunette with a reputation for fiddling around at the more DIY end of the synth pop spectrum. Me, I adore both; perhaps she didn't need to go chasing the big hit single by jetting off to L.A. and getting RED ONE to work on her records, but that's her prerogative and Remedy wasn't such a bad single anyway.

Part of me does, however, secretly wish she'd abandon her apparently doomed attempts to be the perfect mainstream popstar, throw away the peroxide and play to her strengths. Of which there are many.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Lily Allen
Bat For Lashes
Cara Dillon
Alesha Dixon
Duffy
Paloma Faith
Lisa Hannigan
Nerina Pallot
Sharleen Spiteri

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 6

BEST INTERNATIONAL MALE SOLO ARTIST: MICHAEL BUBLE



Despite the new album, that is. Cheer up Michael, you've still won!

Given the competition included several acts who have been making music even longer than I've been in the world, this was one of the (many) categories to reflect what a comparitively poor year it was for new faces. However, the nominees were a remarkably eclectic bunch, if nothing else.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Glen Campbell
Bob Dylan
Josh Groban
Jay-Z
John Mayer
Ne-Yo
Lionel Richie
Bruce Springsteen
Kanye West

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 5

Decent male solo acts have become an endangered species of late, especially within the pop world, to the point where this particular category may as well have been called the Paul Weller Award. Not much has changed this year in terms of the dearth of genuine contenders for the crown, but Weller is not eligible due to no new material being issued during 2009. So someone else gets a chance.

And that someone is...

BEST BRITISH MALE SOLO ARTIST: DAVID GRAY



Yes, that exciting new talent who came from nowhere to achieve massive success and acclaim with his latest album White Ladder. Er...oops. Wrong decade. Still, anyone who follows the work of Mr Gray will know just how glorious his current album is; Draw The Line hones everything that has always marked him out as an outstanding singer and songwriter. That voice alone is worth an award, and after a decade of consistently spellbinding albums he is sounding as strong as ever.


ALSO NOMINATED:

Jon Allen
Jamie Cullum
Taio Cruz
Newton Faulkner
Howard Jones
Morrissey
Seal
Sting
Patrick Wolf

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 4

Next, the easiest category to compile enough nominations but conversely the toughest from which to choose a winner. They are all fine bands, but in 2009 rather too many of them were still living off past glories and drawing on the goodwill they'd banked with me via earlier albums.

BEST INTERNATIONAL GROUP: ROYKSOPP



In late 2001, a wonderful album called Melody AM emerged, almost unnoticed, into the world. Over the next year or so, singles such as Eple, So Easy, Sparks and Remind Me established them as one of my favourite acts of the Noughties. Follow-up album The Understanding effectively tanked at retail, but it still housed a plethora of gorgeous tracks. 2009 gave us Junior, which in true difficult-third-album-syndrome fashion, shared characteristics with both their first and second long-players.


ALSO NOMINATED:

a-ha
Foo Fighters
Howling Bells
The Killers
Kings Of Leon
The Raveonettes
Sparks
U2
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 3

At this point we go all BRIT Awards, with special categories for homegrown and overseas acts. First up...

BEST BRITISH GROUP - MADNESS



Well, cor blimey guv'nor, who'd have thought it in 2009 - some thirty years after they first plonked themselves in the UK charts with the 2-Tone ska of The Prince - that Camden's finest would return with a quite stupendous record. A concept album, no less. Augmented by an equally stupendous, extremely evocative concert film interspersed with Carl Smythe's cheeky gothic monologues, The Liberty Of Norton Folgate reminded everyone how bloody marvellous Madness could be.

For all these reasons, they scoop the EGGIES' Best British Group gong, which too often goes to Coldplay or Keane or whatnot. Hurrah.

ALSO NOMINATED:

COLDPLAY
DOVES
FLORENCE + THE MACHINE
FRANZ FERDINAND
GIRLS ALOUD
PET SHOP BOYS
SAINT ETIENNE
SNOW PATROL
WHITE LIES

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 2

And so we move onto the second most-coveted category of the EGGIES; the Best Single of the Year.

Boasting the most intricate and arresting production of the year, Florence + The Machine's breakthrough single had it all; great swooping chorus, powerful vocals and - rare in 2009's barren pop landscape where Autotune, and not Midas, is king - a sound all its own.

The Drumming Song spent longer at #1 on my weekly charts (6 weeks compared to Rabbit Heart's mere 4), but over the course of the whole year, it was the latter which emerged triumphant.

ALSO NOMINATED:

Daniel, Bat For Lashes
Did You See Me Coming?, Pet Shop Boys
Drumming Song, Florence + The Machine
Empire State Of Mind, Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys
Fugitive, David Gray
Method Of Modern Love, Saint Etienne
New In Town, Little Boots
The Fear, Lily Allen
We Are The People, Empire Of The Sun

The 2009 EGGIES...Day 1

The 9th Annual EG Awards - or EGGIES as they have become known - will be keeping this blog occupied for most of January. Each day (or thereabouts), a winner from each of the many and splendid categories will be featured, along with those unfortunate souls (or records) which went home empty-handed.

To kick off, it's the Best Album Of 2009 category.


No surprises here, perhaps, but in the end our Vic was given a pretty good run for her money by Florence + The Machine's almost-as-magnificent opus, Lungs.

Home to two UK Top 40 "hits", three other singles of varying physicality, and a host of gorgeous synth-pop tunes of almost universally-wonderful quality, Hands was the album of choice in 2009 for anyone who really loves pop music in its most traditional sense.

Internet forums may have been all a-twitter on the failings of the label, the artist, the sleeve, the producer, and the person who swept the floor in the studio, but Boots was the brightest ray of hope for pop's future in a dire year.


ALSO NOMINATED:

Lungs, Florence + The Machine
The Liberty Of Norton Folgate, Madness
Isla, The Portico Quartet
To Lose My Life, White Lies