No more the Brats

It's pointless really to complain how the NME Awards, with Shockwaves lest we forget, mirror the Brit nominations more and more, although which organisation changed more to make this the case is a moot point. The nominees are out, in any case, and you can vote for the winner at www.nme.com/awards. Here's a few pointers. Yeah, right.

Best British Band: Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis
No matter what they do Oasis will always have enough fans for this kind of thing. You may insert your own Internet voting/Arctic Monkeys line here if you desire. Wonder if they'll turn up.

Best International Band: Arcade Fire, Green Day, Foo Fighters, The Killers, The Strokes
In association with T4, so ver Fire have no chance. The Killers and Strokes were nominated last year, which seems odd as only one has actually done anything since. Green Day have more fans than you'd think, and the organisers will hope they'll set fire to something during the ceremony.

Best Solo Artist: Antony And The Johnsons, Richard Ashcroft, Ian Brown, Graham Coxon, Kanye West
We wonder if anyone else saw Kate 'Belle & Sebastian won Best Newcomer but apart from that it wasn't bad' Thornton on the Brits preview show on Saturday interviewing Antony, who did his best not to look patronised but it must have been hard work. Kanye takes over from Eminem as the token rapper, while Richard Ashcroft presumably gets in as a result of there not being many solo artists voters could think of.

Best New Band: Arctic Monkeys, Editors, Magic Numbers, Maximo Park, We Are Scientists
We thought the Magic Numbers had kind of drifted out of the collective conscious post-Bacon, certainly their album and summer of festival taking not receiving much notice in the end of year round-ups. Let's not pretend four of these have a chance.

Best Live Band: Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Green Day, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis
Green Day for Bloc Party and it's the same as the best group category. Proves something, we suppose. Only Franz were nominated for this last year, which proves something else entirely.

Best Album: Don't Believe The Truth, Down In Albion, Employment, Silent Alarm, You Can Have It So Much Better
Although obviously the winner in this category will have been fixed by subtly altering the positions to settle the advertisers. Ahem. Franz and Pete get consecutive nominations but you'd be hard pressed to think who voted in those numbers to get them into the final five. Whither Funeral?

Best Track: Do You Want To, Fuck Forever, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, I Predict A Riot, The Importance Of Being Idle
I Predict A Riot wasn't considered one of the top five of the previous nominee period. Presumably it was a different radio mix or something. ...Dancefloor will piss it, given it nearly won the Festive 50 even though the OneMusic trio never played it.

Best Video: Dare, Do You Want To, I Predict A Riot, Juicebox, The Importance Of Being Idle
Again ...Riot falls down on year on year analysis, in that the new video wasn't as good as the first one. We like Do You Want To because we picture Franz's overseas markets wondering who exactly Count Duckula and Captain Pugwash are, Dare was good for scaring kids and ...Idle proved someone in the camp had a finely tuned sense of humour. 16 Military Wives was our video of the year but we won't go into that as it'll set our Mark Beaumont anger gene off.

Best Event: Carling Weekend, Glastonbury, Live 8, T In The Park, V Festival
Sponsored by lastminute.com, which is why they're all so very obvious.

Best TV Show: Gonzo, Little Britain, Lost, The Mighty Boosh, Peep Show
We reckon this is the fourth consecutive nomination for Zane Lowe's MTV2 beanfeast and never has it come within a metric mile of the title. Indeed, substitute Green Wing for Lost and it's the same as last year's nominees, which demonstrates how little we've all moved on. Peep Show, if you must.

Best Radio Show: Colin And Edith, Steve Lamacq, Lauren Laverne, Zane Lowe, Chris Moyles
Christ, for a moment there we thought it said sane, rational people had willingly declared a love of Colin and Ed...oh. We'd like Lauren to win, but a) she's only a local DJ and b) the curse of her media exploits will mean the paper will have shut down by July if she takes it. You can be the judge of whether you'd actively want that to happen.

Best Film: Batman Begins, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, King Kong, Sin City
Might as well have put Wallace & Gromit in for all the relevance to what people imagine NME's target audience to be.

Best Music DVD: Dig!, Green Day: Bullet In A Bible, Kaiser Chiefs: Enjoyment, Live 8, Morrissey: Who Put The M In Manchester
Of these we've only seen Enjoyment, which is well-meaning but a right mess bar the clips of Parva. Can't imagine M In Manchester has many special extra features somehow.

Best Website: kaiserchiefs.co.uk, myspace.com, nme.com, oasisinet.com, wearescientists.com
Oh, don't worry about us, our time will c...We Are Scientists? Hold on a tick... Well, it's a singular approach, to be fair, but we can't see it catching on. No need to worry, the NME always win this for themselves unless they fancy sucking up to Murdoch for once.

Best Venue: Brixton Carling Academy, Glasgow Barrowlands, London Astoria, London Koko, Manchester Apollo
The capital shoves Birmingham's regular nomination out. Such is life.

Hero Of The Year: Carl Barat, Pete Doherty, Liam Gallagher, Bob Geldof, Alex Turner
Well, you can see how Geldof's achieving whatever it was the G8 summit finally announced would go down with a caring community readership, although after that documentary about London's year that was on over the new year we doubt many of Make Poverty History's core members will be going for him. Peel won this last year for dying. Bad luck on that score, Pete.

Villain Of The Year: Tony Blair, James Blunt, George Bush, Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins
How quickly fashion turns, not just for Pete but also Justin Hawkins. They haven't had that notable a year, have they? In fact this is four of the same five as last year, Blunt replacing Wolfman, although to be fair he might be dead for all we know. Can we not vote for Tony Christie by proxy?

Best Dressed: Pete Doherty, Brandon Flowers, Liam Gallagher, Alex Kapranos, Ricky Wilson
Bad luck, Patrick Wolf. So it's louchely worn jackets this year, which explains the category's Topman sponsorship if not how Paul Smith slipped through the net in favour of Liam's continued thrall to whatever was cheapest at Debenhams. Oxfams across the land must be stripped bare by now.

Worst Dressed: Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins, Chris Martin, Jack White, Robbie Williams
Oh, we quite admire Jack's stance alone in reviving the silent film villain look. The tache needs some work, but then that's nature not working as you want it to for you. This seems to have confused everyone this year, as last time GLC and Har Mar got nominated in a collective irony failure on the part of the voters and now nobody has a clue. The Sexiest Man/Woman categories seem to have disappeared this year, we note.

Worst Album: Back To Bedlam, The Bravery, Down In Albion, One Way Ticket To Hell... And Back, Wonderland
Not entirely sure why Wonderland's been singled out in a year of Westlife and Lee Ryan releases, but then we're not totally across how the Bravery have ended up here. They are rubbish, we grant you, but surely the national backlash is very much an underground movement at this time.

Worst Band: Babyshambles, Coldplay, The Darkness, McFly, Son Of Dork
Ah, we see, with McFly it must be because they play instruments and are liked by Smash Hits readers and that. James Bourne goes for the hat-trick after two Busted 'wins', but we suspect Coldplay will win, which doesn't explain how Live 8 has done so well.

Throw in the Phillip Hall Radar Award, John Peel Award For Musical Innovation - won by The Others one year, which made us reach for a concise OED - the famous Godlike Genius Award and no doubt completely different Special Award For Lifelong Service To Music and you've got an occasion on February 23rd. Russell Brand presents, and may your god go with you.