The Brit Award nominated singer of some reknown, Amy Bathhouse
As happens every year, the Sun has mysteriously obtained a list of Brit Awards nominees in advance of "tonight's glamorous launch party," and printed it on today's Bizarre page. And what do you know - there's something worth celebrating. Although they've revealed only three of the five contenders for Best Female, it looks as if that category, which has always been poor relation to Best Male, has finally come into its own.
The presence of Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Corinne Bailey Rae make this the first year that the Best Female list hasn't (apparently) been compiled by scrabbling around for any woman who qualified. (To be considered, an artist needs to have had a Top 75 record within the eligibility period.) Even if the two remaining candidates turn out to be weak links such as Katie Melua or Sandi Thom, this will still be the strongest shortlist in years - perhaps ever. In their separate ways, Winehouse and Allen, especially, have proved that success and individuality don't have to be mutually exclusive - that women can sell records just by being themselves.
Because Britain has never been overstocked with successful female singers, there's normally a ridiculously small pool to choose from, which accounts for the dark days of Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet and Des'Ree being shortlisted so depressingly often in the 80s and 90s. More recently, their places have been filled by dependable dullites like Joss Stone, Natasha Bedingfield and Beverley Knight. So for UK pop to have produced three cool, interesting women (I'll include Rae there, despite the uber-tastefulness of her music, because of her contention that girls will have more fun listening to records than obsessing about boys and imaginary flaws) in one year is in the order of being of a small miracle. Hopefully, it will be the first of many.
