Worst-Dressed Man 2006? Really?
Justin Hawkins of the Darkness
Photograph: PA
Considering that the NME's "indie" awards ceremony is now called the ShockWave NME Awards (and there's a publicist employed to remind journalists to use the correct title), nobody would argue that the event bears little resemblance to its slapdash beginnings in the early 1990s.
The magazine itself may still push an "us and them" mentality ("them" being the Big Four recording conglomerates, which NME readers are instinctively supposed to despise), but it's been years since the awards recognised true left-fielders.
As some of the categories are voted for by readers, whose tastes tend to be more conservative than staffers', it's not entirely the magazine's fault if the awards are won by the most popular bands in the country - Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz - rather than some worthy garden-shed outfit.
There seems no longer to be a consensus, anyway, even at NME Towers, on the definition of "alternative." Big Brother starlet Preston said so himself: his justification for taking part in the programme was that the line between alternative and mainstream has "become blurred."
It certainly has. In the early days of the NME Awards, an indie(-ish) musician who took part in a crass TV show would have been shunned. Last night, Preston was guest of honour. But they could hardly have failed to invite him, given that he was fresh from headlining one of the magazine's pre-awards gigs.
Despite that, it would be unfair to fault the NME for doing what it had to do to stop a precipitous circulation decline. Nobody would have rejoiced to see it follow Melody Maker, which closed in 2000, and even if the NME of today is a snazzy, jazzy, corporate-linked entity that features Kylie on its cover as readily as the Flaming Lips, it's still enough of a nuisance to be worth reading.
It has also preserved some of its old spirit in the awards. While the main categories are the same as you'd find at the Brits and Grammys - Best Album, Band and so on - there is also a list of supplementary awards that make for much more entertaining reading.
The Guardian didn't publish them in today's account of the ceremony, so here they are: Worst Album: James Blunt's Back to Bedlam; Worst Band: Son of Dork; Sexiest Man: Pete Doherty; Sexiest Woman: Madonna; Best Dressed: Ricky Wilson (Kaiser Chiefs); Worst Dressed: Justin Hawkins.
Best band, best schmand. It's best dress sense that matters.
