Well, if nothing else you can’t say that the NME Brats aren’t predictable… hecklerspray remembers the time when the weekly music inkies set the standard, pushed the envelope, maxed to the extreme, etc etc…

Now, here in the revolutionary year of the cock (2005) we are right back where we started. So let’s take a look at this cutting edge selection of award winners from the Brats (sponsored by those bastards who make that sticky cack that glues your hair together). Be prepared, reader…

Godlike Genius Award – New Order

hecklerspray loves New Order, so we’ll start with a small round of applause. You know, the band with the cuddly front men with cuddly names like ‘Hooky’ and ‘Barney’ and then there are those two at the back who look like terminally depressed school teachers, what are they called again? Sorry Stephen, sorry Gillian, for truly… we love you all.

Barney should have won this on his own for his lyrics, a combination of astoundingly banal and inspired Mancunian worldview (‘pleasure zone / xylophone’… and they said it couldn’t be done…).

Best British Band – The Libertines

Great, another gong for this massively hyped bunch of slack arsed, Clash copyists with a pale-looking chap who’s constantly smacked off his tits as the most famous (ex-) member. Hey kids, remember that heroin is really cool (NME: 2004). Sort it out Peter. Official: Libertines not as good as Stereolab. Just so you know.

Best Album – ‘Franz Ferdinand’

Now don’t get hecklerspray wrong, we like a bit of Franz as much as the next man, but enough is enough. Let’s stop proceedings right here before Alex Kapranos’s ego finally reaches escape velocity and leaves the planet entirely.

Best Event – Paul McCartney/ Glastonbury 2004

Mother of God. Well, this is a surprise – good old Glasto gets the nod, just when we thought the annual Wakefield Rhubarb Fest headlined by Terrorvision was going to sweep all before it.

Possibly more bewildering was the inclusion of mad old Macca – a man who was around before even the dads of most of the other award winners were born. Must of been some cracking skunk doing the rounds at the time… thumbs aloft, baby.

Best Live Band – Muse

Yet again these humourless geeks win another award based purely on their seeming endless talent for trying to outdo Queen in the overblown pretension stakes. Remember what happened to bands like Yes, King Crimson and Cream, boys…? Reviled for eons they were, just like you will be…

Oh yes, and while we’re at it, has anybody ever seen England’s cricket team captain Michael Vaughan and the lead singer from Muse in the same place? Plot = pretty thick.

Best New Band – Razorlight

Well it won’t be the first time a band has made a career out of having a cocky, loud-mouthed lead singer with wasted good looks and one song. Fuck’s sake. ONE SONG. And it is a TELEVISION song. Check out Marquee Moon kids – we’re really not kidding. ‘Veeenuuuuuusssssssss…‘

Best Solo Artist – Graham Coxon

Well at least he deserves a modicum of respect for having the balls to leave those shite-hawks Blur. His music is still a bit lame though, even if that Freakin Out single did sound like ‘into the valley, ner ner ner nerrrr, fa-na-na-na-na-naa na-na-na-na-naaa’.

Best Track – ‘Take Me Out’

Jesus. This has a good start and then just sort of stomps its way to the outro. Let’s just draw a line on all this skinny tied hysteria right now.

Best International Band – The Killers

It is true to say that the catchy neo-new wave lite from those cuddly Las Vegas munchkins was one of the more unexpected success stories of 2004. Mind you what kind of world are we living in where Duran Duran become a reference point of cool? (hecklerspray loves Duran Duran, for the record, but still…)

The Phillip Hall Radar Award – The most preposterously titled award of the night goes to another bunch of ill-conceived chancers, hoping to ride on the coat tails of the many bands doing exactly the same thing who’ve gone before them.

Best Video – Green Day ‘American Idiot’

Hey, you said it boys. Now fucking grow up…

Best DVD – Oasis ‘Definitely Maybe’

A record that defined a generation. A generation of mealy mouthed, weasely eyed, coked up, scally wankers who’d rob yer as soon as look at yer. As they say round Burnage…

Best Film – ‘Shaun of the Dead’

Oooh… hecklerspray, so wants to say something nice about this award. After all Simon Pegg is a total genius, but Simmo, it ain’t a patch on Spaced is it?

Best TV Show – ‘Little Britain’

Yeahbutnobut, yeah, but, no… Sorry, couldn’t resist it. Again a kind of sneaking admiration for a programme that has launched the best catch phrases on a nations youth since Raveon uttered the immortal ‘Shabba!’. However, what about some of the more left field choices out there such as the superbly surreal Mighty Boosh, or the even more sublimely disturbing Peep Show. In fact, what about the mighty Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is THE best thing on TV so far this CENTURY? Ah come on now…

Best Radio Show – Zane Lowe

Words fail us… how they could have given this to anyone other than John Peel? Show some fucking respect to the dead won’t you please? Like they did with Ray Charles at the Grammys. Bastards.

Well, that will do for now, and we haven’t even started on the awards voted for by those canny, all-knowing NME readers – all five of the spotty, snot-nosed, sub-goth, sports rock twats. Needless to say it includes the usual suspects such as Britney, Busted and George Dubya…

hecklerspray demands some music awards that have some real meaning, that honestly celebrate the great bands and artists that deserve some recognition and our unadulterated obsession. Now there’s an idea. Suggestions on a post card…