Why deny worthy winners? The Arctic Monkeys are clearly the act of the year and are the rightful winners of the paltry 20K prize.
However in terms of the performances it is hard to beat Thom Yorke's spellbinding spot at the piano. Editors also managed the best TV performance I've seen from them although that's not saying much and they looked like they had turned up dressed for football in the park rather than to perform at a major awards ceremony, make an effort damn it! The Guillemots did an interesting turn as did Hot Chip (although I'm not sure I understand the appeal of the latter). Sway seemed a lot more interesting than I had initially thought (I'm a bit wary of Grime in general).
Other than that nothing really stayed with me from the TV show. That said though it was a superb selection of artists and albums on the very diverse shortlist. We seem to be at a very fortunate time for music where there is no dominant paradigm and all manner of great stuff has a chance to bloom and connect with people. For all the moaning about duffers like James Blunt et al they can hardly be said to have popular music in the vice-like grip that BritPop or Stock, Aitken and Waterman did.
