The NMEAwards is an annual musicawards show in the United Kingdom, founded by the music magazine NME (New Musical Express). The first awards show was held in 1953 as the NMEPoll Winners Concerts, shortly after the founding of the magazine. Though the accolades given are entirely genuine, the ceremony itself is usually carried out in a humorous and jovial manner, and have included categories in the past like "Villain of the Year" and "Worst Record". The trophies given to the winners resemble an extended middle finger.
History
The awards began as the NME Poll Winners Concert and associated awards ceremony in 1953. These continued through until 1972, where concerts were filmed and broadcast on ITV. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were most commonly featured. Venues included the Royal Albert Hall and the Empire Pool, Wembley. In 2008, a compact disc was given away with a special souvenir box set issue of the NME magazine on 27 February 2008, called NME Awards 2008.
Britpop era
In 1994, the awards were briefly renamed the NMEBrat Awards, with the title intended as a parody of the Brit Awards. The initial award ceremonies were supportive of the burgeoning Britpop scene with Blur becoming the first band in the modern era to win more than three awards, coming away with five total. Again in 1996, rival band Oasis won four awards: Best Band, Best Live Band, Best Album ((What's the Story) Morning Glory?) and Best Single ("Wonderwall").
Later in the decade, major winners were the Manic Street Preachers (4 awards in 1999) and Blur (3 awards in 2000).
Garage rock revival
In 2002, the awards reflected the NME's support for the "New Rock Revolution" garage rock revival, with the Strokes winning three awards ("Best New Act", "Best Album" and "Band of the Year").
After the 2002 awards, an article on Telegraph.co.uk reported that the winners of the NME awards "were almost interchangeable" with the winners of the Brit awards and criticised then editor Ben Knowles for what they saw as a hypocritical attack on the commercial nature of the Brit Awards.[1]
In 2003, Nick Jago, the drummer of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gave a "silent" speech lasting 7 minutes, infavourably compared the show to The Source awards, was booed and heckled and had to be physically removed from the stage.[citation needed]
The Libertines won "Best British Band" in both 2004 and 2005, as well as "Best New Band" in 2003. The 2003 award win was notable for Pete Dohertybreaking and entering former bandmate Carl Barât's house stealing many of his belongings, including his award.
In 2006, Arctic Monkeys won both "Best New Band" and "Best British Band" in the same year and became the third band in the modern era to win three awards (Best New Band, Best British Band, Best Track). In his speech, lead singer Alex Turner alluded to how the awards reflected who received the most coverage by the magazine; "Who else was going to be Best British Band? You don't write about something that much and then not tell you that you're Best British Band". Elsewhere that year, whilst collecting an award for his charity work, Bob Geldof called host Russell Brand a "cunt" to which Brand replied "[It's] no wonder Bob Geldof is such an expert on famine – he's been dining out on 'I Don't Like Mondays' for 30 years."[2] In the same year, Kaiser Chiefs were nominated for a six categories and won Best Album for Employment.
In 2007, Razorlight received a worst album nomination for their self-titled album, which NME themselves gave 8/10. This made it the highest rated album to receive a worst album nomination.
