So who procrastinated for half of Monday watching the entire Grammy’s pre-telecast online?

If you had the stamina for the full broadcast, you would have found out in real-time that our lovely local chap Keith Urban swooped up the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for Sweet Thing from his 2009 album Defying Gravity. Keith however, discovered his win over the phone while he was charming reporters on the red carpet! As a result , we just have a very pleased Keith and his Grammy chatting backstage – acceptance speech, schmacceptace speech!

David ‘King of the Clubs’ Guetta however OWNED the award ceremony – taking out Best Remixed Recording (Non-Classical) for his Kelly Rowland anthem When Loves Takes Over.

Check out his acceptance speech and his uber-excited leaping onto the stage and all over  award presenters LMFAO here (skip to 20:50) – I’m David Guetta, bitch!

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I’ve watched Keith Urban’s musical career from almost the start. From the early Tamworth Star Maker win in 1990 to his first album, his release as part of The Ranch and then the solo albums that followed. I’ve been lucky enough to see his career go from strength to strength in the live arena as well. In Brisbane Keith was the guitarist in a pub band called Rusty and the Ayres Rockettes which you couldn’t escape in the eighties. I saw The Ranch perform in venues holding about 200 punters and then his arena debut as support to LeAnn Rimes in early 2002. Fast forward to the present and last night at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, in front of a capacity 11,000 fans, I witnessed Keith’s full US show and I’m here to say, this is one hell of a show.

The 13 semi’s waiting out front held one of the biggest stages to be fitted into an Australian venue. The reason it’s so big is because of the ramps that come into the crowd ensuring Keith and his band are right amongst the audience. So much so, there were no security barriers around the stage, if audience members wanted to walk up on stage that easily could, although I’m sure the security who are waiting in the wings would have something to say about that. The other major part of the set was the 5 massive video screens that form the back of the stage. State of the art, up close and personal vision that not only featured the band and amazing visual images but also crowd shots with camera placed all over the arena.

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Riding off the back of the biggest ARIA Awards since Ben Hur (please don’t mention that ARIAs didn’t necessarily operate during the time of Christ), it’s difficult to let the party die down. After all, it’s only 3 weeks til Christmas!

So indeed the good times continue with the news that we (that’s EMI worldwide, not my band) have FIFTY SIX Grammy Award nominations in the whopping one hundred and nine categories – far too many to list, but here are our EMI highlights!

Multiple nominees include our favourite shaggy-haired, bikini-babe-surrounded Frenchman David Guetta (who also produced The Black Eyed Peas’ Grammy nominated album and record of the year), Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Keith Urban and American Classic legend Willie Nelson.

Katy Perry announced the Best Rock Album nominees and discussed the Black Eyed Peas nominations – watch the videos.

And yes, the reason why the Grammy artwork is so cool this year is no other than Shepard Fairey – the man behind THAT Obama / Hope and Obey / Giant artwork – is responsible. OBEY (great music)

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
	Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
Best Dance Recording
	When Love Takes Over – David Guetta & Kelly Rowland
Best Electronic/Dance Album
	One Love – David Guetta
	Yes – Pet Shop Boys Read the rest of this entry »

So the ARIA Awards, huh… Where to start!?

“An evening of epic proportions” just doesn’t do it justice… November 26, 2009 certainly was the Day of The Empire, but did someone say ROBBIE WILLIAMS, and Keith Urban too!?

So I can’t deny the red carpet was fun (PS keep an eye out for our own Jukebox from Hell’s Darryl B escorting Robbie Williams down the red rug), the performances were breathtaking (check out the on-stage pyrotechnics during Walking On A Dream), and the afterparty went past dawn… but the real highlights of the evening were Empire of the Sun cleaning up every major award of the night. That makes a total of seven ARIA awards, including Artisans, for Emperor Steele and Lord Littlemore.

Emperor Steele represented Empire of the Sun to accept all four awards on the evening, thanking Lord Littlemore, Donnie Sloan, Pete Lusty, Luke’s stunning wife Snappy Dolphin, his parents, all us at EMI (high fives all around!), and the incredible creative team behind Empire, including Mathematics and Debaser. Check out all of Emperor Steele’s awards speeches below:

Robbie Williams‘ performance of Bodies blew the roof off, as did his brown leather brogues and self-confessed dad robot dance moves. Young ladies screamed appropriately:

And don’t forget you can, for the first time, purchase and download the 2009 ARIA Awards live performances from Robbie, Keith, the Temper Trap, Lisa Mitchell, Kate Miller-Heidke, Sarah Blasko, Ladyhawke, the Hilltop Hoods, and Jess Mauboy’s  fromthe Australian iTunes Store. All the proceeds from the sale of the live digital tracks will be donated Youth Beyond Blue, the youth arm of beyond blue: the national depression initiative.

Congratulations to all the winners and our nominees Paul Dempsey, Bob Evans, JET, The Cat Empire, Bindi Irwin, and Rodney Rude.

LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!

Tomorrow we’ll be welcoming Keith Urban back home to Australia to perform Kiss A Girl at the ARIA Awards on Thursday night… but before he took off Keith was busy taking home one of the top honours at the American Music Awards – favourite male country artist.

Also picking up awards were Taylor Swift who supported Keith earlier this year taking home 5 awards, Michael Jackson 4 and Jay-Z and The Black Eyed Peas 2 each.