This is RAD.

Faith No More opening up Chinese Arithmetic with Lily Allen’s Fuck You - live at the Hurricane Festival at Scheeßel in Germany.

In Wes’s (of Wes’s Music Soapbox fame) immortal words: “One of the greatest band that ever was, and greatest singers of our generation.”

Who’s up for a big old awards party? The esteemed Brit Awards are celebrating their 30th on Tues Feb 16 and we’ve just received the nominations which were picked out by the 1,000 strong BRITs Academy. The lovely and tenacious Ms Lily Allen (currently in Oz!) is top of the pile, with three noms for British Female Solo Artist, British Album (It’s Not Me It’s You) and British Single of the Year (The Fear). But we always knew she was a clever kid… The seriously exciting news is that our homegrown legends Empire of the Sun are taking on well… the world. The Empire has been nominated for both International Album (Walking On A Dream) and International Breakthrough Act. Emperor Luke Steele will fly to London to attend the Brits on behalf of the band, and by the looks of the Empire of the Sun site forums, the British Empyreans are super-excited to have him in their home town, sharing their oxygen supply (Empire fans are hardcore… but they’d better still themselves, because The Empire is heading to the UK and Europe for an assault on the summer festival circuit!) If Empire wins either of the Awards, they’ll be the first Australian band to win a BRIT Award since Crowded House in 1994! The only other Australian band to have previously won a BRIT Award was INXS, and outside of Kylie Minogue, no other Australian artist has won a BRIT Award in the past decade! Empire’s competition this year is Jay-Z (on whose album Emperor Steele is a guest artist), Lady Gaga, Animal Collective and Black Eyed Peas.

Amongst the excitement about the nomination Emperor Steele said, “The dream was the king for this record and it is becoming wilder and wilder as the sandman keeps cooking. This is a great honour, we are walking on a dream.”

In a déjà vu moment, Robbie Williams and Empire of the Sun will be sharing the Awards Ceremony limelight (think ARIAs ‘09), as Robbie Williams presented with the highly coveted Outstanding Contribution to Music Award. Robbie will close the 2010 show with a stunning live performance – here’s to more self-confessed Dad dancing!

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 »

It’s been a bumper year for our gal Lily. The Special Edition CD/DVD of It’s Not Me, It’s You is out now. And we thought we’d set up a competition in honour of it – because, well, that’s one of the things we do at a record label.

Whether you have INMIY or not (we won’t judge), you should enter to win a signed poster by Lily and a Special Edition CD/DVD of the album.

If you don’t already have Lily’s Album, why the heck not?

Or, if you own It’s Not Me, It’s You, are you going to keep the CD/DVD for yourself or give it to someone else, and why?

Go to the page where we are hosting the competition and post your answer in the comments.

But in order for a bit of inspiration, we’ve posted Lily’s amazing cover of Womanizer. And, yes, it’s on the Special Edition!
Lily Allen – Womanizer (Acoustic) by theinsound

It’s that time of year to idly ponder “Where did 2009 go?”, especially when you realise Lily Allen’s massive album It’s Not Me, It’s You has been out since February! Oh, we’ve been through a lot with Lily this year: dancing presents, treasure hunts, pounding remixes, Chanel fashion shows (darling), and the odd gossip item or two.

So, as we close out the year and look forward to Lily returning to Australia for Big Days Out and headlining gigs, we present the very Special Edition of INMIY. The CD/DVD and digital offering includes loads of remixes, acoustics, B-sides (WOMANIZER!), concert footage and more.  Hitting TV screens in the next couple of days is a 15 second commercial with plummy voiceover by none other than Lily herself.

The concept of the ad is based on the F**k You video. And one day last week inbetween tour dates, Lily dropped into a studio to do a few reads of the script.

The Special Edition is out November 13 and oh look, you can pre-order it now from JB Hi FI.