............The nominations certainly felt fresh and diverse, truly reflecting the talent emerging in varied genres, but the live acts chosen did not.

The booze may have been back this year but an early start meant that the audience was sober and the controversy we so love absent.

The most anarchic moment we had was Busted shouting: “F**k”. What will their mummies say?

A travesty, too, that the only celeb fight of the night took place four miles away and involved Liam Gallagher and a traffic cone. ;D

What The Darkness’s triumph does prove is that the voting committee is beginning to get it right.

The band won because their music is a refreshing antidote to manufactured pop and the introspective style of, say, Coldplay, Dido and Radiohead. It’s music that makes you want to turn it up to 11, drive fast, drink more, dance or f**k. Exactly why rock ’n’ roll was invented.

So stop sneering at them.

Imagine you’re 13 and your older siblings have rammed a diet of Pop Idol down your throat for the past three years.

Your idea of pop is some twerp in a shiny suit mumbling a cover version of a Righteous Brothers song.

Suddenly, you switch on the TV and a high-pitched nutter in a catsuit and with a guitar behind his head is screeching and swearing about getting p****d and s*agging. I know what I’d go for.

The band also has an international currency, unlike a Michelle McmAnus, Girls Aloud or Gareth Gates — and that can only be healthy for the British music industry.

The exposure they’ll receive around the world as a result of their victory will help the band make further progress abroad which, in turn, could pave the way for a British rock movement overseas.

And hopefully, their success will inspire a new generation here to pick up instruments rather than queue up and sing karaoke for a talent show audition.

Love them or loathe them, that’s why the Brits were right to hand the band three honours. Next stop, The Glammys


The sun