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Get to know your International BRIT winners...
Indie | Thursday 21st February 2013 | Osh
Let me fill you in on The BRIT Award winners from across the pond.
The Black Keys. These guys walked away with the gong for Best International Band last night. Hailing from Ohio, in the States, this band is made up from Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carn. If you have not heard of The Black Keys by now, then you must be living under a rock! Because these two have been around for over a decade.
The band have honed their cool, blues rock, sound since 2002 with the release of their first album, The Big Come Up. Since then they have released 6 more albums, with the latest one El Camino, being so well received, the band went on their first arena tour.
Frank Ocean won the award for Best International Male Solo Artist. Mr Ocean broke away from the hip-hop collective ‘OFWGK†Δ’ (said as Odd Future), to release the album, ‘Channel Orange’ in July 2012. When he was part of this collective, he attracted the attention of Kanye West and Jay-Z, which led to him collaborating with them on the album Watch The Throne. So he was already well known on the hip-hop music scene.
After the release of Channel Orange, questions were raised over Ocean’s sexuality. Anyone who knows about the hip-hop music scene will know it’s notorious for homophobia. So Ocean wrote an open letter on Tumblr, prompting even more suspicion about his sexuality. He then went ahead, and announced his love for someone of the same-sex. Frank Ocean is the first big African-American music artist to announce something of this nature, it was huge news for this music scene.
The three singles released for the album, ‘Thinking About You’, ‘Pyramids’ and ‘Sweet Life’, all charted. Alongside the Brit gong, he’s also won 2 grammys. This guy has not had a bad year at all, so far.
Lana Del Rey, or to call her by her original name, Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, has actually been on the music scene a great deal longer than you may think. She actually released her first album digitially, under the name Lana Del Rey a.k.a. Lizzy Grant way back in 2010.
After this, she was signed to Polydor, and released the single ‘Video Games’ in June 2011. A music video Lana created herself, then emerged on YouTube, in August of the same year. This went viral, and now has over 36 million views.
Lana Del Rey became a household name from then on. Her album Born To Die was released the following year, selling 2.8 million copies. She went on to win numourous awards, and has been the face of H&M and Jaguar.
There you have it, a little more about the International winners, and here's some of their biggest hits, for your viewing pleasure.
The Black Keys - Lonely Boy
Frank Ocean - Thinking About you
Lana Del Rey - National Anthem
Becca
