Who scooped gongs at the BT Digital Music Awards 2006?
Last night saw hundreds of musicians, celebs and music professionals descend on Camden’s Roundhouse to find out who had won at the BT Digital Music Awards 2006.
Gong winners included Peter Gabriel who received a ‘Pioneer Award’ for his contribution to digital music over the years, Lily Allen for Best Pop Artist, McFly for Best Official Website, NME for Best Music Mag, MySpace for Best Innovation, and London Electricity for Best Podcast.
Best Unsigned Artist went to Brighton’s ‘The Wonderfuls’. Muse, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead each scooped two gongs.
All the results should be posted soon on the DMA06 web site, and the action’s being televised on Channel 4 this coming Saturday (7th October) at midnight, and the 21st October also at midnight.
All very cool, but one thing that I noticed in the news release was the following statement: “As part of its partnership with the music industry, BT is restricting participation in the awards to sites and services that have licensed music from record companies, ensuring that artists are properly rewarded for their work.”
OK, well BT:
1. you’ve been on slightly shaky ground with MySpace.
2. does this kill off the chance for totally independent artists who can’t or refuse to use record companies any chance of getting a gong?
Now the statement might be meant to combat piracy and illegal downloads – fair enough – but it’s vague enough to make me wonder how ‘cool’ these awards really are. Just a corporate excuse to promote the BT Home Hub? Surely not…
