Off the record

WHY THE BRITS NEED TO BE GREAT THIS YEAR

The Golden Globes wasn't the only awards bash that felt more like a wake this week. Party spirit at the Brit Awards launch was also dampened, not only by the decision to make Kelly Osbourne a co-host but by the knowledge that the following morning staff at EMI Records would find out how many of them were due to be sacked - one in three, as it turned out.

Besides the much publicised troubles at the only British major label, and news that musicians withholding new albums in protest may include Robbie Williams (every cloud ...), our music industry is still reeling from statistics showing UK album sales fell 14.3 per cent in 2007, and that although download sales may eventually stem the losses, the downward slide won't level out until 2012 at best.

All the more reason for the Brit Awards to come out on 20 February like KLF at the 1992 ceremony - with all guns blazing. The night is the year's biggest showcase for British music and now is not the time for hiding our light under a bushel. Let's wheel out as many of our greatest stars as will fit on the Earls Court stage, fill the confetti cannons to bursting and remind the world that there's plenty worth celebrating. The world might even go out and buy a few more albums as a result.

Giving the Outstanding Contribution award to Sir Paul McCartney is a good start. Musical living legends don't come bigger, although some acknowledgement should have been made of the impact Led Zeppelin's reformation had on 2007, preferably in the Best Live Act category.

Hosts Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne may threaten another Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox debacle - Ozzy doesn't strike me as the world's most capable autocue reader - but they're a lot better known worldwide than last year's host, Russell Brand, and big name Brits are what is required here.

As for live performances, it would be best not to have shows like that in 2006 where Americans Kanye West and Prince stole the limelight. Bajan singer Rihanna will be the only major foreigner singing live, as well as Kylie Minogue, who has long felt British and is signed to EMI. Then there's Mark Ronson (hopefully adding drama by performing with globally successful train-wreck Amy Winehouse), Kaiser Chiefs in best crowd-pleasing form, Macca closing proceedings plus last year's biggest sellers, Leona Lewis and Mika.

Lewis may have emerged from X Factor but she won because she looked far too talented for a talent show, and still looks like a good bet to go on shifting serious quantities of albums in the future.

She and her compatriots will need to be at their spectacular best, smiling through the gloom. Cynicism will have to have the night off, and anyone too "cool" to show up (hello, Arctic Monkeys) doesn't need to win anything. It may not feel like there's much to cheer about but it's necessary to do so any way. For this particular awards ceremony has gone far beyond back-slapping towards a real need to prop each other up.

SOUNDTRACK THAT GOES TO THE WIRE

You can't watch it on TV in this country unless you have the FX channel but at least from Monday you can own the music from US drama The Wire, when its first soundtrack album is released on CD by Nonesuch. Now you can recreate that Baltimore crack-den feel in your own home.

A show that seems to attract critical adoration in indirect proportion to its terrible ratings, it has evolved over five seasons, despite viewing figures that would have led to cancellation from any channel apart from HBO, also home to Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. It has encompassed Baltimore's politics, shipping industry, education system and drugs war, using a vast cast of characters equally layered, complex and empathetic whether they are a minor drug-runner or the mayor. It's a bleak world where, as cop-turned-teacher Roland Pryzbylewski says: "Nobody wins. One side just loses more slowly."

I'm struggling to tear myself away from the penultimate season on DVD, even though I have to keep the subtitles on because I don't understand what the drug dealers are saying. It's a TV culture shock, with its lack of explosions or defined heroes and villains, but it absorbs like nothing else. The soundtrack is packed with soul and blues from the likes of Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Paul Weller and Solomon Burke, plus little-known Baltimore hip-hop. Buy all the box sets you can find first, though.

NEW ON THE NET

The Kills, featuring Jamie Hince, above, want you to take an active role in their March comeback by downloading vocals from new single U.R.A Fever and remixing it for them. Get involved by handing over your email address, and all rights to your mixes, at www.midnightboom.com.

Madonna's current muse of choice, British Eighties enthusiast Stuart Price, has revamped his synthpop band Zoot Woman to make their first album in five years. Prior to its spring release there's a catchy free sample available to download at www.rcrdlbl.com/artists/Zoot_Woman /download/We_Wont_Break.

Sad to see the UK closure of www.pandora.com, which introduced people to new music by using software to recommend tracks similar to your favourites - the US firm says it can no longer afford to pay British royalties. Let's hope the similar Last.fm can keep going in its absence.