David Smyth takes a trip to BRIT School, considers the line-up for Massive Attack's Meltdown and checks out what's new on the net.

SCHOOL IS COOL FOR THE BRIT BRATS

The music industry backslappers on the expensive tables at next Wednesday's BRIT Awards will be pleased that much of the cash they have spent on the night will end up funding the ceremony's namesake, the BRIT School in Croydon that the industry supports. Now it's payback time.

The ceremony's shortlist is littered with former pupils of the only free performing arts school in the country. There's kooky cockney Kate Nash with three nominations, R&B powerhouse Leona Lewis with four, and box-fresh star Adele, who has already been named as winner of the new Critics' Choice award.

This success, coupled with this week's domination of the Grammys by their most famous ex-pupil, Amy Winehouse, suggests that the BRIT School is capable of keeping our music business supplied with stars for years to come.

My visit this week proved less exciting for the 14-19 year olds who attend than recent pop-ins by Sir George Martin and Kylie Minogue, but they still gladly gave me a taste of a daily life that seemed less regimented than ordinary school but disciplined in a different way.

It was lunchtime, but dance students continued to rehearse without teachers in their mirror-lined studio. Musicians noodled away together in rooms allocated for band practice, and 16-year-old singer Daniel Arieleno worked with media students in a plush new editing suite, on a video for his anti-gun crime song Where You Gonna Be.

In the main theatre, year 13 music students practised their original songs (tracks including Space Stations, Golden Skin and Ice Cream O'Clock) for a concert the following night, under the encouraging supervision of director of music Liz Penney.

Like everyone here she was keen to emphasise that "people are mistaken in thinking this is a stage school", though the fact that the audience for this show will include record company A&R men as well as proud parents makes the production rather more significant than the average nativity play.

"I did think that if I came here it would help me to be a star," admits 18-year-old singer Stacey Skeete. "But they keep you grounded and you soon learn it's going to be hard work."

She's now focusing on learning about artist management, while every pupil is taught IT skills from the off, as well as the traditional GCSEs.

Pictures on the wall in principal Nick Williams's office feature Kate Nash, Lynden David Hall, the Mobo-winning ex-student who died from Hodgkin's lymphoma at just 31 in 2006, and former pupil Chris Dickson, now a professional footballer with Charlton. It stresses again that this isn't a pop factory.

"People think that because we're sponsored by the music business, the industry can influence the way we are, but we're not cultivating people to be a certain kind of musician or actor," Williams tells me.

He adds: "What we do is provide them with the opportunity to develop their individual skills, alongside a good all-round education. The last time that applications to the school increased by a lot was when our exam results got better, not when an old student won an award."

To judge from the level-headed, sparky pupils I met, Amy Winehouse is not the typical attendee. The music business may want more people like her, but these latest upcoming stars have been taught to keep their feet on the ground.

And for them, that can only be a good thing.

MASSIVE ATTACK'S MELTDOWN

Massive Attack's Robert "3D" Del Naja tells me his band are "privileged" to be the curators of this June's Meltdown festival at the Southbank Centre, which places the Bristol group in a distinguished list of past organisers including David Bowie, Elvis Costello and Patti Smith.

This year's line-up remains under wraps, but according to Del Naja there will be an emphasis on music from Jamaica, politics and visual elements, understandable from a band that has produced some of the most impressive concert spectacles and album sleeves of recent years.

Sometimes derided for the overpowering gloom of their own music, particularly on later albums, he uses the word "fun" a lot and says, "We started out as a sound system putting on parties and events, so we want to bring that feel to the venue. Every night's going to be a party."

At a guess, obvious guests could be fellow Bristolians Portishead and Tricky, both of whom have new albums on the way, and Massive Attack promise new material to show off as well. "Doing this has made us set a deadline for our next album, so there should be a release come late summer."

The trip-hop revival starts here.

NEW ON THE NET

• It's hard to sound original when you're about to release your 1.th album, but REM at least sound like they're having fun on comeback single Supernatural Superserious. It's in download stores now, a couple of weeks ahead of full release.

• Norwegian-born, Sweden-based singer Ida Maria is already a big deal in Scandinavia and is now setting up camp in London. To hear her demonstrate how she rocks the hardest of all the new women in town, give her your email address and get a free track to download at http://de.click.music.co.uk/.rd/Prezence/idamaria/.

• As Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Southend singer-songwriter Sam Duckworth has come up with one of the more memorable band names, as well as an appealing blend of Billy Bragg-style folk hollering and laptop beats. He puts out his second album on 10 March, but catchy new track Waiting For the Monster to Drown is downloadable for free at www.myfreedownload.co.uk/getcapewearcapefly.