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Raye, Tate McRae and a bit of a rave: all the Brits 2024 performances reviewed

From Kylie’s megamix to Rema’s maximalism, we rate and slate the performers at British music’s biggest night of the year

Dressed in her second leather ensemble of the night, she launches into Training Season and while I find this song really quite plodding and funkless on record, Lipa lifts this B-tier material with a really robust vocal performance – she sounds like she absolutely has to have the sexual-spiritual connection she’s singing about, and her voice doesn’t waver even when strutting around a populous troupe of acrobatic dancers. But just as this performance starts to feel a bit mid, he gives it the full Sundissential treatment with a hard-trance breakdown taken from the song’s remix by Hardwell, as Goulding bounds around with her backing dancers like they’re a bunch of kids who have just set a toilet on fire at Leeds festival. Long championed by the diaspora here, the rest of the UK has eventually come around to the charms of African pop, with massive chart hits for Burna Boy, Libianca and Tyla in recent years – and the biggest of all has been Calm Down by Nigerian vocalist Rema, which is the kind of perfect earworm that doesn’t just go round your head all day but then also decides to buy a timeshare in your subconscious.

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