Brit Awards Betting: Best Album

Once again, Robbie Williams will be spending the evening in front of his enormous plasma screen, perhaps enjoying half-hearted foreplay with a keen young groupie, perhaps supping on some expensive coffee, watching his old bandmates stealing yet more limelight. Where did it all go wrong? He weeps, emptying his nose into a fifty pound note that was just lying on the floor.

But will Take That really win?

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Only Coldplay and Manic Street Preachers have won more than one Best Album (Coldplay, 2001, 2003, 2006; Manic Street Preachers, 1997, 1999), so the Arctic Monkeys would be the first band to do it two years in a row. With trends dictating that the Best Album will go to the winner of Best Group, it's a close one, but the male models in Take That look like a better bet.

Take That - Beautiful World
In eighteen years since 1990, the Best Album and Best Group have gone to the same act twelve times. Take That and the Arctic Monkeys are in both categories, but the former boyband could prove the night's big winners, with a Best Single looking possible as well (for Shine). In six of the last ten years, one band has hogged the limelight with a triple win, might Barlow et al be that band?

Leona Lewis - Spirit
Lewis is in both the Best Female and Best Album categories, but only twice in the history of the awards has the Best Female also picked up Best Album (Dido, 2002; Annie Lennox, 1993). It's a long shot, but don't count it out completely. With an American market to woo, the honchos in charge might look to pile the awards on her narrow feminine shoulders.

Mika - Cartoon Motion
Only once in the awards history has the Best Male made the Best Album - Seal, in 1992. That should therefore count out Mika and Ronson straight away.

Mark Ronson - Version
The recent pictures of Ronson brandishing a little sachet possibly containing drugs could see him rise the ranks - somehow media intrusion/drugs revelations can be a good thing (Winehouse, Best Female, 2007) -, but it would still be a massive upset if he pipped the Arctic Monkeys or Take That. His album is too leftfield to be a serious threat for an award that tends to go to the likes of Dido, Keane and Coldplay.