William Orbit has revealed that his three Grammys have been damaged in transit by DHL.
The producer won his trio of awards throughout his career most famously for his work on Madonna‘s ‘Ray Of Light’ album in 1999, which won Best Pop Album while the single picked up Best Dance Recording.
Upon its release, the album debuted at Number Two on the US Billboard 200, with the biggest first-week sales by a female artist at the time. It also peaked at Number One in 17 countries.
A year later he also picked up a Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media for one-off single ‘Beautiful Stranger’ which featured on the soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Posting on Instagram alongside a photo of the broken gongs now, he made light of the wreckage, writing: “Thanks DHL, for returning my three Grammies to London from Venice. But it seems now instead of three, I possess nine broken bits of Grammies. Which is a ‘humblebrag’ if ever I heard one. So I’ll throw in that my seven nomination medallions survived the trip.”
He continued: “Thing about Grammies, and despite that I’m told that they maybe don’t have the same impact as a decade or two back, I wouldn’t say no to another one. More cos the after-parties more engaging when you are clutching one of those trophies [he lied, it’s way more than that!].
“Add one more for the guest loo. [humblebrag in action] one puts them in there, if one has one, as a perceived door prop or something. As long as it communicates that one does not give a toss about such baubles [untrue, one does]. Whilst it is situated in the room that every guest is likely to visit, right there visible from the john.”
He went on to say that despite “having been scrambled in transit” they “seem pretty repairable”.
“A bit of solder, or wire, or whatever materials metalwork-shop folk might use to reassemble these tokens of a dream realised,” he said. “They have those metal blast torches that throw out all the sparks you see in YouTube clips about factories and metalworking and stuff. Love all that. The smell of hot metal and oil.”
He then posted his thoughts on what he might make them into adding: “Perhaps go to a famous sculptor in metal and say: ‘make of em what you will’ all fused together in a searingly ironic cast. I like that idea.
“Could use as Champagne flutes. Or make a percussive musical instrument out of them. Have tried the former, the latter, I will go an ding one now see if it chimes. Whatever alloy it is.”
He concluded: “Was all ready to do an artfully posed pix illustrating maximum damage, and probably adding a few more evidences of kinetic destruction into the frame but tbh can’t be arsed.
“I quite like my ultimate humblebrag, a heap of brass and plastic Grammy bits lying oh so forlorn. Right by where all the coffee mugs are haha. And deffo retaining their gleam. Gleam dream coffee steam.”
Orbit, who also worked with Blur and the All Saints, previously praised a leaked album of Madonna’s unreleased songs and shared his “dream” of the pair working together again.