Oud of This World

The burgeoning Arab pop music scene has now grown to the point where it has its own flashy awards show. Unfortunately, the first Arabian Music Awards extravaganza this month in Dubai didn't come off so well.

According to the Beeb, the show was two hours late getting started, had to be yanked off the air for a while due to sound problems, then ran out of time before it awarded the two major prizes. The strangest glitch: The producers lost the show's trophies, all of them. (For that matter, the Beeb itself manages to identify two different singers as the winner of the Best Female Newcomer award.)

Anyway, the Best Video award went to the supremely sensual Elissa. Reason admires the Arab pop video scene not only for her sake, because it is a conduit for liberal values, no matter how many glitches there are in its awards ceremonies.