Justin Timberlake, One Direction and Taylor Swift burn up the 2013 Brits: Watch

It was an A-list affair at Tuesday evening's Brit Awards, where heavy-hitters including Justin Timberlake, One Direction and Taylor Swift took the stage at London's massive o2 Arena.

For starters, the show featured Timberlake's first-ever live performance of "20/20 Experience" single "Mirrors," and it was yet another solid showing by the former 'N-Syncer. Out of the music spotlight for years and now firmly on the comeback trail, the former teen idol's soulful falsetto and electric stage presence remain fully intact in 2013.

Next up we have British boy band One Direction, who mashed up a pair of New Wave classics - Blondie's "One Way or Another" and The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" - in a performance that made me yearn to hear the original tunes again minus all the distracting giant pinball-machine theatrics, subpar talent-show vocals and One Direction.

As for Taylor Swift, the multi-platinum superstar and Diet Coke shiller once again demonstrated her pop tartlet chops with a hair-flipping performance of "I Knew You Were Trouble," which saw the singer changing from a long white wedding-cake dress to an oh-so-sexy black leotard in record time. The entire thing climaxed in an orgiastic EDM frenzy with lots of flashing nightclub lights and even more hair-flipping. You go, girl. (Apologies for the poor video quality, but you get the gist.)

What did you think of the performances? Sound off in the comments.

You can check out a full roundup of the 2013 Brit Awards here.

Best and Worst of the 2013 Grammy Awards

Launch Gallery   ►

Chris Eggertsen
Producer

• Follow

A former contributor to sites including Bloody-Disgusting and AfterElton, Eggertsen enjoys rock music, rainy days and smelling the pages of old books. You should read all of his articles and follow him on Twitter because it's the right thing to do.