I didn’t watch the Brit awards tonight. I never watch the Brit awards, which are little more than a self-congratulatory orgy of music business flunkies. If tonight’s show was good – and, given the list of nominations I don’t see how it could have been – I really don’t give a toss.
The last time I watched this ghastly show was in 1989 when it was hosted by Mick Fleetwood, drummer with one of the great rock bands of all time, Fleetwood Mac, and Samantha Fox, a woman who made her fortune by bearing her tits. As neither of them had any presenting experience, what could possibly go wrong? In fact, everything went wrong which at least took our minds of the music of the 1980s, undoubtedly the decade when the music nearly died.
I look at this year’s list of nominees, performers and winners and I see rock and roll in its ugliest form. Homogenised, castrated and closer to Daniel O’Donnell in spirit than Elvis. No giant names of the genre, just the likes of Rita Ora, the lesser talented Gallagher and Ed Fucking Sheeran.
Now I am the first to admit that music is subjective. There is no such thing as bad music – although I’ll cling to my view that music doesn’t get much worse than Queen, Muse and the Spice Girls. If you like one type of music, then that’s your pleasure, not necessarily mine.
I am at a loss why anyone would want to attend such a worthless celebrity love-in. I’d much rather spend the train fare, admission and hotel expenses on some proper music on vinyl, CD or, perish the thought, downloaded (and always paid for, not stolen via streaming). Or even a real live gig. “Ooh, I saw Jack Whitehall introduce someone. I thought I’d wet myself. And when Kylie came on, it was like I’d died and gone to heaven.”
The Brit winners are inevitably the biggest selling artists whose careers will be given a further boost by free plugs on this ghastly apology of a music awards show. It will have absolutely no effect on up and coming artists, it will work against anything outside the mainstream, with the obvious exception of Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz.
For lovers of good old fashioned rock and roll, the success of Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters stood in stark contrast to the grim mass-produced AOR drivel that is as near the cutting edge as Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Happily, rock and roll isn’t quite dead yet, but a few more years of the Brits and it might be a close thing.
