Disliking the Brit Awards is a tradition. Like Christmas shopping, we find it draining, annoying, difficult and frustrating - but we put ourselves through it as an important part of something more spectacular and significant.
Pop music has always been a celebration - of tackiness, awfulness, splendour and delight. From Baccara and East 17 to Sham 69 and Pink Floyd, it has thrown up a rum old bunch of chancers, maestros, mad men, shamans and deviants over 60 years. Which, of course, is the source of its voodoo. No matter how cynical, throwaway, pretentious or offensive, somehow this enchanted free-for-all has remained chewy, enervating and vital. The passion inspired by a band hated is always as exciting as the verve of a band loved. If nothing else, The Brit Awards was an entertaining, sprawling soup of everything we adored.
Until now. Like a sodden strip of torn bunting, Wednesday night's Brit Awards (TBA13) existed solely to hammer home how little there is to celebrate.
The charade was horribly transparent. When James Corden praised the bafflingly tedious Muse in his opening link, we didn't believe him, he didn't believe himself and in the dark silence of their beds, Muse probably didn't believe him either. Indeed Muse were the perfect totem for TBA13: masses of noisy bluster, a bin load of stage management, a crate of self-deception but completely bereft of any magic or meaning. Muse - an echoing vacuum, cloaked in a molecule-thin mantle of varilights and awkwardness - encapsulated the precise tone of the next two and half hours.
Not trying hard enough wasn't the show's problem. Quite the opposite. The dismay and depression actually emanated from the sheer sweaty effort undertaken to sell the event as something of worth. Painfully, this was akin to watching people labour to make quality gateau from sawdust and snot. The endeavour was doomed; doomed last week, doomed an hour before it began and doomed throughout. Because it never had the ingredients to succeed.
Thanks to a supremely lacklustre clutch of artists, all purporting to represent British popular music, the show's formatting hardly mattered, but neither did it help. Whoever happens to be the half-brained bucko making the big Brit decisions these days, they excelled themselves by deciding to film the artists explaining their albums. If the records need explaining , well ...
It's also apparent, despite many miserable hours of rigorous media training, the modern pop star hasn't the first idea how to give an interview. What happened? How did we descend from Jagger debating morals with archbishops to Mumford & Sons mumbling into their beards and shirts? If these artists truly have nothing to say in conversation, then it's no surprise they have so little to offer on their records. One Direction can at least claim they have only been alive for five minutes, as an excuse. But a sober Robbie Williams, trying to reel off tour dates on network TV defies reason. He used to offer Liam Gallagher out on this very show. But that was when people cared - when he cared.
Once again, there has been a clamour to condemn James Corden's anchor work. And it's true, he's not actually much cop at this, even on his fourth attempt. However, if your gripe is with the presenter, you are really missing the point. In fact, we'd all lap this up, fronted by Prince Harry, Mr. Blobby or anyone else - as long as we could be sure of fine music and rock & roll fireworks. James Corden is a genuinely pleasant fellow, with the potential for an incredible acting career. Quite why he repeatedly exposes himself to such a pantomime is anyone's guess.
Actually, it would be quite handy if someone specific was to blame - but the malaise is far too entrenched for that. It pains me to say this, but it's the music that's failing. Acts who, ten years ago, would have found a reasonable but modest following, are now feted as genius superstars. Perhaps we could chuckle at the desecration of One Direction's Blondie and Undertones covers if we had an REM, Specials or Pulp to counterbalance the ducking stool. Tragically there is nothing, save the bitter realisation that the Spice Girls really were a high point for British popular culture, rather than an ironic pleasure.
This was Emeli Sande's night and I can't deny she's an authentic, talented performer. Nevertheless, the impression that the entire industry was placing its desperate expectations on one developing act, was hard to ignore. Sande is neither sufficiently experienced, nor accomplished, to bear this weight - and using her to mask a lack of charisma or vision in other acts is quite pathetic.
On Wednesday night, the gaps in the yellowed grin of the music business were exposed, and no festering hole was bigger than the absence of Adele. You want to brandish the achievements of British music in the world's expectant face? Well, you can't do it without her. Whatever your tastes, you have to accept she has conquered all before her. Naturally, last year's truncated debacle means the lady had revenge in mind, serving it cold and sweet. There are Amazonian tribes who could have told you this show needed Adele as its closing act, but keeping her powder dry, the lack of her voice was simply the biggest elephant in a room rammed with pachyderms.
There was a time when pop music was nothing more than easy listening. Inoffensive, written to order, sung by vocalists instructed by management and sold as a backdrop for dinner parties and family gatherings. It took Elvis to give it edge, power and emotion and The Beatles to wrest its control from grown-ups; sending us on the adventure which led to Bowie, Motorhead, The Clash and Joy Division. On Wednesday night's showing, that expedition is over and the managers, PRs and accountants have their hands on the tiller once again.
We just turned around and it was gone.
After all, getting all fired-up about stuff is one of life's great pleasures. Whether it's the dismal state of the railways or some skip-fodder guitar outfit, picking up a gong for their derivative single, we love the thrill of indignation and the heat of the anger. It's the hollow-eyed, bleak and colon shrinking disappointment that kills us. Welcome to The Brit Awards 2013
Pop music has always been a celebration - of tackiness, awfulness, splendour and delight. From Baccara and East 17 to Sham 69 and Pink Floyd, it has thrown up a rum old bunch of chancers, maestros, mad men, shamans and deviants over 60 years. Which, of course, is the source of its voodoo. No matter how cynical, throwaway, pretentious or offensive, somehow this enchanted free-for-all has remained chewy, enervating and vital. The passion inspired by a band hated is always as exciting as the verve of a band loved. If nothing else, The Brit Awards was an entertaining, sprawling soup of everything we adored.
Until now. Like a sodden strip of torn bunting, Wednesday night's Brit Awards (TBA13) existed solely to hammer home how little there is to celebrate.
The charade was horribly transparent. When James Corden praised the bafflingly tedious Muse in his opening link, we didn't believe him, he didn't believe himself and in the dark silence of their beds, Muse probably didn't believe him either. Indeed Muse were the perfect totem for TBA13: masses of noisy bluster, a bin load of stage management, a crate of self-deception but completely bereft of any magic or meaning. Muse - an echoing vacuum, cloaked in a molecule-thin mantle of varilights and awkwardness - encapsulated the precise tone of the next two and half hours.
Not trying hard enough wasn't the show's problem. Quite the opposite. The dismay and depression actually emanated from the sheer sweaty effort undertaken to sell the event as something of worth. Painfully, this was akin to watching people labour to make quality gateau from sawdust and snot. The endeavour was doomed; doomed last week, doomed an hour before it began and doomed throughout. Because it never had the ingredients to succeed.
Thanks to a supremely lacklustre clutch of artists, all purporting to represent British popular music, the show's formatting hardly mattered, but neither did it help. Whoever happens to be the half-brained bucko making the big Brit decisions these days, they excelled themselves by deciding to film the artists explaining their albums. If the records need explaining , well ...
It's also apparent, despite many miserable hours of rigorous media training, the modern pop star hasn't the first idea how to give an interview. What happened? How did we descend from Jagger debating morals with archbishops to Mumford & Sons mumbling into their beards and shirts? If these artists truly have nothing to say in conversation, then it's no surprise they have so little to offer on their records. One Direction can at least claim they have only been alive for five minutes, as an excuse. But a sober Robbie Williams, trying to reel off tour dates on network TV defies reason. He used to offer Liam Gallagher out on this very show. But that was when people cared - when he cared.
Once again, there has been a clamour to condemn James Corden's anchor work. And it's true, he's not actually much cop at this, even on his fourth attempt. However, if your gripe is with the presenter, you are really missing the point. In fact, we'd all lap this up, fronted by Prince Harry, Mr. Blobby or anyone else - as long as we could be sure of fine music and rock & roll fireworks. James Corden is a genuinely pleasant fellow, with the potential for an incredible acting career. Quite why he repeatedly exposes himself to such a pantomime is anyone's guess.
Actually, it would be quite handy if someone specific was to blame - but the malaise is far too entrenched for that. It pains me to say this, but it's the music that's failing. Acts who, ten years ago, would have found a reasonable but modest following, are now feted as genius superstars. Perhaps we could chuckle at the desecration of One Direction's Blondie and Undertones covers if we had an REM, Specials or Pulp to counterbalance the ducking stool. Tragically there is nothing, save the bitter realisation that the Spice Girls really were a high point for British popular culture, rather than an ironic pleasure.
This was Emeli Sande's night and I can't deny she's an authentic, talented performer. Nevertheless, the impression that the entire industry was placing its desperate expectations on one developing act, was hard to ignore. Sande is neither sufficiently experienced, nor accomplished, to bear this weight - and using her to mask a lack of charisma or vision in other acts is quite pathetic.
On Wednesday night, the gaps in the yellowed grin of the music business were exposed, and no festering hole was bigger than the absence of Adele. You want to brandish the achievements of British music in the world's expectant face? Well, you can't do it without her. Whatever your tastes, you have to accept she has conquered all before her. Naturally, last year's truncated debacle means the lady had revenge in mind, serving it cold and sweet. There are Amazonian tribes who could have told you this show needed Adele as its closing act, but keeping her powder dry, the lack of her voice was simply the biggest elephant in a room rammed with pachyderms.
There was a time when pop music was nothing more than easy listening. Inoffensive, written to order, sung by vocalists instructed by management and sold as a backdrop for dinner parties and family gatherings. It took Elvis to give it edge, power and emotion and The Beatles to wrest its control from grown-ups; sending us on the adventure which led to Bowie, Motorhead, The Clash and Joy Division. On Wednesday night's showing, that expedition is over and the managers, PRs and accountants have their hands on the tiller once again.
We just turned around and it was gone.
