<< Do MPs know what they're there for? Expenses and stuff | Press release gripes - ten tips for PR types >>

Everyone has an opinion about the BRITs

by Chris UnLimited 14. February 2010 07:59

STUFF BY ME WEEK-ENDING 14 FEB 2010

So, the BRITs roll around again once more this coming week, the UK pop industry's big night out and annual back-slapping fest.

I've only actually been to the BRITs twice, once sitting upstairs with the BRIT School kids and less well-connected music hacks, the other time downstairs with the nominees, label execs and all those corporate types whose annual dose of rock n roll in no small part pays for the show. If I'm being honest, I personally feel much more at home at the newer, smaller MPG Awards, the latest edition of which took place this week. These are the annual awards of the Music Producers' Guild and celebrate those who work behind the scenes in creating the best British music. The event, at London's Cafe de Paris, is somehow glitzy enough to feel like a proper awards show, but intimate enough to seem genuine, like the audience really cares who's won which awards, and so that the rounds of applause really do show respect for the nominees and winners. The BRITs are so big, it's hard to work out what's happening on stage from your dinner table, even if you cared, which most of the people there probably don't.

All that said, and while CMU will no doubt gently mock the cheesiness, chaos and all round predictablity of the big night once it's happened this week (and I still don't get why a video message from Prince Harry is being piped in - will that really provide ITV with another 20,000 viewers? - possibly), I actually tend to become something of a defender of the record industry's flagship awards event at this time of year, when BRITs bashing becomes a national sport. Indeed two years running I published the same CMU editorial on BRITs day doing just that (which is possibly why the BPI then invited me to the show). For while I've no huge desire to go the event, and certainly have no intention of watching it on TV, I happen to think the BRITs performs its two primary functions perfectly well.

Those functions, in case you wondered, are to raise money - both for the BRITs Trust which supports music education programmes and the BPI itself - and to provide a platform that gets the big rock and pop artists of the moment out of the music pages of the British media (or whatever the broadcast equivalent of music pages are) and into the main news sections or, preferably, onto the front page. For those of us who write about music every day of the week it's easy to think that the entire country has Florence and Calvin and Dizzee and Seasick Steve stored somewhere near the front of their brains. The fact is most don't. And even those artists who do enjoy constant mainstream attention, either because they were created by 'X-Factor', or because they're Robbie Williams, well, it's still good for the record industry for punters to be reminded that they might want to buy these artists' records as well as read about their exploits in the tabloids. And while none of the artists I like will probably win anything on Tuesday (except, perhaps, for Flo), if the whole thing gets Friendly Fires or Empire Of The Sun just a tiny bit of exposure in the first ten pages of a tabloid newspaper, then that's not an entirely wasted venture in my eyes.

This year when the BRIT nominations were released - another moment which results in both extra exposure for the record industry, as well as another bout of BRIT bashing - most of the press focused on two things (if you ignore Alan Magee's rant about how the awards had 'become' too mainstream, as if they've ever been anything but). Those two criticisms/observations focused on two things missing from the shortlists this year: good old fashioned rock bands and SuBo. Having been asked for my thoughts on those two things by some other journalists, I penned an email at the time, which I thought I'd include here to wrap up my BRITs blog for 2010.

WHY WASN'T SUBO NOMINATED FOR A BRIT?
Susan Boyle's album only came out a week before voting opened for the BRITs Academy (the 1000 plus industry people who vote). So arguably her debut long player wouldn't have sunk in with most Academy members before voting. The Brits accommodate this fact by having a 16 month eligibility year, meaning Boyle could still be nominated next year based on the first album.

But I suspect Boyle would still have been missing from the lists even if her album had been out a month or so earlier. Were the BRITs Academy wrong to ignore here?

Well, I suppose it depends on what you think the BRITs are there for, to celebrate commercial success or genuine musical merit. Arguably the music industry has weekly awards for commercial success in the form of the Top 40 (and subsequently the Gold disk awards dished out by the BPI), and the BRITs are more about the actual music created. Susan Boyle the phenomenon is off the wall, but her album of cover versions - while well performed and well produced - doesn't really stand out as being among the best of the year. I think even Simon Cowell would admit that he is in the business of creating pop phenomena more than breaking new ground musically.

(Of course, I should add, artists generally need to have had some commercial success too to be shortlisted for these awards, because the BRITs Academy is so big that, unlike with the Mercury Music Prize, it's impossible for low profile niche albums to get a look in simply on the back of a handful of very passionate fans within the industry).

The one category where commercial success and popularity is key is Best British Single, because the short list is based on record sales and the winner picked by commercial radio listeners. Unfortunately SuBo's single - 'Wild Horses' - didn't sell as well as many expected, partly because it was only released digitally and SuBo falls into that very small category of artists where CD single sales would have probably made a real difference.

If there was an award for Best Pop Phenomenon - which perhaps there should be - then SuBo (and, really, Cowell) should definitely have been shortlisted for that. But there isn't, so she wasn't.

WHY ISN'T THERE MUCH ROCK IN THE SHORTLISTS?
I don't think 2009 was necessarily a brilliant year for conventional rock music. Or, rather, it was a great year for pop music, and that overshadowed the rock scene. Making pop music became rather stigmatized for a lot of the last decade, partly in response to all the manufactured pop that came out in the 90s. It meant new young musical talent tended to err more towards rock.

But pop has been through a bit of renaissance recently, with new performers - many looking back to the great electo-filled pop music of the early eighties - arriving on the scene. This has led to more new (non-manufactured) acts making all out pop music and to many on the indie scene bringing keyboards back into the mix.

From MGMT to Calvin Harris to Little Boots to Friendly Fires to Florence & The Machine to Empire Of The Sun - the pop scene has been in rude health. By comparison a lot of the new more traditional rock bands have seemed quite boring. Though that's not to say rock isn't selling - especially in terms of gig tickets - but I think the BRITs Academy is right to recognise that for British Music 2009 was really about the rebirth of quality pop music.

Everything goes round in cycles, of course, and the guitar/bass/drums/singer set up will rise again, but I think the pop thing has at least another year in it.

One last thing I would say on this year's BRIT shortlists, I think the glaring omissions come from the British urban scene. Dizzee Rascal gets the customary nod, but 2009 was a big year for Tinchy Stryder, N-Dubz and Taio Cruz and they don't get a look in outside Best Single, which as I said, is based on sales data. Tinchy Styder is huge among the teenage pop demographic. Like, really huge! I'd say his omission from Best Male is more shocking than SuBo not being on Best Female, even though his 18 track album could, in my humble opinion, have happily been several tracks shorter!

You can read CMU's coverage of all things BRITs here.

--------------------------------------------------

STUFF I DID THIS WEEK
Aside from the aforementioned MPG Awards, the other main event type thing I attended this week was the launch of Tinnitus Awareness Week, a brilliant initiative being spearheaded by our good friend Eddy Temple-Morris. You can and should read what Eddy has to say about it all here.

Despite subjecting my ears to quite a lot of loud music over the years, I'm lucky to say that whenever I go to a loud gig, or overdo it on the headphones at home, that irritating ringing noise in your ears that often follows such things always disappears a few hours later. Until this week I never realised how many people working in music - DJs especially - don't have that luxury, and have to tolerate a slight ringing all the time. This has happened because awareness of the risks of exposing yourself to sustained loud music without earplug protection is so low, even within the music business.

Eddy's campaign is all about spreading the word, educating people about the risks, and encouraging people to wear ear plugs. He isn't calling on every sound system in the world to be turned down, just that people know the risks, and that simply pushing proper plugs in their ears can greatly reduce them. The launch event saw a stack of great DJs, all of whom suffer from tinnitus, each playing one record to make up one brilliant DJ set.

And, just to prove the point, the music was VERY loud in Cargo on the night of the launch, and I watched the full two hour plus multi-DJ set from start to finish. Yet, thanks to the cheapy spongy ear plugs I was given on entry, although there was still a slight ring in my ears as I left the venue, it was negligible compared to what such events would normally cause, and had all but gone by the time I was home. The plugs also meant that the sort of irritating chatter that you get at any gig or club was filtered out, leaving just the music.

I was given another set of ear plugs at the MPG Awards on Thursday, meaning I now have two sets. And given my experience on Monday night, they shall be in my pocket for all future loud music events. So, a great night out, and educational to boot. Thanks Eddy!

Stuff By Me

A blog of sorts from Chris Cooke of UnLimited Media

Everyone has an opinion about the BRITs

Welcome...

Recent Posts

This is me

Stuff I tweet...

My websites

Blogroll