The Brits

Well, the Brits are almost upon us. As an almost-fanatical devotee of much of British (and other) rock music (and history thereof) over the years since the 1960s, I find the Brits to be a singularly dreadful, and indeed depressing, occasion. In fact, to be entirely honest I wonder how it is that ‘we’ have arrived at this very sorry and very talent-less state of affairs. OK – you might well question the relevance to today’s music scene of someone who remembers the 1960s. But that would be unfair. I reckon my collection would stand up reasonably well to at least the casual scrutiny of many of the current crop of apprentice anoraks of the music scene. In any event, anyone who wants to defend a celebration of music through an award ceremony which has a category of award sponsored by Mastercard (for goodness sake) can hardly be snooty towards those of us who – in our modest way and on our day – could reasonably be described not only as rebellious, but regarded in some quarters as constituting a threat to the very moral order of society as then it was known. I doubt if many of the Brit nominees of 2006 fall into such threatening (and classy) company. For all their sheer (and lets be honest – highly lucrative) unpleasantness, there is nothing in Oasis that comes close to the music that emerged from the deep sense of political and social outrage that informed the punk era, or indeed the hippie era some 20 years earlier. And when we get to thinking about the origin of the blues…well, enough said. As for this bunch…Will Young? Coldplay? Franz Ferdinand? James Blunt? The list of trite mediocrity (at best) goes on and on. The Brits are, no doubt, relevant to a UK music industry which, as the Guardian timeously reported here, earned £1.24 billion in 2005 alone. But for the rest of us, the Brits are simply another instance of offensive banality from an entertainment media that used to be so important, and which comprised artists who not only had something to say that was worth saying but who also had the talent to make us hear it. No wonder we have stopped listening.