BRIT Awards – celebrating mediocrity and high record sales

Oh so we had them Brits last night. A few unoriginal but important comments on the whole thing:

Angels by Robbie Williams is not the best British single of the last 25 years.

It is important to remember that how ever much we're told something by people who'll make money out of us believing what they say, it does not become the truth. Case in point: the travesty of the shortlist. People were asked to vote (you see! it's democratic!) for what they thought was the best single of the last 25 years from a shortlist which consisted of:
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart, Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights, Queen – We Are Champions, Robbie Williams – Angels, Will Young – Leave Right Now.

Now just take a quick look at that last option. Will Young – Leave Right Now. The inclusion of that single in the shortlist is a joke too far. Never mind the ridiculousness of choosing something as specific as 'best single of the last 25 years' – Will Young's inclusion in that shortlist is evidence of a degree of hatred of music previously better hidden by those in the BPI (who run the Brits).

No one with a shred of love for, or understanding of, British pop music could do something like that. Never mind the fact that Will Young's a lovely bloke. Never mind the fact that his single was quite good. Never mind the fact that they only had him down for 2 other nominations and they had to squeeze another in somewhere.

So the shortlist was crook right from the start… no surprise there. Then the single which did more to homogenise British pop music than any other event in years – Angels – won… no real surprise there either. And it doesn't really matter what people voted for (though if The Boy With The Arab Strap had been nominated, it deffo would have won – Belle and Sebastian's fans are notorious and glorious vote riggers). What matters to me is that we seem to have lost the divide in pop music – the one which used to exist between the lame industrial production of Coldplay (who owe more to Robbie Williams for his relentlessly dull drone than they will ever admit), and the relatively independent output of the indie scene. Now, there is no indie scene to speak of save for the handful of power pop groups coming out of London (Bloc Party). Now we have a choice between "Rock" (ie Coldplay, U2, Robbie Williams and so on to sleep) and "R'n'B" which apparently consists of Joss Stone.

Comment worth making number 2:
Joss Stone is not Britain's best urban music act.
She's from near where I'm from in Devon and let me tell you something: Brixton it ain't (more like Brixham actually!). In fact, our part of Devon (the South Hams) was referred to by Harper's magazine as 'the South Hamptons' – the clear intention being that it is one of the wealthiest, most beautiful and safe areas of the UK. Which it is. I consider myself lucky to come from such a wonderful part of the world. I am a country boy. Joss Stone is – whether she likes it or not – a country girl. And quite a hippy one at that. There is absolutely nothing 'urban' about Joss Stone, from her unkempt long blonde locks down to her bell bottomed jeans, she represents not one percent of the UKs smart, metropolitan, non-flare-wearing urban population.

Her music consists of well meaning but mildly embarrassing rip offs of soul tunes nicked from her mum's record collection. She is not producing anything remotely similar to the music being produced independently throughout British towns and cities (garage, rap and electronic mayhem mostly) – and her selection by the people who voted for her unmasks a general failure by the British music industry to foster original homegrown talent. Soul is an American invention which came here on the back of classic records from the 60s and 70s. Garage, for example, is nearly wholly British, and it now influences urban music to a massive degree and on a global scale.

Joss Stone is dull – just like Robbie Williams, Keane, Will Young, Busted, even Franz Ferdinand. None of these acts produce anything which makes you work for your enjoyment. They are all – one way or another – like the Sun newspaper. It's no wonder then that the pamphletteering mania of RTX will go unnoticed.

Too different to work, too hard to listen to – we need more of that sort of thing, and less of a celebration of mediocrity and high record sales. Failure to understand this now will damage our musical tradition for years.