Land of hope and anus.
by Paul Stephenson
I fucking hate the Brit Awards, and yet every single year I sit there like a fucking lemon, getting more and more irate as no talent hacks blow their own trumpets as even less talented presenters present a jovial sheen to everything in the hope that nobody will question the sheer fatuous nonsense they are spilling over onto our screens.
This year we have the perennial unfunny uncle at a wedding that is Peter Kay, trying desperately not to look like he’s been thrust front and centre at a kids party. What exactly is the Brits going for with Kay? I mean, he’s about as cool as being interviewed by Fearne Cotton. Which is what happens to the hapless winners as they amble offstage having thanked a load of people that mean nothing to anyone else. She stands there in that inimitable ‘I don’t have a thought in my vacuous little head so I keep talking and hope that someone will marry me’ way that she has, like every single thought that goes through her head automatically tumbles out of her face without any quality control, and then her face registers every single one like it’s the most amazing thing that she has ever heard. I hate her.
And then there’s the music itself. Well, I say music. Here’s an interesting fact, the Brits is supposed to be about celebrating the best British music has to offer, across the board. And yet, in the last 30 years, not a single award has been won by Radiohead. Or indeed The Smiths. So if the biggest and most influential indie names can’t get recognition, what hopes for a proper rock band, or a metal band? Of course, the answer to that question is as obvious as a kick in the ovaries. None. And I’m not counting The Fucking Darkness here, for the obvious reason that they were the worst band who ever existed. Obviously. No, the closest we get is the cursory Muse nomination that rolls around each year, blithely ignoring that band’s own terminal decline. I hate Muse.
And now, as I type, Robbie Williams is farting across the stage trying not to have a total mental collapse while his most painfully obvious song choices are trotted out like a conveyor belt of banality, and Robbie stands there looking half embarrassed by the sheer possibility of his existence, safe in the knowledge that the future is even more banal, given that the Best New British Band are the runners up in a reality TV show that seem to be only distinguishable from each other by their ability to backflip. And it’s ok, because tonight someone dressed as Elton John’s bedside cabinet won three awards. Three.
I hate The Brits. But not as much as I hate myself for giving a shit.
