Wednesday, February 20, 2008
More meaningless industry back-patting
AWARDS! The Brit Awards 2008, ITV1, 8.00pm Labels: ITV1, The Brit Awards, TV
We're not suggesting for a minute that you should ignore the arrival of the marvellous Martha Jones in tonight's episode of Torchwood, and with it, the best episode of the series so far, but the annual airing of the British music industry's favourite excuse to give itself a big ol' hug at least deserves a mention of some kind, however muted.
As usual, the shortlist was greeted with the usual amount of scoffing and raised eyebrows (including one memorable lambasting from the Daily Telegraph's rock critic, which, as jobs go, would appear to have all the cachet of being Realism Advisor on Hollyoaks), the scandal this year being the unexpected selection of pop-themed nominations. Which basically means Leona Lewis and Mika are up for everything, and Girls Aloud got a surprise nod. Just think if they won: the plummeting shares in the guitar industry! Well, we can dream...
The event will be hosted by Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, and recent tabloid reports have suggested the latter is threatening to strip naked, because he's wild and unconventional like that, and also it's possibly still 2002. But there's bound to be the odd talking point or two, given the event's history. Unless of course the invasion of pop kills the rock 'n' roll atmosphere and the most exciting headline turns out to be "Leona Lewis spills apple juice on expensive handbag", which is clearly what all the "serious music" fans are afraid of. Rock on everybody!
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Brits and pieces
BACK! The Brit Awards Live, ITV1, 8.00pm Labels: ITV1, The Brit Awards, TV
Another year, another self-congratulatory award ceremony wherein the music industry hands out gongs to everyone who got a lot of airplay and sold a lot of records last year, because apparently the significant fiscal benefits that come with that just aren't enough without a tacky trophy to accompany them. So far, so blah. However! There is a crucial difference to the ceremony this year, because it will be broadcast live directly into your television set. Ooooo.
Since it hasn't been broadcast live since 1989 after the Sam Fox/Mick Fleetwood fiasco, this year should be every bit as important a TV event as it will be a music industry event. Presumably it had become so utterly boring and irrelevant (we still haven't shaken off the horror of the 2004 awards, presented by Cat "So You Think You Can Host" Deeley) that this was considered the best way to inject a bit of life back into its fitting corpse. Russell Brand's been booked to present it, you won't read who won everything in the paper the morning before, and there's a fair to medium chance that Lily Allen will get wasted and try to pick a fight with someone. Hooray!
It'd be nice if some of the changes being made to the ceremony had included a more thorough overhaul of the awards so that the shortlists might be a little less boring (we notice that James Blunt officially killed the Best Pop Act category last year, since it's no longer being included - stupid James Blunt ruins everything), and quite what Oasis's outstanding contribution to music is remains a mystery, other than writing one good song once and then rewriting it over and over again and just making it very slightly different each time in such a brazen way as to make even Stock, Aitken and Waterman go "you really might want to think about coming up with some new ideas, lads". That said, we'll leave the music criticism to the professionals and just sit back in the hope of a really good fight before 10pm.
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