The Brits, 2005

Ah, The Brit Awards. Once a year, we can all gather around the campfire and exchange bewildered and incredulous looks at one another as the results come in. Join me, if you will, for a staggered and stunned look at what terrible, terrible wrongs have been wrought.

Perhaps the most controversial result of the evening was the award for the best song from the past 25 years. Now, there’s a hell of a thing to try and pick — how many fantastic songs have been released in the last quarter of a century? How could you possibly just pick one as being the best? And how, in the name of Christ, COULD ANYBODY PICK ROBBIE BLOODY WILLIAMS TO WIN THIS?

‘Angel’ as the best song from the last 25 years? How? How is such a thing possible? How can it even have been allowed to happen, particularly when Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart was nominated? Mind you, some Will Young track was also nominated, so I guess we should be thankful for small mercies. But still, for the love of…do these people actually listen to music? What am I saying — it was voted for by Radio 2 listeners.

We learn shocking things from The Brits, or at least we learn shocking things about the sort of people who vote for The Brits. For instance, Joss Stone is apparently an ‘urban’ act. Not just an urban act, in fact, but the best one of the year! Messrs. Rascal and Skinner, my heart goes out to you. Hell, I’ll even feel sorry for Lemar and Jamelia. Fond as I am of Ms. Stone and her work, even I am not blinkered enough to think she fits into the category of urban music, unless Devon has become a lot rougher than I remember.

We learn that, apparently, Bob Geldof has done enough for the music industry to warrant an ” Outstanding Contribution to Music” award. Has he? What, exactly? Were The Boomtown Rats really that influential in the long run? Perhaps people are confusing “contribution to music” with “contribution to aiding public awareness of third-world debt and famine”.

We learn that the best single of 2005 was Will Young’s Your Game. We learn that the insipid, grandmother-friendly Keane are not only the best British breakthrough act of 2005, but that they also delivered the best album as well. This came as a surprise to me, but then with a list of nominees that includes both Snow Patrol and Keane, it was inevitable that it would be one of them. Nice, safe, quiet music. Music you can sleep to.

Well, at least The Scissor Sisters did alright out of the evening, perhaps because nobody’s actually listened to their lyrics or watched their videos, and still sees them as being some sort of band made up of Elton Johns. Franz Ferdinand also managed to grab a couple of awards away from the Keane Patrol, so it wasn’t all bad news. Really, though, just one award to Keane is one too many.