Wednesday 17 February 2010


THE TELEVISION was on last night when the much vaunted Brits awards were being shown, and although I was actually writing a post on the Vancouver Olympics at the time, I was aware of what was going on in the background.

I’m not a telly person, indeed I only got a set recently, and it’s rarely switched on because the fabulous new digital signal is so poor that most channels are unwatchable most of the time. (Well done the BBC. Worth every cent of the £140+ licence fee. NOT)

I’ve never been keen on watching overpaid performers, who already think that they are god’s gift to humankind, getting all emotional and “oh god, oh god, I don’t know what to say” ish, when they clearly either knew there was a good chance, or were certain, they would get an award, and therefore do know exactly what to say... because they have been practising it for days.

Of course like everyone else, I’ve seen the highlights of Oscar or Bafta ceremonies on the news and been embarrassed by the tears and drama, and the thanking everyone and everything in the world, when all the time they were thinking to themselves that it was THEM and them alone who had got this bauble.

So, anyway, I come to my point. What a tawdry, second rate bunch of no-h
opers they all were. The only person with the remotest talent or a voice was Robbie Williams, and even he lost us in some mind-blowingly boring musical piece that seemed to go on for 3 months. Most of the rest of them looked like they were at a fancy dress ball and had come as bags of rags (did you see JonathonRoss?) and the ones that performed were lip synching and even at that they were flat.

This is what passes for talent in the land that produced The Beatles and The Stones, Dusty Springfield, Status Quo, Rod Stewart, Queen, Petula Clark, Marc Bolan, David Essex, Queen, Elton John, Ian Dury, The Police, Coldplay.... the list of talent is endless.

What we were treated to was a cringingly awful display of mediocrity, drunkenness and ignorance. Noel Gallagher’s idiotic and childish behaviour, and the retort from Peter Kay, on mic, that he (Gallagher) was a knobhead, reduced the whole thing to farce, but not funny farce. It was the kind of amateur entertainment you get in a down at the heal local on a karaoke night.

British pop music is something that once we could have been proud of. The 60s invasion, band pop, the new romantic movement, punk, new wave, and a second British invasion of the early 80s, have been replaced with this bunch of third raters.... So something else we used to be good at, and are now laughably bad at. How sad.

23 comments:

  1. I've given up watching programmes like this Tris.

    Love the 'lip synching and even at that they were flat'. Superb!!

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  2. I prefered Robbie Williams when he was Mork.

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  3. It truly was awful, I watched it as well and had to keep altering the sound due to the ghastly duets between caterwauling women and rappers, where you couldn’t hear any of the rap. Probably just as well as I understand they are mostly full of foul language. Tris, you forgot to mention all the sound problems they had with Peter Kay standing tapping the mic like a spare prune and all the bits where the sound was muted to stop us from hearing all the swearing.

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  4. Terrible programme. Like all awards programmes. Hours of cheering and terrible singing with awards to people I've never heard of ( ok I'm getting on a bit ). And isn't Peter Kay piling on the beef ? He's really let himself go since someone showed him the way to Armaretto.

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  5. LOL Subrosa. They were so flat I thought it was a competition to get an award for Pancake Tuesday!

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  6. Ah... before my time Conan; well, my TV time anway.

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  7. Yes. That's really my point Munguin. It was so tacky you couldn't touch it for fear of staining your fingers. Terrible presenter, awful acts, bad production, mics that didn't work.... foul language....

    Can you imagine a Hollywood bash being so 10th rate? If I had been one of these people who is always shouting about how important Britian is, I'd have been cringing over the international emabrrassment. As it was I was just cringing over all the "stars" (lol lol lol) missing their notes.

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  8. The story goes Anon, that after Peter Kay called Noel Gallagher a knobhead (and of course Gallacgher did a tv interview where he said he was going home to take some Class A drugs, what a class act) Gallagher did go home and twittered about Kay being a Fat F***. Obviously he didn't have the nerve to say anything to the guy's face but he was cool from the safety of his computer.

    Such are the lives of our "glitterati".

    Oh to be a "star".

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  9. tris

    I've never had time for these people who call other people names from the safety of their computers ; )

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  10. Fair comment Anon... I maybe wouldn't be so brave if I was having to tell these Z listers how tacky they were face to face.

    I mean imagine telling Lady Gaga anything at all, her looking like a frayed toilet roll.... Oooops, I did it again.

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  11. tris

    I was actually talking about my brave self ! But you do seem to have had a go aswell right enough. Lady Ga Ga ? She should take up snowboarding. She's hot hot hot !!!
    Not sure about the paint on her face though. A bit David Bowie-ish.

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  12. Was that not lace on her face? And some sort of birds nest come chimney on her head. Anyone who has to show their bare arse in public is tacky beaucoup as far as I am concerned.

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  13. The problem lies in the fact that so many bands are manufactured these days and any real talent will often give up in disgust at the torturous climb to get anywhere near the top. The governments meddling with "entertainment" licensing for pubs hasn't helped either, most pubs can't afford live entertainment anymore. So there's no easy path for new talent to rise, just the mind numbing boy/girl bland route.

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  14. Fer wance tris, ah'm black-affronted at ye. Aw the comments oan here sound like thae auld men in the Monty Python telly show, the wan where they're aw gaun oan aboot the auld days an' how barrie thae were. Yez aw sound like geriatrics! An' ah should ken!

    Fer whit it's worth, here's ma take. It stairtit oaf like cauld shite, but ah blame STV fer that. It goat better mind. Like ma pal Ivana says, it is whit it is. Thae shows are pure gantin' if yer lookin' fer class, but pop music isnae class, it's pop music. The're daein' it fer the kids innit.

    Liam Gallacher (fer it wis he, no his big brither) is a nobheid, it's whit he gets paid fer. An' ther LP "Whit's the story, Moanin' Glory" is pure radge! It wis braw t'see Big Mel an' Wee Gerry no kicking three bells oot each ither. That Tweedy lassie can fair dance, even if she cannae sing tae save hersel' and the fower string puppets called PLJ or JCB goat ma seat right damp. Wee Robbie wis awright, but he could dae wi' Big Gary tae gie him some beef an' a guid tune tae sing. Ginger Flo can sing her pants oaf, she wid dae fine up at the Palais, or even doon at the Eldorada, if thae hadnae shut it doon.

    Bit ah'll no hear a word said against ma pal the Lady GaGa ah'm tellin' ye. She pit me mair in mind o' wee Babs Windsor than a toilet roll. A'body's sayin' she shoulda sung a pop song, but they're no takin' intae account she wis oan her way tae a funeral. Her pal wee Eck McQueen had jist gaun back intae his closet an' goat tangled up in his ties dae ye no ken? She wis in mournin' an' that's why she hadnae done her hair right. Ah thocht she gave the turn o' the night, it's why ah stayed up past ma bedtime. Frankly ah wid've geid her aw' the other awards an' tae blazes wi' th' rest o' them. If ma pal Madge has tae take her crown oaf,(an' she has tae wan day) she's goat tae gie it tae GaGa, fer she's the bees knees.

    An' yer no tellin' me that manufactured popstars have jist appeared this past week are ye? They've always been the same. Even wee Davie Jones an' his Monkeys, even the Moptops, aye even big Alma Cogan (ah kent her faither), every last wan o' them came oot a packet.

    Except fer Big Shirley, an' wisnae she looking like a diamond?

    Aw youse sound like yez should be in a nursin' home. Well find yer ain, cos this wan's fu'!!

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  15. Oh Sophia, you make me laugh... and you make me feel very old and stuffed shirt too.

    I should be ashamed of myself, should I not?

    But you see I'm a musical dude and it really really hurts my wee ears when people get loads of notes flat... and they nearly all did, except for Robbie. And like we both said, he could do with a songwriter, coz that dirge was BORING.

    Sorry if I mixed up the Gallaghers. I was never sure which was which, I just knew that they tried to sound like John Lennon......and didn't.

    Anyways, I'm sorry if I've upset yer mate Gaga. Tell her to stop showing her butt though, or she'll end up with piles. (Well that's what my granny says!)

    Shirley? Hum, yeah she looks good for 75. Thank god she didn't sing though. She was flat when she was half the age she is now.... argh

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  16. QM: Yes too much of it depends on studio sounds, which of course can be created using click tracks, but the strength of voice isn't there in so many of them and they don't seem to be able to do much about the flat notes either.

    Damn, there I go sounding like a grandad.....again.

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  17. Anon. She'd look amazing snow boarding in that get up.... but her backside wouldn't half get cold.

    .... NO, Anon, don't say it.....

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  18. Ah'm assumin' tris that ye havnae heard Shirley's latest long-player. Gie it a turn, it'll blaw yer tights aff!

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  19. The rot really started to set in during the 80's with Pete Waterman, carried on getting worse in the 90's with Simon Fuller and has now been taken to a whole new level of shite by Simon Cowell.

    It really is an insult to real musicians and singers who spent years learning how to do the job properly - I really just can't watch this sort of drivel anymore.

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  20. Barking... I think you summed up more or less what it's taken me acres of paper to say.

    But hasn't everything got rather plastic, not just music?

    I've seen behind the scenes in the production of a concert from a real star, and the attention to every last little detail is fantastic. The perfection that is sought and yet never, in thier opinion, achieved. yet they still go on trying, changing a chord, trying a slightly different ending....

    And all the time Jordan and Paris Hilton are stars?

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  21. Ouch Conan, someone just explained that to me....

    How thick am I?

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  22. You're right , Tris, everything has been turned towards the lowest common denominator to keep the dumbed-down masses oblivious to the real machinations of government going on around them. Whether it's music - bland and samey, or comedy - no longer clever, just bland with added Left-Wing filth to keep the brainless amused, or the endless parade of reality television airheads with absolutely no discernable talent whatsoever, it's all been completely devalued by greed and crass stupidity.
    Nowadays it's all about making a fast buck and nothing else - rather than having any artistic integrity, it's all about Simon Cowell's bank account.

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  23. Can't add anything to that Barking... spot on.

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