Russell Brand to host the Brit awards

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whilst what, i think, lex might have been getting it that it's kind of pointless to criticize the Brits for being boring (clue they always have been cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_awards ) on the other hand enrique has a point that at some stage they were a good pointer to more general pop shifts and yes entertaining in that something might "go wrong". it is the fact that the organizers are aware of the second point that made this years show interesting if not entertaining. if you saw the trails what was being advertised was the idea of "danger" that "anything might happen". now i'm not saying i believed the ads but it sort of comes round to Passantino scratching post 2005 - 2007; the rather desperate use of danger and authenticity as a marketing tool. it's like all these signifiers are floating about and no one quite knows what they are doing or really cares. cf jarvis announcing the fratellis as "ice cool indie rock" what the hell does that even mean? the whole thing seemed to strain for relevance that in the end it sort of achieved it. all the battles or whatever have been fought… there’s just heaped helpings of cynical cynicism and safe irony left. it really did capture uk pop in 2007.

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

two progs in one night made lols with the three words 'britney spears vagina'. it's hard to be edgy really, when that's mainstream.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:03 (seventeen years ago) link

that's not quite it, but basically what paul said.

i doubt pulp or the other slightly cooler bands who won stuff in the mid-90s sold as many records as amy winehouse or snow patrol or the frankly sinister muse.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Yay Muse! That is the one award they really deserve to win.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:14 (seventeen years ago) link

i saw noely g on newsnight and he was an unspeakable thatcherite fucktard.
-- temporary enrique (miltonpinsk...), February 15th, 2007.

details?

― pisces (pisces), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:15 (seventeen years ago) link

noel gallagher on newsnight was like: thatcher was a meanie but for me y'know, i take care of me and my family, and that's it; charity begins at home... dick.
-- temporary enrique (miltonpinsk...), February 15th, 2007.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:15 (seventeen years ago) link

more general pop shifts and so on, within british music. british music isn't very exciting in any areas at the moment (though i do like winehouse), or at least it's consistently being trumped by foreign acts, so it stands to reason that the brit awards aren't going to be particularly exciting. i don't see this as a problem, at all.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:15 (seventeen years ago) link

wittered on some shit about politics being something you do every five years, it's our fault tony blair is who he is because we 'elected him president' etc etc.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

pulp never actually won! blur / oasis / manics were selling mega units in the mid 90s. the only ones who that point sort of rings true about is bjork and beck winning but they were obv in international catergories so i guess more room for tokenism!

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link

what about dubstep, the most thrilling, forward-thinking music in the UK today?

crosspost

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:17 (seventeen years ago) link

er i'm kind of talking about music which has any hope at all to be in the charts, here.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:18 (seventeen years ago) link

International categories were fucked up though, I mean which NEW American bands actually made any impact on the British charts in the late 90s? Fun Lovin' Criminals, Eels... that's it. Smashmouth, probably.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean which NEW American bands actually made any impact on the British charts in the late 90s?

destiny's child.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Lily Allen's great and it's sort of outrageous that she didn't win anything.

xpost: that list of impactful American bands is... stunning.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

in the UK charts in the late '90s, tracer -- i'm drawing blanks, have to say.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Hanson had a massive number one! Backstreet Boys! N*sync!

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link

they were all shit.

srsly though, none of them were that impactful, especially not n*sync.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Mmm Bop! is the best song ever!

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Sketchy details of Noel G's state of the nation address:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6364089.stm

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Mmm Bop! is the best song ever!
-- acrobat (kowalski9...), February 15th, 2007.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/ritalin/gfx/ritalin_large.jpg

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:27 (seventeen years ago) link

srsly though, none of them were that impactful, especially not n*sync.

backstreet boys gave the world the max martin sound which basically ruled pop for a few years, you may have heard of this singer called britney spears for example

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Destiny's Child didn't mean anything until summer 99 over here when "Bills Bills Bills" and that one about bugs menaced the charts, and you'd have a hard time convincing anyone that DC are a 90s band not a 00s one.

N'Sync never went top 10 in the UK until 1999 as well.

xxxxp

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, i think you mean max martin gave backstreet boys the max martin sound, and it did not rule pop, it produced some very successful records, mostly for britney, for a couple of years.

xpost

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

"backstreet boys gave the world the max martin sound"

gets more wtf every time i read it.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

1999 is the late nineties! Backstreet Boys had a UK no 1 in 99 but had been charting solidly since 1996. Blink 182 didn't break in the uk until 2000! thats only a year before sum 41!

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link

a *lot* of people had #1s in 1999. backstreet boys were just not a big noise in pop music! and anyway they were shit.

Blink 182 didn't break in the uk until 2000! thats only a year before sum 41!

QED

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I'll give you Backstreet Boys tbh, their chart run from 1996 is pretty impressive. And 1999 is not the late 90s, it's one year of it.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:35 (seventeen years ago) link

"What's My Age Again?" only charted at 38. That seems ridiculously low considering how much I remember it being played out.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:36 (seventeen years ago) link

yeh but blink were around a long time before and are certainly a lot older than sum 41. motivation is so great.

backstreet boys were just not a big noise in pop music!

wrong

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:37 (seventeen years ago) link

"What's My Age Again?" re-entered at 17 the following year.

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:37 (seventeen years ago) link

i suppose i forget that the media landscape of ten years ago was v diff, so you could still sell lots without being 'impactful'. i watched a lot of tv and listened to a lot of radio back then but don't remember the backstreet boys at all (other than 'backstreet's back' and that one ballad). whereas i hardly listen to the radio at all now but seem to osmose bullshit about rubbish pop stars (winehouse, allen) anyway.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:38 (seventeen years ago) link

paul as the only person on this thread who seems to want to talk about the subject at hand (i've lost track of what this even is) with any enthusiasm, why on earth do you do it with people whose only interest is in snarking at everything and anything regardless of what it is?

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:40 (seventeen years ago) link

If you don't know what the subject at hand is how do you know we're not talking about it?

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:43 (seventeen years ago) link

um the subject is the brit awards, not boy bands of the late '90s.

but we are now on 'impactful US bands of the late '90s'. i'm not merely being snarky, i just never drank the kool-aid wrt backstreet boys. i feel no enthusiasm for them!

or the max martin sound. which other than britney's early stuff, seems to consist in the aforementioned BSBs, some n*sync, and fucking 5ive. oh and the odd bryan adams track. kudos to max.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:46 (seventeen years ago) link

This kinda impacts on a thread that I was gonna start earlier in the week but couldn't think of a decent opening for, which is that 1999 is the most mis-remembered year in popular music ever.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:47 (seventeen years ago) link

it is round these parts, aye.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

People think it was this wonderous sugarland of happy pop music created by magical Swedish wizards and sang by happy smiling young things. In reality, the top 40 was 39 trance singles and a Travis song.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:49 (seventeen years ago) link

and 'tequila'.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Terrorvision appearing on Noel's House Party: the moment that rock came back. Everything since has just been dressing.

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 12:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I watched Dragons Den followed by The Verdict. Hard to know where one ended and the other began.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:00 (seventeen years ago) link

'the truth is what you believe' is a truly scary tagline for a show about a rape trial.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Did any Britpop bands appear on Noel's House Party?

― White Collar Boxer (DomPassantino), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link

apart from the famous denim/auteurs ep obviously.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link

i went for lunch. i dunno these things can be good if they get going.

xp to lex

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Noels House Party didn't feature bands till really near the end of its run BUT i do remember the spice girls opening the show and the introduction of a liam galleghar look a like who smashed mellons into the audience.

interesting point about 1999 cos the brits of that years are really odd. des'ree, belle and sebastian, manics all winning ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_Awards#1999 . i think the thing about this years is that for all the snark and so forth uk pop at the moment really has it sewn up, commercially at least. this current fecundity has been going on for what 3 or 4 years british acts are starting to really make it in the US. the weird thing is that the brits can't actually be triumphant about it. well they can but it rings hollow. you have all these acts making serious money but for some reason it all needs to be wrapped up in this mythos, all this baggage from punk and britpop. things can’t just be a collection of good songs or whatever they have to at once dangerous and prove the collective musical / moral worth of the nation.

There is this bit in the middle of What’s My Age Again that is almost unspeakably beautiful. It's like 74-75 moving but in the middle of this upbeat tune. Wow.

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6365325.stm

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 15 February 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, so it was controversial after all. Well done, Russell.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 15 February 2007 15:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh and what was all that "plunging the sound into the bottom of the swimming pool" ?

There wasn't any swearing during the lead break in "Don't look back in anger" was there?

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Thursday, 15 February 2007 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link

The sound kept going off "at their end" during Oasis. I didn't think it was anyhting to do with swearing, I thought it was just incompetence.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 15 February 2007 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link

ha it's weird that seemingly controversy = relevancy to these people. why can't the music alone be enough. if the presenter is supplying the "edge" or whatever how bloody contrived is that. all ther performances were rote, really unexceptional. why can't britain ever do things like prince at the superbowl, why can't we seemingly do big music events with any pizzaz. tbh the big stories of the last few brits have been americans (and australians) coming over and doing good shows last year prince and kanye, 2003 timberlake and kylie bum grabbing. is the biggest uk music buying demographic really 20 something with i-pods?

― acrobat (acrobat), Thursday, 15 February 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

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