BRIT AWARDS 2016

So the Annual Brit Awards took place last night with performances from lots of the pop industries fantastic shining stars like Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Drake (please detect sarcasm) and awards being dished out left right and centre. We aren’t here to talk about the abundance of shit pop acts or lack of musical diversity at the Brits though; we don’t want to get caught up in that whirlwind of conversation. However this is looking to be a hot topic on the World Wide Web at the moment and it would be cruel not to put our two pence in now wouldn’t it? Many have voiced their opinions on the lack of diversity at the Brit Awards in recent years with none of Britain’s urban acts like Stormzy or Skepta being nominated for an award despite their incredible contribution to the music industry in the UK over the past year. Organisers of the Brit awards have exercised a complete lack of discretion in the matter; I mean it’s so fucking blatant that these acts are just being left out of the pecking order.They risk diminishing the prestige of the award itself if they carry on being so blatantly discriminative. The Brits is an award ceremony for pop acts and chart music alone, I know we hear you ‘didn’t Arctic Monkeys win an award back in 2013 and Royal Blood in 2014’ yeah sure they both did! But Alex Turners behaviour on stage when accepting the award says it all and is testimony to Rock Music and its attitude towards the Brits. Having one legitimate Rock act each year on the nominations doesn't quite cut it.

With the obvious racial diversity aside, being a topic we don’t want to tread too deep into, the issue can be addressed at an even more elementary level with the lack of music variety being appalling. Just check out the nominees/ winners list here: http://www.brits.co.uk/winners in particular the awards for British Single & British Group I mean seriously it looks like whoever made these decisions had an MTV Hits Top 20 binge last week. There are hundreds and thousands of incredible bands out there making music that is light-years better than the over publicised trash that these artists release year after year. It’s the same shite, fast tempo, euphoric beat engineered on a computer with shitty lyrics about girl/boy troubles or money, cars & champagne. Now take a moment to reflect on the transition between ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not’ to ‘AM’ and all the trimmings in-between. What a journey of different albums that is! This is also a major issue that contributes to the struggles for small unsigned rock bands in the UK, there are so many talented musicians under the radar that get no recognition or limelight because the market is being flooded with James Bays and Little Mixes. At the end of the day it’s all opinion, many people will disagree and many will agree.

For us the only good thing to have come from last night’s award ceremony is Tame Impala & Catfish and The Bottlemen picking up awards for International Group and Brit Breakthrough respectively. Well done to both of them, we can vouch for Tame Impala having seen them during their Sold Out stint at the Alexandra Palace, London last week, an absolutely incredible gig. We are yet to see CATBM in action, but will be this July at Oxfordshire’s Truck Festival which should be a blast. Both their recent albums ‘Currents’ and ‘The Balcony’ have excelled them to new heights which they currently bask in, deservedly might we add. You can grab both of these albums from our STORE on Vinyl LP HERE: http://www.therockwolf.co.uk/#!store/qoegl