What have all the following winners of the 'Best British Group' in the Brit Awards, for the past 10 years, got in common?
1998 Best British Group: The Verve
1999 Best British Group: Manic Street Preachers
2000 Best British Group: Travis
2001 Best British Group: Coldplay
2002 Best British Group: Travis
2003 Best British Group: Coldplay
2004 Best British Group: The Darkness
2005 Best British Group: Franz Ferdinand
2006 Best British Group: Kaiser Chiefs
2007 Best British Group: Arctic Monkeys
The answer is that they're all completely mediocre. None of them have produced a 'great' album, an album on which every track is an excellent or indispensable part of the whole. As epitomised by Travis's 1999 album 'The Man Who', these bands, at the very best, produce a first album with five or so decent tracks, and a couple of very good tracks, and then follow it up with an instantly forgettable second album. And you could claim that the winners for the last four years struggle even to reach that standard. And Coldplay have never produced a single decent track.
As Superhans says in Peep Show, "People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people, Jeremy."
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4 comments:
Well, the 2001 winners have quite a lot in common with the 2003 winners. Likewise, the 2000 winners and the 2002 winners. Other than that, I wouldn't have a clue. I'll take your word for it, Gordon. Music is important to me, so I don't listen to very much popular stuff. There is too much crap to wade through before hitting on something worthwhile. I mostly listen to classical and jazz (certain composers and artists I've grown to love over the years), with a smattering of groups from my youth. On the whole, I prefer instrumental music.
I liked 'Jazz Club' on The Fast Show. Nice.
Hmm. Quite an absolute statement, Gordon! Are you a music critic? I like some stuff by several of the groups listed and I *love* Richard Ashcroft, late of "The Verve."
I also like stuff by several of those groups, Susan, but the problem is that the odd decent song is now considered sufficient to make a good or excellent album.
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