The Brit Awards are supposed to be a night when the British music industry can proudly show off its brightest, most colorful stars. Instead, Wednesday night’s ceremony felt more like a continual wash of gray that made the recent Grammy Awards look like a four-hour Michael Bay production by comparison.
Out of all the acts on display, the only one really worth paying attention to were the 1975, and if you didn’t, the Manchester quartet forced you to. After winning their award for best British group, they took to the stage to perform their gloriously catchy hit “The Sound” (from the Billboard No. 1 album “I Like It When You Sleep . . .”) and took the opportunity to sabotage their own slot, by having the broadcast cut away from the song to display some of the many criticisms that have been thrown at them. “Punch-Your-TV-Obnoxious” read one, while another opined that they were simply making “robotic Huey Lewis tunes.”
Many viewers mistakenly thought that the show had been hacked by a rogue 1975-hater, but it was in fact a replication of the track’s video. More importantly, this subversive moment was the only time during the painfully boring and predictable ceremony that viewers couldn’t be entirely sure what was happening.
It is no accident that the group is lining up a collaboration with London grime emcee Skepta — whose own performance was a rare bright spot of the night. Beyond that, there were slim pickings, as has often been the case in the Brit Awards’ recent history.
Emeli Sandé’s coffee-table soul blustered, but left no mark. Ed Sheeran played his two new singles, “Castle on the Hill” (a barely palatable dilution of his love of Springsteen and U2) and “Shape of You” (another one for the ever-increasing pile of dancehall-inspired knockoffs). The UK’s recent breakout star Rag‘n’Bone Man thankfully spared everyone his bland, gravel-voiced soul, but did bore the arena with a mind-numbing anecdote about his cat, and showed that he has about as much charisma as the statuette he received.
Even the so-called “icon” of the night couldn’t lift the gloom. Robbie Williams (an undistinguished member of ’90s boy-band Take That, who went on to become an undistinguished Frank Sinatra tribute act) was wheeled out for a croaky medley of tracks from his latest album. As if aware of his own shortcomings, he at least tried to inject a laugh. “Come on, the Brits, it’s nearly over. You can nearly go home!”
It’s true that the Brit Awards only showcases the most successful acts, so it shouldn’t be considered the definitive survey of everything the UK has to offer. But in recent years, this elite crowd has become markedly milquetoast, and consistently overshadowed by its American and Canadian counterparts.
On Wednesday, it was the solid-if-unremarkable performances by Bruno Mars and Katy Perry that seemed far more fun and interesting. In 2016, The Weeknd, Rihanna and Drake stole the show from the like of James Bay, Jess Glynne and Adele. And in 2015, the spectacle and bombast of Kanye West and Taylor Swift, quite frankly, wiped the floor with Sam Smith and George Ezra.
Whatever weak tea they’re drinking over there just isn’t cutting it anymore, because as the Brit Awards has shown, the current wave of British-pop mediocrity is reaching epidemic proportions.