inclusion and representation, a free for all
the race and sex problems with category errors in popular music awards
for those interested in such things, the awards season is upon us again. i do like an awards bash (not as a participant, mind, it’s all far too glitzy for me) as a spectacle to witness the music industry in its pomp. a ceremony is a useful anchor for knowing what the big label movers and shakers think is ‘hot right now’.
and if you didn’t know, RAYE is it. She leads the nominations for the upcoming BRIT Awards with seven nods:
… artist of the year, best new artist, pop act, R&B act, Mastercard album of the year for My 21st Century Blues and two nods for song of the year for “Escapism.,” a collab with 070 Shake, and “Prada,” a collab with cassö and D-Block Europe.
source: Billboard
given her well-publicised struggles to break into the industry, to gain the most nominations in a single year of any music artist in the awards’ history is a spectacular triumph over adversity and an achievement RAYE can be proud of. we can only hope that she avoids the fate of a certain Craig David, who famously was nominated for six awards in 2001 but came away with no gongs on the night. i remember that controversy. i wasn’t his biggest fan, but the snub felt like an injustice, especially when he was pipped to the awards for best single and video by Robbie Williams’s Rock DJ, easily one of the worst chart hits i have ever known.
i remember a more pertinent controversy brewing about categorising music artists too. with the rising popularity of homegrown r&b and rap acts over the coming years, grumbles about the representation of wot do u call it? garage? urban? two-step? artists bothered the BRIT Awards enough to to try to do something about it. they tried (and failed) to keep up with the ever-blossoming volumes of music subgenres until 2007, when they ditched it all in favour of a more streamlined set of awards, the only notable distinction being sex and geography (national / international). and i think that was the most sensible move they made.
i only realised they’d lapsed on this arrangement when i read late last year that the awards organisers added a separate R&B category to the four genre awards they introduced in 2022. according to chief executive Dr Jo Twist, the reasoning is thus:
“The BRITs is committed to making the show as inclusive and representative as possible… changes to this year’s categories are part of an ongoing process of evolution, and we will continue to review, listen and learn.”
source: Billboard
… and be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, it seems. i do hate it when the irresistible urge to tinker comes up against something that works perfectly well. it drives my inner pedant hopping mad. he’s screaming right now.
it is obvious to him (and me) that this reversion to genre-based classifications will lead to categories for coded black music and whiter pop music again. i’m old enough to remember the organisers creating a ‘best urban music’ award that ran for 4 years… somehow Dizzee Rascal never won it (but he should have won best british pop act at least once during that period, the cowards)!
SIDEBAR: i can’t recall this, but the records show that the BRIT Awards nominated Enrique Iglesias and Pink for best british pop act in 2003! excuse me, but didn’t we have enough homegrown pop stars back then?
i’m increasingly convinced that nothing improves, just changes. we go through cycles of advance and decline, yielding no lasting progress. and then we die. ’tis a pity, because sometimes when we stumble across a sensible working system, we should cling to it for as long as possible, even for relatively trivial matters. the non-genre classification style used between 2007 and 2022 was clearly the best arrangement. and it was one step gender category collapse away from perfection too. nothing could be more inclusive and representative, imho. re-introducing genres is not the benevolent move Dr Twist thinks it is.
i guess it is her prerogative to make the BRIT Awards boring and bloated like the Grammys. but when jazz musicians, or metal, start to ask for recognition, don’t say i didn’t warn you. and you’d best make sure that you add asian categories too. it is wild to think we have no ‘best banghra’ category, for instance. if you’re gonna do inclusion and representation, do it properly.