The Brit Awards 2022 – 1/5

Nothing of quality to see at the Adele Awards 2022

Okay, last night the BAFTAs were held, but here for now we have the Brit Awards from 2022, so a really recent edition, the most recent in fact, and I will just do some brainstorming what I liked about the night and what I didn’t like, which was considerably more. It took place in relatively early February this year, so over a month ago now, five weeks approximately. Location was once again the O2 in London, also no surprise. The show went for slightly over 110 minutes or actually way longer if we count commercial breaks. Maybe 150 minutes that way. The director was Phil Heyes, who has worked on these events for a really long time, so even more shocking that the level was still this poor, but I guess he did not write the script which is some kind of justification and apology to defend him. You can only do with what you are given and some stuff even the best simply cannot turn into gold (not that he is one of them), if we ignore obscene language for now to get this review approved. The host was Mo Gilligan. Maybe a bit of a political decision too. Don’t know who he is, but he was okay and alright for the most part, brought some solid enthusiasm, which felt even contagious at times. I did not like how he started the show with emphasizing they have men and women in one category now. I mean not that they do, but the way he was seeking for applause from the crowd for this decision. The only other issue I had with him was also that he constantly tried to convince us there was greatness going on that night when the opposite was the case. One problem I have with many (music) awards shows is that they usually include way too much music in the sense of stage performances and I think to some extent this was the case here too. It was still bearable because it did not run for three hours, just under two, but still. It could have been kept at 1.5 hours too for sure and no quality would have been lost. This should really be all about the awards and maybe three to five songs max. Not ten or how many we had here. You can check Wikipedia for the exact amount.

One singer we heard several times was Ed Sheeran. Well, I don’t like him and think he is terribly overrated, but I have seen and heard worse from him, even if the first number especially was not good. Adele also performed twice and no surprise there as she was once again the big winner of the night, took home three wins from her four nominations and all were basically key categories. She looked a bit like Sarah Paulson to me here, just with more weight. No judgment or anything. I care entirely about her music. Or rather don’t anymore because what I heard here did not feel daring or anything despite trying so hard to make it look relevant. That says it all. She has the queen spot indeed and is pretty comfortable there not taking any risks. I mean she even has an Oscar. Plays it safe now. In one acceptance speech she talked about how personal her album was I think and then added something like that it is uncommon today that artists create personal products in the music industry. She is even correct with that although I am not sure she is indeed an exception. Doubt it. She feels like a great deal of make-believe too. Especially her comment on how she did not expect to win a certain category felt not too authentic honestly. Being humble is awesome, faking humble is as low as it gets. Anyway, pretty much everybody says they release personal stuff, but only very few actually do it. I think we can agree on that. The rest of the winners (there weren’t too many categories) included a handful known names like Dua Lipa (beat Adele, maybe thanks to the name of the category), Billie Eilish (on the road to 007 Oscar glory right now like Adele once was) and Sam Fender. But also a few not so big names won. At least I did not hear about them. Probably not my loss from what I just saw and heard. The lesser known winners included Wolf Alice (okay name), Little Simz and Olivia Rodrigo. The latter sure was easy on the eyes, maybe the most beautiful inclusion of the night, but not too sure about her talent. Her response to the question who she is really eager to meet later was pretty uninspired though by just mentioning the artist that was featured right before her.

In general, you can also say that they were really aware here to not offend the Black community. Not just with the host, but so many presenters and performers were African Brits. Do you say it like that? You know what I mean. Or at least had a non-White/non-Caucasian background. I hardly knew any of those. Big exception: Idris Elba. He likes to cook as we know now. Okay. I really love Luther and like him as an actor and I wish I could say that he was one who elevated the show here, but he was just as poor, so the show kinda tore him down and it was this sobering other way around than what I would have liked. Also struggled a bit with his hip hop style routine. I already mentioned many Blacks were included here, so hip hop was more frequent than you usually see it at a European awards shows. In America, it’s big of course. Same for R&B, only that there is even less of that in the UK. The show as a whole showed us that the Brit Awards have lost considerable significance over the years. I mean they had big names like Sheeran and Adele on stage, but the quality of those is nothing extraordinary at all. With Adele I am a bit worried she might just turn into another Kelly Clarkson eventually. Sheeran will never be one to make an impact. Not a surprise that a few winners were not there in person, makes sense they had better stuff to do. I think Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish were missing most of all and just made a little video message to accept their awards. Of course this was because they were super busy and they would have loved to be there. One thing I do not like at all with awards shows is if they use sponsors. Especially the Brits do it a lot, BAFTAs too. It is pretty bad if they use a brand in the name of the event, but hearing about certain categories being sponsored by a big credit card company, that is just cringeworthy. Sorry, not sorry. Sellout alert. Just like almost all the music they included.

What else is there to say? You see from my rating and review that I was not a fan and I still think it was probably better than the most recent Grammy editions. Those were really, really poor. This one here just one „really“. On one occasion, it was said that The Beatles won a certain category and Coldplay (also nominated by the way, they got longevity) also won it in the past and well this year’s winner(s) I have forgotten the name now already. My bad? I am not sure. I am pretty sure that almost nobody will remember those acts 20 years from now, let alone 50. Good news with this show was, in addition to a brief inclusion of a really catchy Lumidee tune, basically that politics were left out completely because the Ukraine mess hadn’t started back then already and the pandemic was pretty much over. For the moment at least. Still felt a bit surreal to see everybody without masks there. In Germany, my country, rules are still considerably stricter, were considerably stricted especially back in early February. But yeah, once again I would say that nothing much of value would have been lost if this ceremony had gotten cancelled because of the virus. There is a certain other virus in the music industry too, one that has killed a lot of talent and ambition and potential over the years, decades and replaced it with uninspired mainstream music. Unfortunately, this is what sells, so it is even a bit difficult to blame the artists. If they can get rich with little to no talent thanks to the confusion of the buyers, of course they happily take it. That is pretty much it then. Of course, I do not recommend watching this event. Maybe look at Humberstone, Griff and Rodrigo somewhere else instead. Seeing them does not really justify to sit through almost two hours here. Also no clue why Brian Cox was there. Just like a few others. David Guetta I kinda understand, even if I found him disappointingly bland given the star staus he has enjoyed for a long time. Is still enjoying? Doesn’t matter. That’s it then. Massive thumbs-down from me for the outcome as expected and I genuinely hope that they can find a way to improve again at the Brit Awards in the next years, especially as the 50th edition is moving closer. I doubt it though. Definitely don’t watch the 2022 edition, even if you love awards ceremonies. Major bummer.