Pop music
Star shortage
Marcus Berkmann The Brit awards are here again, and as ever the judges have shown that they have their fingers on the pulse of popular music. Three of the five singers contesting the Best Male Performer category — David Bowie, Van Morrison and Tom Jones are comfortably over 50, and the youngest, monkey-faced Gallagher lookalike Ian Brown, is a solid 36. The pulse, then, is weakening with every passing moment, and paramedics are standing by. (The female nominees are all much younger but, as in the film industry, they are obliged to be by law.) So, as Fred Trueman would say, what's going off out there? Are the current gener- ation of pop performers really so lacking in charisma? Or were the judges watching a lot of ITV last autumn when most of these old wrecks had new records out? Maybe they were unduly impressed by news of David Bowie's impending fatherhood, or perhaps they were just relieved that he had shaved off his disastrous little beard. It's not as though the actual work comes up to close scrutiny. Bowie's . . . hours was a slightly desperate return to Hunky Dory- style acoustic songwriting, undermined by a serious decline in his vocals. Tom Jones can still sing, if you call that singing, but his duets album hardly broke ground. And as for Van Morrison's skiffle album ...
No, it's a sorry list, which reflects a vacu- um in the British music industry that no one has the faintest idea how to fill. There is, essentially, a severe star shortage. Rob- bie Williams is all very well, and the Spice Girls will do, but they can't keep an entire industry going. Other than Travis and pos- sibly Stereophonics, new young guitar groups are finding it difficult to break through: there have been too many of them and their records, by and large, haven't been good enough. We have become highly skilled at producing bands like Supergrass or The Charlatans who sell to their loyal fan base but never beyond. Catatonia seemed a better bet than most, but their last album just didn't do it. Radiohead, of whom I wrote last month, may just be too introspective for genuine mass popularity. Rock's middle ground has been left open to people like the Gallagher brothers, who, it's now clear, are not up to the job. And even Oasis don't sell in America. British music isn't travelling as well as it used to. Our music industry has always been unrea- sonably proud of its record as a net exporter: the Brits are an annual celebra- tion of this fact. But the US charts are increasingly impervious to British music, which they regard as insular and limited. We embrace their new stars (Macy Gray); they disregard ours.
So, with Robbie Williams not releasing an album last year, there was probably no option other than to nominate the usual old bores, frauds and deadbeats we have put up with for decades. But even the old- sters aren't selling as well as they used to. A whole wave of recent comebacks has failed to make any substantial impression on the charts. The Bowie album fell out of the top 40 after a couple of weeks. The Bryan Ferry covers album barely made an impression. The Eurythmics, Culture Club, Madness — all have recently been outsold by Vengaboys' The Party Album! Even Sim- ply Red are struggling, despite Charlie Drake's tireless efforts at promotion: you can barely turn on the television at the moment without seeing his chirpy beard miming away at another of his dull songs. Instead the album chart has been full of singles tripe: Westlife, Steps, S Club 7, Britney 'No I assure you, they're my own' Spears. And nostalgia — Abba Gold had another good Christmas, and The Very Best Of Andy Williams has recently been unleashed on an unsuspecting nation. And as for Van Morrison's skiffle album ...
Still, who am Ito complain, as I sit here, writing this piece to an early deadline, pathetically waiting for the new Steely Dan album to come out. (By the time you read this, the album will have been out four or five days, I will have listened to it 12 times and will already be on the phone to equally obsessed friends, anatomising its shortcom- ings.) Walter Becker and Donald Fagen are hardly the next big thing, or even the last. They're American, they're old, they appeal to an ever diminishing coterie of crazed fans, and both of them have very debatable beards. Watch those award nom- inations roll in.
Tou wear pyjamas!'
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