As promised, here’s part 2 of my alternative take on 2015.
Same format as part 1, but a different set of irritations. Dig in, you
beautiful, beautiful people…
Kanye West
If there should ever come a time when a man is permitted to
marry a cloned version of himself then it’s a safe bet that Kanye will be first
in line. I know you want to tell me that he’s a genius, an innovator, a true
maverick, and that strutting around alone on the Pyramid Stage in filthy decorator’s
overalls under a job lot of lightbulbs constitutes some sort of triumph over
his critics. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but please don’t
expect to sway mine any more than I would expect to sway yours. I used to have
a great deal of respect for Kanye – he made genuinely decent music and wasn’t
afraid to speak out on issues such as homophobia – a stance largely unheard of
in hip-hop circles. But somewhere along the line he has become so absorbed in
his own self-importance and the apparent need to remind anyone that will listen
(and even those who won’t) that he needs to be respected as an artist that he has
effectively been reduced to self-parody. I’m resigned to the fact that he could
shit in a paper bag on stage and people would still declare it the boldest
artistic statement in the entirety of written history, but personally I’d find
him a whole lot easier to respect if he didn’t persist in being a dick at every
given opportunity. You’re rich, famous and successful – what are you still
trying to prove, and to whom?
Music award shows
I’m going to let the Mercury Prize off the hook here because
although it’s been responsible for some highly questionable winners in its time
(hello, M People), it does at least recognise that British music extends beyond
the lukewarm, play-it-safe fare of Ed Sheeran, James Bay, Sam Smith and Adele. Nope,
my ire today is reserved specifically for the Brit Awards and the BBC Music
Awards, which may as well be one and the same given their relentless pursuit of
celebrating the offensively mediocre. My thoughts on this year’s Brits can be
found here and speak for
themselves. The BBC Music Awards are basically more of the same, but with Chris
Evans (now dyeing his hair a rather fetching ‘Chernobyl sunset orange’) and
Fearne Cotton (apparently still a thing) doing their whole ‘we’re still down
with the kids, honest’ shtick, desperately trying to convince themselves as
much as anyone else that we’re all having fun celebrating The Best of British
Music. Rather predictably, the awards were dominated by the wailing banshee Adele
(who couldn’t even be arsed to turn up) while Song of the Year (the only
category voted for by the public) went to Hozier’s dismal Take Me To Church.
That’s right: THERE WERE NO BETTER SONGS THIS YEAR. Honestly, some people don’t
deserve ears.
Justin Bieber
Hasn’t he grown up a lot? Hasn’t he matured as an artist? Wasn’t
‘What Do You Mean?’ such a wonderfully strong choice for a comeback single? The
answer to all of those questions is, of course, NO. He may look a little
taller, a little more tattooed and have a ludicrously lop-sided haircut but he
still comes across in interviews as a spoilt brat with absolutely nothing to
say for himself. ‘What Do You Mean?’ is the most sorry-sounding, directionless
excuse for recorded music I’ve heard all year, not helped by that incessant,
panpipe-heavy ‘tropical house’ masquerading as a backing track. Even David
Guetta would probably dismiss it as ‘too generic’. That clear enough for you,
Justin? Textbook fucked-up child star.
The X-Factor
A confession: I didn’t actually watch it this year, but that’s
okay because apparently neither did anyone else (for the most part, anyway). Each
year, this low-brow corpse is subjected to the ritual humiliation of being dug
up from its grave, dressed in new clothes (from River Island, naturally) and
paraded through the streets under the pretence that it’s still new, fresh and
relevant. Except viewers are now starting to get wise to the fact they’re being
made fools of and switching over (or off). They’ve seen their reflections in
the polished turd Cowell’s presenting to them and it’s all starting to feel a
bit tired and smell a bit stale. Maybe people are fed up of watching twat-for-hire
Grimmy and Rita Ora (from the mean streets of stage school) coming across like
your uncle and aunt trying to be down with the kids. Maybe the new presenting
team of Murs and Flack didn’t resonate with the viewers in the way that O’Leary
apparently did. Maybe people have just stopped caring about someone with a predictable
sob story (and a tabloid-unearthed assault/drug/theft conviction) being moulded
into whatever Cowell thinks hysterical teenage girls or bored housewives will
go for. One thing has always been clear, however – the best thing about
X-Factor is clearly earlier in the series where the proudly deluded and
genuinely tone deaf are given their five minutes of fame and then ritually rejected
from the competition (even better when they storm back in to tell Cowell he’ll
be sorry when they have a number one album and their toothless face is adorning
billboards across the world). Trouble is, a show focusing entirely on this
element would either be tantamount to bullying or the greatest outsider music
showcase you’ve ever seen. With that in mind, let’s leave the corpse to fester
in the ground next year, eh, Si?
Martin Shkreli
I grow more and more convinced each day that some people are
put on this earth with the sole purpose of showing everyone else what a
complete and utter twat looks like. A case in point is Martin Shkreli, a
snivelling excuse for a bunch of cells who has had both the best and worst
year. The kind of person who would genuinely wipe his arse on bank notes,
Shkreli first came to the wider world’s attention earlier this year when he
acquired the rights to HIV drug Daraprim – and promptly hiked its price by an
eye-watering 5,000 per cent from $13.50 to $750 a pill, giving the rather
dubious excuse that the extra profits would be used to develop an ever better
product (but only after tweeting about raising a middle finger to his critics).
He also reportedly paid $2 million for the only existing copy of a Wu-Tang Clan
album – although to be fair, no one bought their last commercially available
album anyway. His luck now seems to have run out after he was arrested on
suspicion of running a Ponzi scheme at his previous company, prompting him to
resign as CEO of his present company (are you keeping up with this?). Let’s see
the twat buy his way out of this one.
