Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Music makers

It's as if someone was reading my mind. I was musing over the diversity of the announced performers at the inaugural BBC Music Awards, just a fortnight away on BBC1, Radio 1 and Radio 2 - and lo, this morning Labrinth was added to the line-up. Signed to Simon Cowell's Syco, he will be performing something in collaboration with Syco's Ella Henderson.

The other performers are One Direction, Calvin Harris and Paloma Faith (all on Sony labels) and Coldplay, Clean Bandit and Ed Sheeran (Warner). If diverse means coming from Llandudno, then Catfish and The Bottlemen count, coming up via BBC Introducing to a record deal with Universal. All, unsurprisingly, have "product" available this Christmas - and one can probably bet the words "latest single" and "latest album" will pepper the introductions from Chris Evans and Fearne Cotton.

The executive producer for the BBC is Guy Freeman, who most recently brought us a rather bedraggled pop concert from Edinburgh Castle, for the Commonwealth Games. He also produced the Brit Awards from 1999 to 2004.

I'd be mildly diverted to read through the business model for this event, the penultimate at Earls Court before demolition starting in the New Year. 13,500 tickets have been sold at prices between £25 and £45. Respectable websites are now offering them at £80 to £350; the BBC has previously done good work by insisting on photos embedded in tickets to some pop events, but that seems not to be the case this time.

There are apparently only three awards to be handed out - Best British and Best International Artist and Song of The Year. Song of The Year will be decided by a public vote - the mechanics have not yet been published. I can find nothing on how the other two categories are being judged. Radio 2 have fended off a year's worth of inquiries about the identities of the  people deciding their Folk Awards.

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