Joss Stone wins Best Urban at the 2005 BRITS.

Haha: From the Guardian: "There was some consolation for lovers of challenging music when Muse won the award for British live act."

The only thing that the music of Muse challenges me to do is not to use their CDs as miniature practice dartboards.

how does it not fit the 'urban' model? half of her album probably could've been by Alicia Keys for example.

no black winners rather frustrating tho - it will just 'validate' the MOBOs even more.

Dry your eyes mate

I said 'urban' could be applied to The Streets because of lyrical concerns and the sonic tradition he's in: garage is 'urban'. If we are going to have genre names, may as well have them reflect the music. Thus 'country', 'big beat', 'jungle', 'grime'.

Urban is the catch-all for hip-pop with r'n'b/soul overlap.

But as I said elsewhere when you have 'urban comedy' (a section I've seen in HMV) then clearly 'urban' is doing a lot more work than music genre-izing.

Wait a second: Muse are from Devon too right? And Will Young went to University in Exeter didn't he? Hmmm, this is looking like some sort of west country conspiracy.

LOL! (and i quite like em)

also: *rolls eyes*

Country bumpkins or cheeky cockney rascals? The epicurean 'I Am A Cider Drinker' or the somewhat stoic 'Got My Beer In The Sideboard Here'?

The Wurzels were never the same after Adge Cutler though, were they? Revisionist sell-outs.

I saw a listing for a band, I think from Bristol, that listed Rootjoose as one of their influences. A little bit of sick came up in my mouth

can i do my "straight outa cullumpton" joke now please?

There is a place called Compton in Zummerzet, it's quite near to Glastonbury

HOUSE!

joss is about as relevant to the urban crowd today as simply red in 1987.

so which criticisms of this award/issue do make sense then? joss' second album was more of a shit pop one, not a soul one. all this talk that simply red was urban if played in urban areas is just silly. we all know what the urban tag means, it just means black music. so i suppose we could say joss does play black music, or rather, she did, cos that single u had me wasnt soul or urban in the slightest, it was dido/anastacia shite, but for the most part, she doesnt, i dont think. jamelia should have got this award. and if playing retro soul like the soul sessions means joss is rightly eligible for the best urban award, then people like the new mastasounds or sharon jones do it far far better.

hahaha! I LOVE how incomprehensible this is to me! (But I get the gist of it.)

no change there then.

additionally it's 'insulting' to UK hip-hop and dance music subgenres such as garage or grime that they get bundled in with young cod-soul singers, but then i guess they don't sell enough records (presumably a big factor in why the Best Dance award itself was withdrawn, but that was limited to Big 5 anyway and more rooted in post-rave/superclub stars like Fatboy, Chems and Jaxx).

the most interesting thing is The Streets winning Best Male - i figured it wouldn't happen given his nonchalance to awards and the deviation from past form Brits-wise (but if Robbie had squeezed yet another new album out in the time it would've been him).

1982

Now whom would they have been up against for Best Urban Act that year? Level 42, Musical Youth, Linx, King Trigger?

money was gimmicky, proto big brovaz operatic r&b crap. everyone at the time was doing those over bombastic, cod classical/opera tracks at the time. superstar is a pop classic.

jamelia is way more genuine doing R&B pop then joss is doing soul. joss is just a plain shit singer. u had me was atrocious.

Then again Phil Fearon never made an album with Gary Numan.

is it really any worse than 'Best Rock' or 'Best Dance' tho, given the manifold permutations and differences that occur within those genres?

'Superstar' is the most over-rated song of the decade. it's just mediocre floor fodder for office discos. 'You Had Me' didn't seem too bad for that kind of thing. as good as each other.

jamelia is way more genuine doing R&B pop then joss is doing soul.
what makes her genuine? that she's black? what makes her voice better? less reliance on melisma and all that? melisma being what was recently accused of having ruined 90s and 00s soul courtesy of Beyonce, Mariah and a number of (mostly female) artists black and white. poor old Joss, lock her away from these evil influences, don't let her out of that west country paradise for chrissakes (this 'rural' issue doesn't seem to be an issue for rappers as different as Nelly or David Banner in the US...not that i'm comparing Devon to Mississippi of course).

cos despite the current excess of overlapping between the two, rap music and R&B are quite different animals.

"what makes her genuine? that she's black?"
no, personal opinion. i dont hear any conviction in joss' voice.

"what makes her voice better? less reliance on melisma and all that? melisma being what was recently accused of having ruined 90s and 00s soul courtesy of Beyonce, Mariah and a number of (mostly female) artists black and white."

precisely. joss doesnt even do melisma well. it sounds forced, and like that of an impersonator. and this isnt a black vs white issue.

"poor old Joss, lock her away from these evil influences, don't let her out of that west country paradise for chrissakes (this 'rural' issue doesn't seem to be an issue for rappers as different as Nelly or David Banner in the US...not that i'm comparing Devon to Mississippi of course)."

i dont care that shes from devon or from the suburbs or whatever. rakim and chuck d were from the suburbs, doesnt mean their music wasnt authentic or whatever bollocks people are attaching to the urban tag. i dont care about geography, although the urban name would seem to imply that only people in the city make or listen to it. its conjures up a whole load of ignorant associations i dont really care for.

as opposed to punk and folk rock? disco and grime?

When I read his/her post this morning I was going to ask on here which one of us wrote it.

Angus Muldoon, Fife

"as opposed to punk and folk rock? disco and grime?"

r&b and rap are much closer these days then they were in say, 1987, or even 1994. but i suppose even then, youd probably say theyre not that far apart. and that freddie jackson and chuck d were both peas in a pod.

im not saying punk and folk rock are the same at all but the urban category is just an easy way to lump all black music in there as one so people dont have to think of black music as being much different. urban = reggae, soul, R&B, hip hop, garage, etc. and the fact that rap music is RAPPED instead of sung would seem to be a pretty big difference to me. fine if you think theyre all the same though, more power to you and your obnoxiousness.

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild -
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine,
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves,
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunts of flies on summer eves.

Just makes you want to go and bugger a foal dunnit really? Oh yeah, is no-one going to take issue with 'You're Game' winning the singles?

Obviously a made-up name - OK, which one of youse are responsible for that one?

anthony braxton is not the same as toni braxton.

do try and read what i write in future, old boy.

Cream teas are so much better in Devon.

im not saying punk and folk rock are the same at all but the rock category is just an easy way to lump all rock music in there as one so people dont have to think of rock music as being much different. rock = metal, punk, folk, psych, etc. and the fact that punk music is ANGRY and spat out instead of crooned or gentle would seem to be a pretty big difference to me. fine if you think theyre all the same though, more power to you and your obnoxiousness.

but i dont care. i never hear anyone say 'white music'. but i hear 'black music' all the time. and the fact 'urban' is being used in exactly same way doesnt make it any better.

i've never had a problem with techno, trance, electro, house etc. all being branded as Dance...you can argue it adds as much as it takes away. so why is it a problem with Urban? other than because it's hard enough for black artists to gain both critical recognition AND massive sales in the UK?

it's not bad (better than 'Leave Right Now') tho maybe a bit too close to Maroon 5's 'This Love' and Jimmy Nail's 'Ain't No Doubt' for comfort!

-- Miles Finch (poptha...), February 10th, 2005.

No it doesn't. A white person won the urban category, so at least those who run the Brits don't mean 'black' when they say 'urban'.

rap and nu-r&b are now all filed under "urban" in hmv, which i find intensely irritating. things were easier to find when there were two separate sections.

i think the urban name has prophesised itself. when it started being bandied about, hip hop and R&B were generally more distinct (although maybe not to you), now its a blurry morass, which yes, might as well be called urban. but my problem with Urban is that it simply seems like racial encoding.

mei -- in general, people take 'urban' to mean 'black'. JS being nommed is wonky. cf my mentions of 'urban comedy' -- ie chris rock.

they perceive it as everyone else does, but they did not choose the winner (supposedly).

you must be thrilled that a blonde white girl triumphed then

http://www.murphyfineartscenter.org/showcase/04urbancomsho.htm

http://www.blackcomedycompetition.com/ucr/ucr.html

http://www.becreation.com/laffapalooza/

haha...yes. when was this exactly? 1997/98? i was listening to a lot of hip-hop at that time and i liked Mary J, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo and even Lewis Taylor too...but the overlap between the two was clear to see then and has grown ever since to the extent that two are seldom mutually exclusive of each other. more recent examples ranging from 50 Cent's '21 Questions' to Outkast's 'The Way You Move' to Usher's 'Yeah' etc. etc.

It should have been Joy Division.Those guys have played an influential part in shaping modern day music while Angels remains yet another pop song. I sincerely do not believe that in 25 years from now, the most influential artists will argue that Robbie Williams inspired their art in the way that the Byrds, the Beatles and Nick Drake have done for music today.
The handmedowns, Bristol

A collective band statement, except on a BBC messageboard. Bless

-- Miles Finch (poptha...), February 10th, 2005.

How do you know this? Have you done a survey or spmething?

(Those three links are AMERICAN BTW, and we're talking about the BRITS?
Fancy a biscuit?)

not as thrilled as when someone takes a crap in your mouth. hahaha

good point but not actually relevant to whether or not urban is used to just mean 'black'

mei -- yes these were The Brits fine, very clever, but 'urban' is a US imported word.

-- Alienus Quam Reproba (stevem7...), February 10th, 2005.

How do you know how they percieve it?
And if it's not them that think urban black then it's the voters, and there are even more of them than there are organisers.

"haha...yes. when was this exactly? 1997/98? i was listening to a lot of hip-hop at that time and i liked Mary J, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo and even Lewis Taylor too...but the overlap between the two was clear to see then and has grown ever since to the extent that two are seldom mutually exclusive of each other. more recent examples ranging from 50 Cent's '21 Questions' to Outkast's 'The Way You Move' to Usher's 'Yeah' etc. etc."

theres a diff between overlap and two things being interchangeable. i cant be botherd to explain this to you anyway. i know the overlaps go back to even the 80s, though it wasnt as commonplace. but at least then, the average swingbeat track wouldnt go down well as a hip hop track (see the R&B-beat of that lone 'love' song on the brand nubain album for example). even on whats the 411, the drums might have been hip hop, but the music wasnt played/made just like a hip hop beat like a lot of R&b tracks are now. it was still quite songful, for lack of a better word.

thank fuck for that, i'd hate to see you make an even bigger nonce of yourself.

just a hunch

it is relevant because the majority of criticism for the term 'Urban' seems to stem from assumption it's been coined to either segregate further or is a laughable attempt to collect all these different genres together for convenience sake (as with Rock, Dance and everything else). If some people prefer the term Black Music that's up to them. I personally do not as the vast majority of music out there is of black origin anyway fwiw and to put that name on it purely to describe the fusion (and dissolution, you might argue ) of hip-hop, r'n'b etc. is just as 'damaging' as actually giving the award to someone like Joss Stone thus inviting even more skewered criticism (see also my MOBO beef in general).

racism and rockism - too ILM bugbears for the price of one, perhaps the best deal on the board today! and why not...

id love to fight you though, steve. i really want to now. will you let me?

wiley, shystie, dizzee rascal, kano...

awards shows and most media channels feel the compulsion to segregate tho, as it's so convenient. it's just another necessitated ugly characteristic of the industry.

esp. with them not being British (/predant)

Bloc Party winning anything should not be treated by anyone as some sort of victory for anti-segregationists (lead singer's colour/ancestry being surely utterly irrelevant to Bloc Party's music).

there just arent enough/any black rock bands to win in that category. and the brits doesnt like hip hop, never mind grime, so dizzee wont win. it doesnt like R&B so jamelia wont win, never mind terri walker. it just likes pop and rock and things of a trad nature. so this is no surprise.

people are always saying they don't care about Big Brother either and they may well not but we'll still talk and moan about it if we're at all interested in pop culture generally. The Brits is another example of that and just another excuse to complain about the music industry/general public. see you next year...

"They have resurrected the forgotten tradition of flamboyant, playful pop stars such as Elton John and David Bowie that seemed to get lost in the 1980s!!!!"

http://www.swo.de/bilder/2/1718.suede2.jpg

hilarious!

These two posts highlight why the Brits, as even an IDEA, is stupid. It's not about the best British music, it's the music in certain sub-genres that a certain small demographic like and have heard.

So, they wouldn't let something underproduced/unpopulist win, a great but poorly selling single by a grindcore act say, nor would they let an 'overproduced'/populist thing win, like Girls Aloud.

Stoooopid.

Urban? Heck, the Clash would have won it back in 1980.

I guess if it was still called the "R&B" award, then Joss would have won without so much controv.

Surprising moment was when Will Young thanked "Blair" for writing "Your Game". Yep, the bloke I used to know way back. Last time I heared, he was writing bad songs for the Tweenies. (or re-writing his one and only hit for them). But fair dos and well done.

Stoooopid.

That's a more valid criticism of the Mercury prize isn't it? Which is the only award ceremony worth *hating* (as opposed to ignoring)