Amy was great. So was Bat For Lashes.

But why bury it on BBC4? They really don't like music on TV, do they, those executives and schedulers. Yet when it's packaged differently like the X Factor, they can't get enough of it.

Which was why I agreed to take over Eurovision a decade ago.

But the labels have reverted to ignoring the potential. My era gave us global smashes like Just A Little Bit. Now even the winners disappear again without trace.

But not for long, I predict, when the new model kicks in.

Very recently you could pick up the Klaxons album for four quid in Woolies, so they obviously needed the sales push.

LOL at the NME editor going on about the Klaxons being the sound of now as opposed to retro Amy. To my ears they are the sound of Jesus Jones circa 1989 which I'm sure qualifies as "retro." Except, unlike JJ, they won't have the big crossover smash in the States.

Amy should have won, so much for "any publicity is good publicity".

TV wise , any music awards on TV are closer to the X Factor than it first appears.

Rather than being shown how squeaky clean an artist is, we are shown them bleary eyed and mumbling they can become and asked to be "shocked and stunned" that they turned up at all.

Entertainment and programming wise, the main difference is 30% less scripting involved.

That said, a Mercury prize does to a certain extent represent music that will last, and the X factor certainly does not.

As for sticking it on BBC4, lets give the beeb a slight benefit of the doubtful scheduling by "assuming" they have devided their audience up between the dyed in the wool variety of terrestrial TV habitual evening watchers(sadly including most hotels) from channel surfers.

That Mercury judging panel of proven music experts in full:

Chaired by Howard Davies, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the line-up consists of Wendy Cope, poet; Giles Foden, journalist and author of BAFTA award winning The Last King of Scotland; Ruth Scurr, biographer and critic and Imogen Stubbs, actor.

Why do we bother, folks?

blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/09/mercu...ive_from_the_aw.html

Well worth reading, a tip, read it from the bottom to the top.

Most amusing stuff.

Have belatedly realised my huge gaffe above in that I listed the Booker Prize judging panel rather than the Mercury panel (memo to self: remember to insert brain into skull before going out of the house in the morning).

Anyway the ACTUAL Mercury judging panel is thus:

Simon Frith - music author/Professor of Music at University of Edinburgh
Charles Hazlewood - conductor and broadcaster on Radio 2, Radio 3 and BBC 4
Lauren Laverne - broadcaster, The Culture Show and Channel 4

I thought that first list was a bit odd MC but my brain is clearly not in skull either or I'd have spotted it in seconds (especially as I'm a Booker fan too).

I think Rehab was probably the best single of last year.

Check out her YouTube viewing count.

JK2006 wrote:
I think Rehab was probably the best single of last year.

Check out her YouTube viewing count.

+1, as the young persons say.

My mother bought the CD after seeing her out of her head on Nevermind the Buzzcocks on the grounds Amy was "fascinating".