Brit Awards Conspiracy?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Lily Allen, the up-and-coming reggae-pop singer whose recent show at the Great American in San Francisco I thoroughly enjoyed (and, full disclosure, DJed before), was snubbed at the Brit Awards last night in London. Turns out she had predicted in advance that she wouldn’t win a single trophy and blamed record industry politics, telling MTV UK that because the voting juries were made up of “industry insiders… predominantly from Universal,” she wouldn’t win, since she’s on EMI. Music blog Stereogum did some math and added up how many of the Brit awards went to Universal artists: a somewhat eyebrow-raising 61%. Hmmm.

So of course one can’t help but wonder: any conspiracies back here in the States at the recent Grammys? Well, I did some math and added up basically all the pop and jazz categories, although I didn’t include the random gospel and Norteno stuff because I got tired. Out of the 56 categories I tallied, the results were:

  • Sony / BMG: 41% (23 awards)
  • Universal: 27% (15 awards)
  • Warner: 20% (11 awards)
  • Apparently unaffilliated independents (mostly random jazz stuff): 9% (5 awards)
  • EMI: 3% (2 awards)
  • Of course this kind of non-scientific study doesn’t take into account stuff like actual market share or number of nominees, but still… while Universal isn’t quite as dominant here in the US, EMI was almost completely shut out. Their two awards were kind of random as well: OK Go for Short Form Video, and Coldplay for Best Remix, which, come to think of it, really goes to Stuart Price whose recent work with Madonna might make that more of a Warner award anyway.

    It’s hard to imagine record labels actually going to the trouble to rig the Grammys, since most of the music-buying public basically ignores them. Although, shut my mouth, the Dixie Chicks have rocketed to #1 on both the album and singles charts on iTunes this week (with 8-month-old material), so clearly a highly-publicized Grammy rout can still affect sales. Well, who knows, and really, who cares: people will be instantly downloading free music from HyperMySpace on the World WiFi into their BrainPods in a couple years anyway.

    THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

    At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

    It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

    But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

    So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

    The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

    If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

    payment methods

    THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

    At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

    It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

    But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

    So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

    The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

    If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

    payment methods

    We Recommend

    Latest

    Sign up for our free newsletter

    Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

    Get our award-winning magazine

    Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

    Subscribe

    Support our journalism

    Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

    Donate