Q here to get gong…
In a shocking attempt to pander to every cover star’s ego, the Q awards seems to be in even more danger than the Intertoto “Cup” of turning into the modern equivalent of school sports day where EVERYBODY gets a prize, lets look at that list of “special” awards in full:
THE Q INSPIRATION AWARD: A-ha
THE Q OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO MUSIC AWARD: Smokey Robinson
THE Q GROUNDBREAKER AWARD: Primal Scream
THE Q ICON AWARD: Jeff Lynne
THE Q IDOL AWARD: Take That
THE Q OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE AWARD: Faithless
THE Q CLASSIC SONGWRITER AWARD: Noel Gallagher
THE Q LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Peter Gabriel
THE Q MERIT AWARD: Manic Street Preachers
THE Q INNOVATION IN SOUND AWARD: The Edge
THE Q CLASSIC SONG AWARD: Culture Club for Karma Chameleon
THE Q LEGEND AWARD: The Who
THE Q AWARD OF AWARDS: U2
THIRTEEN different variations of effectively the same award, all picked by Q staff, marvellously finishing with the “oh shit, we’ve forgotten to give U2 anything” award, the equivalent of a garage forecourt bunch of flowers or box of milk tray…
Brought to my attention by the always enlightening No Rock and Roll Fun
CarsmileSteve in FT • Pop • 1,402 views • Share/Save
All very AoR – are they angling for the Guilty Pleasures demographic even more shamelessly than they’ve already been doing?
And of course there is the Award To Whoever Accepted Our Invite So We’ve Got To Give Them Something train of thought to consider, if not to board.
The A-Ha award is the only stroke of originality in the list, but much as I love Morten Albion Market and the lads I’m at a loss as to whom they have actually inspired.
As for the Q Innovation In Sound award: can somebody dial 999? It looks like Bill Frisell’s been robbed (and Will Sergeant)…
“Karma Chameleon” is in the running for worst song ever, even by the pitiful standards of 1983.
Blimey. What year is it again?
haha the “merit” award = “their music is of course rubbish but they always try hard the poor loves”
Karma Chameleon, as a number 1, is candidate for upcoming Popular/timism of course
Lovely A-ha
Couldn’t they have chosen Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? instead?
Karma Chameleon is even worse than Shaddap You Face!
The scientific difference between Icon and Idol appears to be “fanciability”.
Marcello I ph34r you’re going to be working the “too high!” voting button a lot in the 80s Popular entries :)
Probably not as much as I’ll be working it when we get to the 00s… ;-)
MERIT award? Like the certificates they give kids for “taking part”?
Also Shaddap You Face is amazing. Almost as good as Begin The Beguine.
I might give either or both a spin at Club Popular next week; the latter is more likely than the former.
“the pitiful standards of 1983″ is a joke, i hope.
KC would definitely be in my top 50 Culture Club songs.
but ‘Shaddap You Face’ is only Joe Dolce’s 63rd best song (his version of ‘Begin The Beguine’ being one higher).
1983 was one of the worst years for music ever, up there with 1960 and 2006.
“white lines”
“bille jean”
“maneater”
michael jackson does moonwalk on motown awards
“sweet dreams (are made of this)”
“electric avenue”
“come on eileen”
technics starts selling SL-1200s
“beat it”
“total eclipse of the heart”
“safety dance”
As I said, 1983 was one of the worst years for music ever. So much so that people defending it are reduced to shoehorning in four entries recorded in 1982.
whereas you’re reduced to just stating opinions as facts without explaining your reasoning?
my technics SL-BD22 just picked this lunchtime to give up the ghost :’(
Steve, it’s not my fault that ILx keeps crashing, but if you want to troll, go and do it somewhere else, not here.
Asking one to show their working != trolling (even if FT is not quite as equipped as ILM for those oh-so-hard-to-come-by explanations). But if you think 1983 was worse than 1712, 802 and 70,000BC then my canons be loaded.
I’d say the turntable trumps at least half those songs! For me 1983 was all about discovering R.E.M. and The Smiths. When the second British Invasion made the cover of Newsweek (I think) I was happy enough, but it was the wrong people inside the horse; not Simple Minds and ABC like I’d been hoping but Tears for Fears and the Thompson Twins…
Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be ten and watching TOTP was very heaven
i.e. I have no remotely objective comment to make on 81-85, though I may try to find some when the time comes on Popular.
Actually, on the basis of number ones alone, 81-82 might turn out to be the most misleading section in all of Popular.
*constant reminder to self: DNFTT*
what we need is a forum where we can vote on the goodness or otherwise of #1 songs in a particular year and then compare scores year to year. IF ONLY THERE WERE SUCH A THING
Um, compare scores? Is that going to happen?
all the songs I mentioned were #1 in 1983 — in the US
Not everybody here lives in America. And not everybody here thinks that any of the songs you mentioned were particularly (or at all) great, though I would say three of them were. That doesn’t make 1983 anything other than the wretched year through which I actually lived.
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