And Finally Artist News Awards Beef Of The Week

CMU Beef Of The Week #295: Harry Styles v The BRITs

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 26 February 2016

It was the BRIT Awards on Wednesday night. I’m sure you noticed.

Lots of big American stars turned up to find out who the most popular British artists of the moment were. 95% of the people in the room were practising their polite smile in case they were later asked what they thought of the promised Bowie tribute (thankfully that all turned out alright in the end and no polite smiles were required). And every single winner, besides Best International Female Björk, was there to pick up their prize.

I say everyone. One Direction were certainly represented. But only two of them were actually there. What seemed like a perfect opportunity to show fans that the ‘temporary hiatus’ is not actually a ‘total and final split’ was dashed upon the rocks. Poor Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne were left to both present an award and then accept one over the sound of an arena full of people whispering, “But where are the famous one and the small one?”

The small one – Niall Horan, you may call him – was apparently on holiday in Thailand. Fair enough. The date of this year’s BRIT Awards was only announced last September, and I’m sure Niall is a man who likes to book his trips very far in advance. And you can’t just go cancelling a holiday so that you can hang out at an awards ceremony.

But what of Harry Styles? What’s even the point of any of them turning up if Harry’s not there to look all famous and long-haired? What was his amazing excuse? All we know for sure is that, the day before the big BRITs bash, he was eating a disappointing buffet in an undisclosed location.

A source told The Sun ahead of the ceremony that “Harry has shown no interest in attending”. So at least we know that Styles is a man who favours a disappointing buffet over a slap up meal with some people he is definitely still friends with.

I wonder whether he knew that he and his ‘friends’ would be denied the Best British Group prize, for which 1D were nominated, meaning he’d have to look happy for those Coldplay guys, who always show up when there’s a free feed? Or perhaps he wasn’t ready for a big reunion on stage with his bandmates if they did get that award.

They didn’t, and Coldplay did, of course. Which left One Direction with only their nomination for the public voted Best Video prize. If Styles was pretty confident that his band wouldn’t get the British Group trophy, then you can see why he might not be so fussed about picking up the gong that One Direction always wins regardless of the quality of their audio-visual work, because of the fan voting thing. He surely knows it’s the one award of the night where everyone watching realises what’s happening and uses it as an opportunity for a quick toilet break.

I mean, imagine being Harry Styles. Imagine having to get up and accept that nonsense prize again and pretend that you care. Even Liam didn’t seem particularly committed to the customary “this proves we have the best fans in the world” line this year.

And whereas at their height, 1D had an award made up especially for them, to celebrate their global success, just in case anyone had missed it, this time BRITs bosses [a] gave that prize to Adele and [b] refused to add a Best Hiatus prize for Styles et al to receive. I mean, what does it say about Harry Styles’ status in the British music industry if they won’t even make up an award to get him to turn up?

That disappointing buffet is sounding more appetising by the minute.