Brit Awards

Every year it seems to get worse from the point of view of Metal. 2009 and sparked hope when Iron Maiden were given a well deserved best live act award. This award has been done away with as it seems the organizers of the “Brits” have conceded that the best live acts are metal and don’t want to give it to Iron Maiden every year. So there is no representation of the metal world in our national music awards. Britain invented the most globally popular music genre which still sells millions of albums has spawned hundreds of sub genres, attracts millions of fans to concerts around the world. Even in the UK Metal has a more than healthy following with 100,000 people attending the Download Festival last year not to mention the sell out Sonisphere, Bloodstock, Hard Rock Hell, High Voltage, Damnation festivals plus countless other gigs ranging from stadiums - arenas - clubs - pubs! 

Iron Maiden Accepting Their Brit Award 2009 - Please note Bruce emphasizing the bands popularity around the world

Its typical of Britain to snub its most successful export musically, year by year global sell out tours the latest of which will see the band playing in front of 750000 people without even touching Europe, I am sure Coldplay couldn’t even sell out a school hall in Moscow!

So it comes to the best album and you think well here’s hope, but yet again no. The winners Mumford and Sons would not be out of place playing in the corner of a grotty local pub. You can help but get the feeling there style is a bit one trick pony and will go down as one of those you “remember them” acts?

If that’s the best album of the Year from a British artist how did it compare to the latest offering from Maiden. Well it was 3x Platinum and reached wait for it…..number 3 in the UK chart! It did reach number 1 in three countries, Australia and New Zealand (bizarrely) and Ireland which is hardly surprising.

We come to Maiden who released a new album named the Final Frontier which did not even get a nod so why? Did it sell poorly? Nope! In fact it was one of the best performing commercial releases by the band; The album debuted at Number one in 32 countries, their best to date. It debuted at Number one in the European album charts for 3 weeks in a row and is also their 4th number one in the U.K charts. The album also debuted at number four in the U.S charts, the band's best in the country. The song Eldorado was recently given the best performance by a metal band at the US Grammy Awards. The Grammys incidentally do pretty much get it wrong every year and some of the nominations are just plain confusing but they do try and the best acts will eventually get an award.

So where did it all go wrong? Well the Darkness I am afraid to say. They shot to fame in 2003/4 won tons of awards and really were an embarrassment to the metal world. OK the album was not that bad but it was not a fair representation of what we as listeners and watchers of heavy metal are into, call it light relief if you must.

Is there the talent out there?  HELL YEA!!! The older guard continue to produce current relevant albums Iron Maiden already mentioned, Ozzy Osbourne, Motorhead have just released one of the best albums in their history recently. But younger bands such as Bring Me the Horizon (the whole are they metal question is for another time) Bullet For My Valentine, Evile, The Architects, Your Demise, The Gallows, Devil Sold His Soul and many more. More mainstream support would allow these bands to for fill their potential and one day be may talk about amongst the biggest bands of their generation.

Bullet For My Valentine Playing to the Metal Masses!

So what do we want, just to be represented at a major awards! So please Mr/Mrs Brit Awards organizer please can we have a Hard Rock Metal Category domestic and . And Maybe a performance just to show the world who the best live acts are!

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