The BRIT Awards took place in Manchester on Saturday night for the first time.
Before we get to the censorship issue, let me first the music, among some decent performances – Mark Ronson with Dua Lipa and Ghostface Killah, Harry Styles, Wolf Alice, Olivia Dean, RAYE – Rosalía’s debut live performance of Lux single ‘Berghain’ was the single most epic and artful presentation of the night.
No surprise really for the Catalan singer whose ambition only seems to grow with each passing year.
As the complex and ambitious multi-lingual orchestral beauty present in Lux showed – my album of 2025 hands down – Rosalía is pushing new boundaries in pop music – and as she has done at awards show before time and time again – the live performance of ‘Berghain’, with the breathtaking reveal of Björk’s cameo, and the switchup to uptempo near-donk remix of the song (this guy is claiming it) towards the end -absolutely stole the show at the BRITs.
A powerhouse from the most vital 21st century artist around. I’ve watched this about 8 times since…
What about that censorship though?
As it typical of ITV’s heavyhanded bleeping and censoring of what was said on the live broadcast every year, there was much dead air during the show.
Well, I say dead air but the broadcasters’ long-standing bleeping consists of what sounds like the audio cutting to the nearest toilet cubicle for the duration of what was said that was apparently offensive.
And what was offensive this year?
Brand references and the usual expletives were censored but most galling of all, the phrase ‘Free Palestine’ was censored out of Geese Max Bassin’s acceptance speech for International Group of the Year. It was left in the Youtube clip…
After the BAFTAs Tourette’s furore last week where the BBC censored once again innocuous phrases like ‘Free Palestine’ but left the involuntary outburst of the n-word from a man with Tourette’s syndrome, the overall feeling in British media at the moment is one of tier censorship – anything even tangentially showing support for displaced and bombed people suffering from Genocide in Gaza or Sudan to name two such places, are immediately bleeped out.
As CMAT pointed out in a brilliant answer to the Guardian’s question – Do you think celebrities should be more political? (no doubt asked in the wake of Johnny Greenwood’s copout answer to the same question last week and recent film festivals) – CMAT says “All Art is politics because you don’t get to make art in a fascist state – and fascism is on the rise in every single country in the world.”….
Watch her remarks here:
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
