COMMENTS
A lot has gone wrong with this year’s Spellemann Prize. It could need a little more Carina Dahl.
Marie Ulven, known under the artist name Girl in Red, was surprised by an international superstar when she was awarded the Spellemann Prize for this year’s release. Pictures from NRK
sea view
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In the old days we talked about Spellemann scandals as something a little crazy and tantalizing. An artist who appeared a little extra drunk on stage, another who read out the wrong winner’s name on purpose, a third who said something outrageously inappropriate from the stage. The scandals were something that made Spellemann a little additional fun.
This year, however, criticism has hailed for the distribution itself, and unlike before, it is about something dry, something bureaucratic, something ridiculously sober: Spellemann’s soul.
These are the winners of the Spellemann Prize
Who is the award ceremony for? What should Spellemann really be like? Is it a party night for the music scene or a TV show that will reach as many people as possible, where it squeezes into the golden row like a slightly too big foot in a party still? Only eight of the 28 categories were handed out live on Friday night, the rest have fallen into the lap of the prize winners a little histen and piste in the past week, and are shown in recordings after “Lindmo”. The artist Tønes called the situation “a betrayal”, after receiving Spellemann in the category “Shows” in a staggering radio studio at NRK Rogaland, and then discovered that the other nominees had just been informed. Hard words from a guy who has written a whole song that he can not send people home from nachspiel.
It has been murmuring for years. The Spellemann dishes have been as up to date as Girl In Red should run away with both main prizes this year.
For: Why?
Characterized by shame
Why just got eight award winners direct prize? Why did they give direct prizes to country and not party music? Why R&B and not rap? Why pop and not rock?
And why could they not find a day when Girl in Red was available, when it was obvious that she was going to run away with a sea of awards several months ago?
Why? Why? Why?
And not least: Why was there so little price, but so much else in the TV broadcast? Why did NRK choose to make the TV program so innmari, innmari long and boring?
For by taking away so many of the prizes they were suddenly left with lots and lots of time to be filled with something completely different than the award ceremony. Something completely different than the categories «Shows», «Open class» or «Producer of the year». Therefore, the TV viewers got endless prank dialogues between the three presenters, a perpetual feature about the birthday wishes of r & b artist Beharie and simply a little too many tedious music features.
If to fill so much TV, then you must at least have some slightly more loose elements, some sensational surprises. A presenter with cheeky jokes a la Ricky Gervais, or at least a naked Live Nelvik on a rake ball, as in P3 Gull in 2014. But no, this was straightforward, well-behaved and predictable. The only scandal was when Mona B. Riise forgot the text, but was fortunately saved by Sandeep Singh.
What the TV show needed was simply a little more bullshit.
But not even the new category party music got to come to his right, when also that prize was handed out in recording and shown in part two of the program, broadcast on television from 22:25 Friday night.
I never thought I would ever write this, but this year’s Spellemann simply needed a little more Carina Dahl.
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