Brian May Slams Elimination of Gendered Awards

"He also wondered whether Queen would be have been “forced” to have transgender and multi-racial band members if they existed in present day."

Reductio ad absurdum, an unmittigated fallacy. Nothing of the sort has been demanded from any band. Ridiculous assertion.

"In an interview with The Mirror, May compared the BRIT Awards’ shift away from male and female-specific categories to an infringement on personal freedom."

The 'effect' ("an infringement on personal freedom") does not, in any way, flow logically from the 'cause' ("shift away from male and female-specific categories"). If the eligibility criteria for a prize are broadened, that does not in any way 'infringe on personal freedom'. Even if the eligibility narrowed, that STILL wouldn't 'infringe on personal freedom'. There is no such thing as 'a right to be eligible for a certain prize'. Again, ridiculous.

"May went on to say that Queen “would be forced to have people of different colors and different sexes and we would have to have a trans [person]” if they were a contemporary band."

The same reductio ad absurdum from the first point. This assertion has no basis in fact, it is a completely ridiculous straw man.


This ranks as some of the silliest, worst argued knee-jerk BS I have ever seen from Brian. Just remember: all the bizarre claims about 'infringed personal freedoms', and being 'forced to have people of different colors and different sexes and [...] a trans [person]' all stem from...the fact that the BRIT awards now see men and women compete in the same categories rather than separately.

I find it bizarre to the extreme that some people seem to side with Brian here. Steve : please explain, what "point" do you think he has? I don't see any point, as per the above. The Fairy King : how does one have to be a 'woke social justice warrior' to find these statements ridiculous? Again, all these weird assertions from Brian come from the simple point of changing things like "best singer (male)" and "best singer (female)" to a single category "best singer" - I don't see the problem. I do see a total meltdown on the part of Brian.

Not really sure that men are the majority any more. I don't follow the charts, but I do listen to local radio, and I would say that more than 50% of the records I hear are by female artists.

The only problem I see with merging the male and female artist categories into one, is that it reduces the number of awards given, so either one female or one male artist may lose out on an award.

I don't really see Brian's particular arguments, and I think he's being a bit silly really.

What perhaps does seem to be happening is that more solo artists seem to be emerging these days, rather than bands. I don't know if that's because it's easier to create music in a bedroom on a laptop, so you don't really need the extra musicians?

You've had to change what I said in order to make an argument. That's not the sign of a person who has thought through what they are saying. I said the winners will be mostly men.

he probably does have a point. but in this instance he has failed to air it. what Brian has done here is produce some vagary concerning an imagined conspiracy "at work" in the industry. it's rubbish on several levels.

Steve please, just stop and read what he actually said. utter piffle. all of it.

the sad thing about all this: there was an eloquent point to be made about the narrowing of the gender-based opportunity down to a single award and the industry as a whole going on some woke-tick-box-back-slapping mission. Had Brian actually addressed that, then I'd have commended him for it. But, on this occasion, he sees some non-existent Industry Agenda for how music, will be created, produced, managed and recognized. utter twaddle. the Doctor shoots - and sadly, misses - by miles.

I just got here after reading about this in another board I frequent and it was weird to see virtually everyone bashing Brian.

I'm not sure what he has to gain at this point in time by being controversial. But I guess he can't help being himself.

I recall that, once upon a time, the most 'controversial' view Mr. May espoused was that those people who only like old (70's) Queen (like me) should play the old albums.

Times have certainly changed. First Brian deliriously promotes the umpteenth re-release of Queen's GH and now this.

Ted

most of the above is fine. it's the bit I've highlighted that is the issue. it's complete and utter BS. Brian is being a grumpy old fool. there really is no such Music Industry/Social Media diktat in place that stipulates the complement of bands these days - either perceived or real. his statement is nothing short of absurd.

he hasn't been cancelled [yet]. the fact that anyone (in this instance (yourself)) has felt the need to raise the "cancellation" question just goes to show what unnecessarily guarded and feeble times we find ourselves within.
the bottom line: some self-appointed moral-guardianship twatteratti may think that they can cancel people, but the simple truth is cancelling does nothing. at all.

so some fool on twatter deems to cancel some celeb for something they said/did, so what? who made the twatter mob God? they can't actually cancel anyone - it's all utter jizz. the person they've cancelled still lives, breathes, works and plays - regardless of some tiny minority lunatic fringe with even tinier brains.

fact: only 10% of western society actually have twatter accounts, and only 10% of those actually use their acct regularly. a cancellation is nothing more than a figment of the minds of the lunatics who subscribe to the utter twatter nonsense - morons shouting at pigeons - ignore them. not even a faint blip on the radar of real life.

They must have edited it. It says guitarist now.

Dammit. My post didn't go through. Anyway, he has a good point. Especially today when we have 500+ genders, that community and its supporters are pushing to eliminate the concept of sexual orientation just because there sex life is so complicated, the transparent need to use gender and biological sex interchangeably for similar reasons and the fact that you can be cancelled for using the wrong pronoun and even if it was an honest mistake you must still crawl under a rock while grovelling for forgiveness.

"It's ma'am!"

shakes fist at Telegraph

Still says it on Twatter link

couldn't agree with you more. you're spot on here. move on we will. but not before the world collectively dumps this twatterati jizz to the rubbish-bin of history.


he really doesn't have any kind of point at all. sorry, but you're muddying the waters here. Brian's point had nothing to do with any of your points. his point was alluding to some music-business conspiracy that dictates a band must have at least one male, female, black, brown, white, hispanic, gay, lesbian, straight, trans member - or the industry simply won't approve/endorse.
this is of course complete nonsense - and deep down Dr May knows it. he simply likes groaning about sh*t for the groaning's sake.

If the agenda that Brian alludes to actually did exist then there'd be NO solo performers (the industry almost all solo these days), no four-piece bands and every band would have had more members than Deep Purple - but with no one actually ever leaving.

Is that the same generation who hates labels but insists upon calling everyone GLBT+++ "queer" even though not all of them identify as such and consider it to be a slur?

And you can't be serious suggesting your generation isn't hypersensitive to all things having to do with language.

You misread what I said.