Two weeks in and we’re already deviating from the script but the nominations for this year’s BRIT Awards have been announced so what better way to assess the current health of British pop?

Here’s the thing. When most people refer to ‘pop music’ they’re not actually referring to popular music. Pop, as a genre, is awesome. Popular music, aka what dominates the charts, generally isn’t so enjoyable. Usually, it’s homogenous and hollow advertising masquerading as music. Sure, every now and then something real comes along but for the most part, it’s paint-by-numbers high gloss vacuity.

The BRIT Awards is particularly insidious and false, less an evening of recognition for pop guile and more a grim, sterile marketing campaign for acts who have been shoved down your optic nerve on every digital platform imaginable over the past year. With that in mind, let’s take a look at those battling it out for both British Single and Video of the Year.

As for the show itself, mercifully, James Corden, having somehow swung a sweet American chat show gig (seriously, how did that happen?), will not be hosting this year. While the vanilla Ant and Dec will be stepping into his bumbling clown shoes, they’re unlikely to provide a moment as hateful as interrupting Prince to take a fucking selfie.

ARTIST VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Calvin Harris – ‘Summer’

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Entire video summed up in 25 words or less: Calvin Harris has sex with supermodels and you don’t.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: There I am prepping myself for some shameless product placement and/or celebrity cameos and neither really materialise. Touché, Harris. Still, whichever underwear and swimsuit manufacturer they went with sure get their fair share of screen time. Also, there’s a guy who looks like Jason Statham but he’s only seen for about 1/10th of a second. Speaking as a fan of The Stath, I’d like to think he wouldn’t lower himself to such a level.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Pride.

Charli XCX – ‘Boom Clap’

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Entire video summed up in 25 words or less: Pop superstar-elect Charli XCX pouts about various locations as clips from The Fault in Our Stars are spliced in.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Well, see, it’s one of those types of videos that they don’t really do all that much anymore. You know, the big tie-in song to the big teen movie that mixes in footage from the film alongside the act in question. Sometimes, they even cross paths in exciting fashion. Though that fails to occur here – would be pretty inappropriate given the weepy subject matter of the film – Charli does find time for quiet contemplation in amongst all the swagger. Why it’s not up for Best Single remains a mystery. She’s still British, right?

Entire video summed up in just one word: Campaign.

Duke Dumont FT Jax Jones – ‘I Got U’

[youtu[youtube id=”FHCYHldJi_g” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]p>Entire video summed up in 25 words or less: Step into the virtual reality of a creep.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Dude gets a virtual reality helmet like it’s a film from 1995 and proceeds to live it up in exotic locales, bumping and grinding with a procession of stunners along the way. You keep expecting it to take a sinister turn – particularly when a gun comes into play – but instead the makers opt for fellatio jokes. So it’s just a well-shot depiction of lazy fantasy set to a lazy house jam. There’s some satire there but I don’t believe it to be intentional.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Mindless.

Ed Sheeran – ‘Thinking Out Loud’

[youtube[youtube id=”lp-EO5I60KA” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]Entire video summed up in 25 words or less: Ed Sheeran officially sells out to the wedding crowd.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Ed Sheeran teams up with professional dancer Brittany Cherry to set the hearts and ovaries of his hugely impressionable fan base racing with a slow, suggestive and deeply un-sexy choreographed routine that will doubtless play out at awful weddings for years to come.

Entire song and video summed up in just one awful YouTube comment: 

Mark Ronson FT Bruno Mars – ‘Uptown Funk’

[youtube i[youtube id=”OPf0YbXqDm0" align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]>Entire video summed up in 25 words or less: Bruno Mars is tiny.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: He really is, though. It’s grand, however, as he’s got that slick thing going on. Not sure about the bandana + hat combo, though. I guess the point of the video is to poke fun at oneself here and there, hence the hair curlers and Mark Ronson generally looking out of place. But he generally does look out of place no matter the scenario. Seriously, if it was revealed tomorrow that Ronson skins people alive when taking time out of his busy brass-heavy schedule, would you really be shocked?

Entire video summed up in just one word: Pink.

One Direction – ‘You & I’

[youtube id=�[youtube id=”_kqQDCxRCzM” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]ire video summed up in 25 words or less: Five guys who allegedly hate one another share a wardrobe, look sad.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Surprising that ‘Steal My Girl’ didn’t get the nod here. Then again it’s not up for Best Single and Niall Horan’s gimmick in the video is borderline racist so maybe cooler heads prevailed. This, though, is as grey as the jumpers all the lads morph into as they stroll mournfully down a boardwalk. Also notable: Harry Styles’ hair has yet to go full Shawn Michaels yet.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Dull.

Rita Ora – ‘I Will Never Let You Down’

[youtube id=”5[youtube id=”50GQjUZ4P3M” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]e video summed up in 25 words or less: Rita Ora gets serious, innit. Some of the time, anyway.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Er, it’s all a bit confusing as the song and thus the video flits from soul-baring emotion to dance floor gloss like that’s an acceptable thing to do. It isn’t, and so both song and video feel like they’re fighting against one another. It’s a real ‘boardroom meeting’ situation as you imagine a bunch of suits congratulating each other on how they’ve found the perfect canvas for Rita to show her range and accessibility. And hey, nearly 85 million views can’t be wrong can they?

Don’t answer that.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Mess.

Route 94 FT Jess Glynne – ‘My Love’

[youtube id=”BS4[youtube id=”BS46C2z5lVE” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]video summed up in 25 words or less: Someone discovered  Adobe After Effects for the first time.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: The neon wolf thing is cool but the Predator heat vision thing is pretty gross in every other usage, not least when our fun lead characters proceed to maul one another in a dingy corridor. I guess there’s some attempt at social commentary here, how we’re all animals at the end of the day, but it’s clunky and obvious.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Ugly.

Sam Smith – ‘Stay With Me’

[youtube id=”pB-5X[youtube id=”pB-5XG-DbAA” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]deo summed up in 25 words or less: A grim slice of life, with gospel singers for some reason.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: I don’t know if Sam Smith is going for an Antony Hegarty thing but I’m not buying it, mate. The video is as glum as the song, which isn’t terrible per se, but just wholesale generic.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Meh.

Sigma – ‘Nobody To Love’

[youtube id=”KD5fLb-[youtube id=”KD5fLb-WgBU” align=”center” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”750"]o summed up in 25 words or less: Makes the Duke Dumont one look like Citizen Kane.

Entire video summed up in more than 25 words: Doesn’t deserve any more, to be fair.

Entire video summed up in just one word: Tired.

SINGLE OF THE YEAR

Calvin Harris – ‘Summer’

Pop gem or chart trash? As Harris joints go, this is exceptionally weak. I’d argue that his signature brand of lifeless synth-ramping is responsible for dumbing down music itself but even Harris sounds bored here. The phoned-in vocals exist simply to get to the by-the-numbers dance floor ‘kick-in’ and the payoff really isn’t worth the build.

Clean Bandit FT Jess Glynne – ‘Rather Be’

Pop gem or chart trash? Try as I might, I simply don’t get this song. Millions do. I guess that makes me officially out of touch.

Duke Dumont FT Jax Jones – ‘I Got U’

Pop gem or chart trash? It’s just a dull house track.

Ed Sheeran – ‘Thinking Out Loud’

Pop gem or chart trash? Arguably the most simpering and cloying song from an album chock-full of them. This is Wet, Wet, Wet stuff and Sheeran should really be ashamed of himself.

Ella Henderson – ‘Ghost’

Pop gem or chart trash? As tunes from former X Factor hopefuls go, this is largely inoffensive if annoyingly tame. It keeps threatening to latch onto a meatier hook and go somewhere interesting but ultimately chooses to play it safe. Perfectly tolerable, though.

George Ezra – ‘Budapest’

Pop gem or chart trash? Pleasant but perfunctory and hardly worthy of major celebration.

Mark Ronson FT Bruno Mars – ‘Uptown Funk’

Pop gem or chart trash? Again, really not getting the monster hype that surrounds this. It’s… fine? Has its moments? Makes you want to listen to the stuff it’s ‘paying homage’ to instead? Both men have produced much better efforts and I’d question its longevity. It’ll probably win here. Minus 100 points for not following ‘Styling’ with ‘Profiling’, though. It was right there, guys.

Route 94 FT Jess Glynne – ‘My Love’

Pop gem or chart trash? Yaaaaaaaaaaawn.

Sam Smith – ‘Stay With Me’

Pop gem or chart trash? I can’t be the only one who thinks he’s about to break into Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’ every time the chorus hits, can I?

Sigma – ‘Nobody To Love’

Pop gem or chart trash? ‘Bound 2’ takes samples and does something fun and creative with them. ‘Nobody To Love’ is a shit remix of ‘Bound 2’. Listen to Kanye instead.

So there you have it. All very upsetting for various reasons and so very lifeless. There are other awards set for the star-studded, ad-break heavy bash which takes place on Wednesday February 25. These will be ‘won’ by Ed Sheeran, Ella Henderson, Royal Blood, George Ezra, James Bay (wait, they already announced that), Ed Sheeran again, Jake Gosling, Pharrell (take that, Hozier), Taylor Swift and Foo Fighters if they can be bothered to turn up.

Anything else? Ghostpoet proved good value with his live Twitter commentary last year so give him a follow in case he’s up for it this time round.