The Glitz, The Glam, and the Glaring Disconnect of the Brit Awards 2025
The Brit Awards 2025 came and went, and if there was one prevailing sentiment from those outside the industry’s golden circle, it was a resounding sigh. Not of awe, but of exasperation. The Brit Awards were once a genuine celebration of musical innovation, a chaotic but memorable spectacle where talent and unpredictability thrived. Now, it has all the authenticity of a corporate PowerPoint presentation, complete with pre-approved narratives (despite Jack Whitehall’s attempt at off-the-cuff banter-comedy) and an unshakable feeling that you’re watching a sanitised highlight reel of the major labels’ latest investments.
The entire event, which aired after the equally as nauseating show, Britain’s Got Talent, felt like a slap in the face to the thousands of artists struggling to survive in an industry that is buckling under the weight of the cost-of-living crisis. While grassroots venues are shutting down at an alarming rate and independent musicians are fighting algorithms for crumbs of exposure, the Brits paraded a reality where none of that seemed to matter. The night wasn’t about the state of music—it was about selling records. Sure, a few artists had a go at using their platform to try and advocate for positive progressive change, but given the setting, it felt like it was more of an attempt at virtue signalling than actual action. The crowds played along, clapping and cheering for the spectacle of benevolence, but unless anyone in the industry is prepared to fight tooth and nail to save the UK’s culture sector, words are just as empty as the promises the new Labour government made to try and get into power.
Who Needs Merit When You Have Marketing?
It has long been whispered that the Brit Awards are little more than a vehicle for major label artists, but in 2025, the machinery has never been more exposed. To break through, you don’t just need talent—you need to be hand-picked, repackaged, and relentlessly marketed. There’s a glass ceiling for anyone who isn’t ushered into the limelight by media giants, and for every emerging star who gets a shot, hundreds of equally deserving acts remain in obscurity.
The Last Dinner Party are the poster children for this phenomenon. They tick every box required for a 2025 industry darling: retro aesthetics, ethereal harmonies, and the air of an underground act—despite being anything but. Their rise felt inevitable, not organic. The same can be said for Lola Young, whose studio output is undeniably polished but whose live performance left many questioning how much of the heavy lifting is done in post-production. When the stage demands more than production wizardry, the cracks begin to show. Their voices, while strong, lacked the magnetism of genuine live talent. The carefully curated mystique shattered under the weight of expectation, and what remained was a stark reminder of just how much modern success is engineered rather than earned.
What may evade most people watching the Brit Awards is how the awards show is funded. In addition to its sponsors, such as Mastercard, the big four oligarchs of the music industry, all chip in, ensuring the best talent on their roster gets their screen time.
An Industry in Crisis, But Don’t Mention That On TV
While the awards were busy celebrating preordained success stories, the wider industry is teetering on collapse. Small venues are disappearing faster than the organisers of the Brits would like to admit, touring is becoming financially unviable for independent artists, and streaming services continue to pay peanuts. The severity of this situation failed to make it into the pristine script of the night’s proceedings. Instead, Jack Whitehall, looking like he was coked to the gills, attempted to make the event a pantomime. While this may make the awards show palatable to the wider masses, no discerning figure within the industry could ever mistake the carnival of culture capitalism for any more than a gaudy exhibition of pomp, pretension and favouritism.
The uncomfortable truth is that the Brit Awards exist in a separate reality to the actual music industry. The ceremony still operates as though we’re living in a pre-digital, pre-cost-of-living-crisis world where album sales are soaring and music is a viable career for anyone with enough talent and drive. The real world, however, tells a different story. Musicians are now expected to juggle multiple jobs just to afford the privilege of making music. Yet, for one night only, we’re meant to suspend disbelief and buy into the fantasy that everything is fine.
The Future of the Brits: A Lost Cause or Just Lost?
At what point does the Brit Awards become so disconnected from the industry it claims to represent that it collapses under its own weight? Some would argue it already has. What we witnessed in 2025 was a broadcast-friendly illusion—one where the industry’s problems don’t exist, where only a select few are invited to the top, and where the night’s real winners are the labels, not the artists.
If the Brits want to remain relevant, they need to stop pretending. They need to acknowledge the grassroots crisis, champion independent artists without token gestures, and stop force-feeding the audience a reality that only benefits a tiny fraction of the industry. Until then, it remains little more than a slickly produced advert, broadcast to remind us who we’re meant to be streaming next.
Article by Amelia Vandergast
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