And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week

CMU Beef Of The Week #343: Ed Sheeran v Afterparties

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 17 February 2017

The thing that always strikes me about award ceremonies like the Oscars, the BAFTAs and the Grammys is the theatre seating. How do people cope? Awards ceremonies are really boring. It’s just a load of clapping, which really gets old after the third prize is given out. At least at most awards ceremonies that’s tempered by free food and booze – mainly booze – throughout. But at those award events where everyone’s sat in theatre seating, there’s none of that. It’s just a lot of clapping.

Right, I know at this stage you’re wondering how this is my big takeaway from the Grammys last Sunday, given the debate that has been raging all week. But at this stage, I have nothing of value to add to the Grammy Awards racism debate that hasn’t already been said. And I think we can all agree that that world would be a better place if people stopped throwing up hastily formed opinions on difficult subjects just because they’ve got a deadline to meet.

I’m also not sure the Beef Of The Week column is the place to have that kind of debate, even if it does provide me with one of those rapidly approaching deadlines. Let’s just agree right now that the small number of non-white artists who have won the Album Of The Year award at the Grammys is troubling, particularly as it’s been a white-only affair for nearly a decade now. I’m sure the awards’ boss Neil Portnow is right when he says that none of the 14,000 voters is actively considering race when they cast their votes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

At the same time, Beyonce limited the avenues through which her latest album could be heard, so that may also have had an impact on the number of votes she received. Adele was also a streaming holdout for a while, of course, but she did eventually make her record more widely available. It definitely wasn’t the best album of the year, and Beyonce almost certainly did deserve it over her. But fucking hell, at least they didn’t give it to Justin Bieber.

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, theatre seating at awards. Awards are fucking stupid. They are probably the most stupid thing humanity has ever dreamt up. It doesn’t matter who wins them, because ultimately everyone loses. And the ones where the audience has to sit in theatre seating – smiling and clapping constantly in case someone on TV notices they are bored out of their mind – are the worst.

They’re long, too. Really long. Awards ceremonies go on for ages. And few run longer than The Grammys, which I think was about six and a half days of continuous clapping this year. After that kind of ordeal, everyone badly needs a drink. And that’s where the afterparties come in.

All awards ceremonies have afterparties, because after congratulating themselves for a few hours, people like to hang around with their peers and talk about how great they are for a few hours more. But at ceremonies like the Grammys, where you’ve had to watch Bruno Mars dress up in a Prince costume without hard liquor, a drink is an even greater post-show requirement than at most.

So imagine what it must be like to be Ed Sheeran, who was refused entry from his own label’s Grammys afterparty. And not just this year, this has apparently happened every year since 2014.

“That’s actually happened four years in a row”, he told Ryan Seacreast on iHeart the next day, confirming the rumours that he’d been turned away. “And that’s not just my label’s afterparty. That’s just afterparties in general”.

Poor Ed, apparently he just can’t catch a break. But it turns out he doesn’t even like those afterparties anyway. “You know what I don’t get?” he asked. “You walk into those parties there’s probably like four musicians there and everyone else is just people from LA that didn’t go to the Grammys and just want a party to go to”.

Imagine going to a party without the penance of actually sitting through the Grammys first. Those people have some nerve! Sheeran’s found a sure fire way to get into parties full of famous people though – he puts on his own. And then he tells loads of people they can’t come.

“I did a party at the EMAs in Milan [in 2015] and my rule for the party was that no one was allowed to bring bodyguards or entourage. If you were an artist you just came as yourself. So, Bieber turned up on his own and played pool with Twenty One Pilots. That was a nice thing, rather than Bieber hanging out with his entourage in the corner”.

After last weekend’s Grammys though, Sheeran ended up at a diner, where it sounds like he had more fun than being in a crowded room full of hangers on. Well, he sat dunking his French fries into a milkshake, which is apparently a thing people do now. So maybe that isn’t as good. But he does confirm that it “tastes like cheesecake”.

You know what also tastes like cheesecake? Cheesecake. This is why awards ceremonies are awful.