When the Haim sisters held their BRIT Award for Best International Group this month, having lost twice before, they joined the ranks of famous Jewish musicians to be garlanded by the UK Music Industry. For all the fuss about representation of black culture and the female perspective in the Awards, relatively few Jews have succeeded in a country where fewer than one in every 250 people are Jewish.
While the Guardian music critic Ben Beaumont-Thomas was crying out for greater appreciation for East Asians, I remarked to myself that neither he nor his colleagues had congratulated Danielle, Alana and Este for their famous win, the first group of International Jews to win the prize.
Country Crows’ principal songwriter Adam Duritz helped his band get nominated for the International Group, which was won in 1995 by REM. The frat-rapping Beastie Boys lost out to The Corrs in 1999 and to TLC in 2000, while The Strokes, who have two Jewish members (one from birth, one converted), lost to Destiny’s Child in 2002 and The White Stripes in 2004. Kylie Minogue’s Fever pipped Is This It to the International Album prize in 2002, while Eminem beat Pink in 2003.
Pink was the first Jewish woman to win for Best International Female in 2003, having first been nominated in 2001 and losing to the ‘Jew-ish’ singer and fan of Kabbalistic teaching, Madonna. Four more defeats followed: in 2007 to Nelly Furtado; 2009 to Katy Perry; and 2014 and 2018, to Lorde both times.
For the men, there is one man that leads the pack. Beck, who was raised Jewish, took the Best International Male Solo act three times in four years: 1997, 1999 and 2000. He has been nominated seven further times, losing to Eminem in 2003 and 2005, Justin Timberlake in 2004 and 2007, Kanye West in 2006 and 2009 and Pharrell Williams in 2015.
In 2007, the then 65-year-old Bob Dylan was nominated for Male Solo and Album for Modern Times. Back in 1994, it was a famous win for Lenny Kravitz, who then lost to Prince (or, rather, the unpronounceable symbol) in 1996.
Drake, the Torontonian who has a Jewish mum and is thus fully Jewish and probably the most successful musician of the last ten years, took International Male Solo in 2017 and 2019, having lost out to Bruno Mars (2014) and fellow Canadian Justin Bieber (2016). He lost again in 2018 to Kendrick Lamar. He released music with Future in 2017 and the pair lost the International Group award to A Tribe Called Quest.
Maroon 5, led by Adam Levine, lost to Scissor Sisters in 2005 in the Group and Album categories and to Foo Fighters for the 2012 Best Group. Ben Goldwasser, half of MGMT (his mum married a Jewish man), lost to Kings of Leon in 2009 in both Group and Album, while Jack Antonoff’s band fun were defeated by The Black Keys in 2013. I suppose I can count Adam Granduciel aka The War on Drugs, who has Jewish ancestry, as another Jewish loser who in 2015 was also beaten by Foo Fighters.
There are two ways to link International and British acts. It was a Barry Manilow composition (via Chopin) which won Take That an award in 1993 for British Song of the Year, defeating the Gary Barlow composition A Million Love Songs and a cover of the Tavares tune It Only Takes a Minute.
The other Transatlantic link is through Mark Ronson, who was born in West London but moved to Manhattan as a child where he was barmitzvah. His work on Back to Black helped Amy Winehouse win awards in 2007, and he thus put himself in a position to win in 2008 thanks to his own album Version. As had happened to Amy, Arctic Monkeys triumphed in the Best British Album category, but Mark beat the likes of Mika and Richard Hawley to a well-deserved British Male Solo prize. He is the only Jewish man to triumph in this category.
Then came Uptown Funk, the British Single of the 2015 BRITS, which is amusing as Mark had not lived in the UK since the mid-1980s and Bruno Mars is from Hawaii. Such are the vagaries of Britishness and the BRIT Awards.
No Jewish artist has ever been nominated for the Rising Star, formerly known as the Critics’ Choice. Had it been awarded in the early 2000s, young Amy Winehouse from Camden might have been nominated. She went on to gain five nominations for British Female Solo, twice posthumously (2013 and 2016) and three times in her lifetime: 2003, losing to Dido; 2004, losing to Joss Stone; and winning in 2007, the year of Back to Black.
Likewise, in 2001, Craig David would have been given something, rather than losing all six awards he was up for. He has been nominated five times in his career for Best British Male Solo, including in 2001 when he lost to perennial winner Robbie Williams (who has 18 BRITs in total). Craig’s album Born To Do It, on which he wrote every track, was twice nominated, losing to Coldplay’s Parachutes in 2001 and Dido’s No Angel in 2002.
To make matters worse Craig, whose mum is Jewish and whose Dad is from the Caribbean island of Grenada, was up for Dance Act in 2001 and 2002, and Urban Act 2003 and 2006. Respectively the awards went to Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Ms Dynamite and Lemar. Surely Craig is due a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is now best known as a DJ whose TS5 sets are much enjoyed out in the Balaeric Islands every summer.
Hampstead-born Jess Glynne was a Best New Artist nominee in 2016, when she was also up for British Single for Hold My Hand. As would happen in 2019, she lost out for Best British Female, that time to the era-defining Adele. Hello was the song that defeated both My Love and Rather Be, which both featured Jess’s voice, in 2016, while I’ll Be There lost out to One Kiss by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa in 2019.
It was a happier occasion for Rachel Stevens in 2002. As part of S Club 7, she won a second BRIT Award for Best British Single in 2002 thanks to barmitzvah anthem Don’t Stop Movin. The septet had been Best New Artist in 2000 and for three years lost out in the short-lived Best Pop Act, won by Five in 2000 and by Westlife in both 2001 and 2002. Strength in numbers does not guarantee prizes.
Another Jewish woman nominated as part of a band up for Best New Artist, this time in 1996, was Justine Frischmann of Elastica, who were beaten to it by Supergrass. Justine famously went out with both Brett Anderson of Suede and Damon Albarn of Blur, and today works in visual arts rather than rock’n’roll.
Jessie Ware (above) also changed careers, starting out as a writer for the Jewish Chronicle and, since becoming a pop performer of the highest quality, she has five BRIT nominations but no awards so far. Jessie is the daughter of fellow JC regular John Ware of Panorama, but there is no investigation needed for Jessie’s loss to Dua Lipa for both Best Female Solo and Best British Album this year.
These defeats are added to four past defeats: 2013’s Best New Artist (Ben Howard) and Best British Female in 2013 (Emeli Sande), 2015 (Paloma Faith) and 2018 (Dua Lipa again). No Jewish woman has won the BRIT Award for Best British Female Solo Artist. But for Dua, whom some have called ‘too big to fail’, Jessie would have broken the glass ceiling.
It did not take long for Jewish artists to win a BRIT Award. The third ceremony in 1983 gave Mark Knopfler and his band Dire Straits the Best British Group award in 1983. They regained it in 1986, where Money for Nothing (‘I want my MTV!’) had been nominated for Song of the Year, which is today known as Best British Single, followed by a win for Best British Album of 1987 for Brothers in Arms. Dire Straits lost out to both Simple Red and The KLF at the infamous 1992 BRIT Awards, the first to be televised.
Not far behind the Geordie Jew was Jon Moss of Culture Club in the band’s golden year of 1984. Led by Jon’s boyfriend Boy George, the band won Best Group and Song of the Year for Karma Chameleon. 30 years on, there are plenty of Jewish performers working in music today across the world. Every time Drake releases a song it shoots towards number one, while Bob Dylan is about to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Mazaltov to Haim on becoming the first group of Jewish non-Britons to win the award at the third time of asking. Whoever will be next?
The 2022 edition of the BRIT Awards is due to take place in February next year.