I've always found the title of this very blog something of a puzzler. "Culture", yes - great stuff. More of it, please. But "Vulture"? Do we really spend our time picking over rotting scraps, nibbling at dessicated carcasses?
Not normally, no. But there are times when we do, and occasions when it seems what passes for culture these days really would be better off dead. I am of course describing the Classical Brit Awards, the limping classical record industry's answer to the (already rather lame) Brits.
The shortlist for the annual extravaganza normally makes faintly surreal reading - not to mention listening - put together as it seems to be by marketing staff for whom the word "talent" refers to something else entirely. But this year's list for the "prestigious" Best Album award includes an entry that is capable of surprising even professional cynics such as myself.
The offending item is called Best Days, and comes from one Amy Nuttall, billed lovingly by the press in her hometown of Manchester as the "soaprano". Nuttall left Emmerdale in 2004 in order to pursue a singing career, and having followed a route perhaps slightly different from other young sopranos - a raunchy photoset in Loaded and a stint in My Fair Lady - all this seems to have come good. Her debut album Best Days emerged from the EMI stable last November.
Never one to skimp on research, I reached immediately for Google. Ms Nuttall's most popular entry was "Amy Nuttall nude". Tempting, perhaps - and certainly adding a new depth to the phrase "classical music buff", but no. I eventually managed to obtain what I was after in the first place: the album.
So what was it like? Well, not wanting to be mean, but if these were her best days I'm not sure I can contemplate what her off-days might be like. I can understand that there's a market for this kind of witless sentimentality, but surely no one would pay for the thin, reedy sound and the so-called "creativity" that consists of fiddling randomly with note durations. No, I'm afraid there's only one word for the whole thing, and that can only be the culture snob's staple. Terrible. It was absolutely terrible.
An easy target, perhaps. But then why is the album shortlisted for the best classical album of the year, up against solid talents such as Bryn Terfel, the undeniably brilliant Welsh baritone. What kind of talent exactly is being awarded at the Classical Brits? Perhaps these awards are simply directed towards the record company executives themselves, who, long since tired of having to deal with actual musicians, are to be congratulating in managing to foist this stuff on an innocent public. I'm all for the spirit of "crossover", but when the crossing is this pedestrian ...
