British pop acts raise the anti

Coldplay’s Chris Martin broke away from the usual thank you speech Thursday at the Brit Awards, the local equivalent of the U.S. Grammys, to declare, “Awards are essentially nonsense, but we’re all going to die when George Bush has his way -- it’s good to go out with a bang.”

The critically admired rock band’s lead singer, who left the stage at Earl’s Court Arena to the usual screech of applause from admiring young fans, had never before spoken publicly about the Iraq issue.

But the remark underscored the growing antiwar activism among British pop stars -- and perhaps signaled the possibility of similar comments at the Grammy Awards, which will be held Sunday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

On Friday, a Coldplay spokesman did not know whether Martin planned to say anything further at the Grammys. The group, which won two Brits, goes into Sunday’s ceremony with two nominations, including best alternative music album for “A Rush of Blood to the Head.”

A Grammy representative said Friday that Coldplay will perform as scheduled Sunday, and that there will be no attempt to put limits on comments that Martin or any other Grammy winner may want to make at the podium.

Martin’s seemingly spontaneous comment immediately followed a protest performance by Ms Dynamite, a new British hip-hop star, in a duet with George Michael.

Together they rewrote Michael’s 1987 hit “Faith” to include lines such as “I don’t wanna see children die no more” and “A wise man wars with words, my daddy says.”

While Ms Dynamite, 21, sang live on stage, Michael appeared only on video screens behind her. A message from his camp suggested he “didn’t want to steal her thunder.”

Ms Dynamite, who won best British female solo artist and best British urban act awards Thursday, finished with a shout of “Peace!” She then told a backstage press conference, “It’s easier not to say anything controversial. But I have an opportunity to make my voice heard. I don’t want to bring a child into a world of war.”

A week ago, at an antiwar rally attended by at least 1 million people here, the recording artist established herself as British rock and pop’s most prominent voice opposing war on Iraq. Sharing a platform with a host of political figures, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, she read a “poem” to Prime Minister Tony Blair that included the line, “How long will you lie and deceive this country and speak so many words but very few truths? ... He who preaches war is the devil’s chaplain.”

The Brit Awards telecast drew an estimated 7.3 million viewers. While the odd four-letter word from Pink (who won for international female solo artist) and Eminem (best international male solo artist and best international album) was bleeped, the war protests went unedited.

Top-selling tabloids the Sun and the Daily Mirror represented polar opposites in their coverage of the Brits protest on Friday.

The Sun, which supports Blair’s aggressive line on Iraq, gave its entire front page to a picture of Justin Timberlake fondling Kylie Minogue’s behind during a dance routine. It did not report Martin’s statement and mentioned Ms Dynamite’s version of “Faith” only in the final two paragraphs of its main story, disparaging it as “the biggest flop of the evening.”

Conversely, the Daily Mirror is running an antiwar campaign called “Not in Our Name.” Its headline alongside the same Timberlake-Minogue picture was “Brits Stars Blitz Blair: PM’s War Plans Slammed,” and it printed the rewritten “Faith” lyric in full.

Until this month, the antiwar movement had attracted little response from British pop stars. But then Damon Albarn of Blur and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack began campaigning in support of the Feb. 15 march. The three remaining members of the Clash -- the British punk band that will be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month in New York -- also spoke out at music magazine NME’s awards, and a petition organized by No War on Iraq Liaison, published in the Guardian, carried the signatures of Phil Collins, Craig David, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Travis and Robert Wyatt.