He rants about the government! He rants about the monarchy! He rants about Palestine! Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Ian Brown was going to start ranting about, um, Kylie Minogue. This week’s Q Awards – at which both were winners – provided the sometime Stone Rose with the perfect opportunity. Railing against the practice of “having awards for no reason, just for the sake of having awards”, Brown questioned the justification of giving Kylie an ‘idol’ award.

That Brown also won a prize that day was, presumably, neither here nor there. His one had ‘legend’ written on it – which, of course, is a totally different thing and much more tangible than being an ‘idol’ (but probably a lot like the “Godlike Genius” Award given to him earlier this year by NME).

It was, he added (presumably before going on to say she looked like a horse) nothing personal – merely that “she’s a soap star making music for ten year-olds.” But the world has changed in the 20 years since I Should Be So Lucky, and Brown should know. Kylie is no longer a soap star and he’s no longer a Stone Rose. She’s a solo artist. So is he. She writes songs with the help of people who can play instruments. So, um, does he.

Not that any of this should matter. Songs are made no better or worse by looking at the writing credits. Brown thinks people like him for his music and Kylie because of who she is. But after a decade of having his tummy tickled by music journalists who have still to work out where The Stone Roses stole their ideas, the reverse is true.

You’d think Brown’s apologists would have learned better than to fawn after him after his conveniently forgotten 1998 comments about the “homosexual” civilizations of Rome, Greece and, um, Nazi Germany. In the same interview, Brown also confided that he doesn’t “trust the British fascination with homosexuals.” Perhaps, then, it’s Kylie’s gay icon status that rankles. More likely, it’s just the delusional babble of an artist who has started to believe that music is more “real” when it happens to be made by mouthy Mancunians with a bit of indie previous. Either way, it’s long overdue confirmation that Ian Brown outlived his raison d’etre with the band he so resolutely refuses to reform.

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