Myxomatosis

Since When Did It Become Okay For Posh to Rock

Historically, rock’s memorable names have been of solid working class stock. All of them intoxicated by the glamour of the street, the authenticity of the shop floor and the romance of poverty.

These working class musicians were often credited (by journalist’s who have never been skint) with having “nothing to lose”, of being wild and untamed, where the industry is cautious and careerist. In this present day, there aren’t many working class bands of negligible creativity and ambition that have managed to clamber aboard the music industry gravy train. The lucky few that do, for obvious reasons, cling on for dear life.

As a grumpy, left wing northerner, I grew up on the Smiths, Oasis and love the Arctic Monkeys. But I also like a lot of other music that evokes specific times, places and cultural experiences, which are completely, alien to me. 

This brings me to The Vaccines. A group of middle-class boys from the heart of West London. Proclaimed by one journalist as “the band that will kick-start a new era” after releasing their debut album “What Did You Expect” in March earlier this year. They’ve now announced the release of their new double-A side single, which features a song produced by Albert Hammond Junior of The Strokes.

The Vaccines were actually signed after four gigs. How you ask? They had the money behind them to produce a product that made it extremely easy for the record label. Being friends with Marcus Mumford (another musician with a wealthy background) he rewarded them with their demo being placed in the palms of people’s hands. Consequently, this became a frustrating prospect for not just me, but many other musicians.

There seems to be such a love and hate factor behind the band, British Indie Marmite you might say. Like many, I fall into the hate category, despising their over simplified sound, dire lyrics and frankly irritating attitude. After suddenly discovering they’re all working class changelings they announced that they advocate lower VAT, higher taxes for high earners and an improved minimum wage. So they reckon that will change the quality of their music? It won’t.

Whether you like them or not, the reason people connected with bands like Oasis and Nirvana is because their music was them. It was an honest portal into their souls. This relates to privileged musicians as well such as Nick Drake and Thom Yorke. Those people didn’t choose genres in which their record labels told them they would be successful; they only have the ability to make the music that is true to them.

The genre Indie started out in the eighties as a musically progressive, underground movement that involved artists that were publishing genre boundaries right up until, ironically, Oasis. Now we have commercial, conservative, meaningless, rock created by and produced by ex-public school kids. They may have a tune but very little original content. 

From Margaret on the guillotine to David Cameron’s IPod- now Tories not only listen to your music, they create it as well.