Recent press coverage of the student protests has tended to focus on the sensationalist images of students smashing their feet through windows and scribbling 'Anarchy' signs onto police vans. And why wouldn't they? Not many people are going to buy the Daily Mail if it has the picture of a legitimate peaceful student making the case for higher education. I suspect that what Mail readers really want is to be terrified about scary students in balaclavas (preferably urinating on some war memorial...whilst holding hands with an asylum seeker...who has got swine flu). Over breakfast, they can them make some ignorant rant about how students aren't like what they were "in their day". They have a point. I can't think of any student protests that happened before the turn of the millenium. As a matter of fact, if you search '1968 student protests' into Google, you will literally find nothing! Try it...
However, much like the Daily Mail, these so-called anarchist protesters are very unhelpful. They undermine the student movement that is legitimately campaiging against the privatisation of the university system and against the Liberal Democrat's shameful U-turn on an election pledge. In fact, I'm not even sure if 'U-turn' is strong enough. The equivalent would be if you booked a flight with a company, ChangeJet, that says they are going to Barbados and then halfway through your flight, the pilot says "And shortly we will be arriving in Middlesbrough". Then, they refuse to give you a refund because they say that your contract was invalid because, after you paid, they were struggling financially so they merged with a stubborn but rich company called AwfulJet who only do flights to the North-East of England.
Of course, the anarchist solution is that we 'smash the plane' and all walk instead...we may get there but it will take a hell of a long time and by then, most of us will have drowned.
You get my point.
The Liberal Democrats promised 'new politics', they promised 'the end of broken promises' and then they shamelessly monopolised the progressive student vote with some PR stunts, got offered power with a regressive Conservative party, and then took all the good jobs they could lay their hands on. That Vince Cable can stand there and say this new scheme is "progressive" is beyond a joke. Does he really think that bright kids on a council estate are not going to be put off by a £50,000 stone mill round their necks once they graduate? Yes, they are raising the freshold for paying back to £21,000 and saying you pay back in smaller doses, but why don't you then put that on the current system? They are just window-dressing 80% cuts in education that mean students will have to pay THREE TIMES MORE for longer (with a worse standard of education). Merry Christmas from the coalition government!
The anarchist solution of 'smashing the state' is equally terrible. Yes, I understand that the anarchist view being expressed by most are not those of the great thinkers of Bakunin and Proudhon but more of those of John Lydon and Jonny Rotten. So we smash the state, we overthrow the Houses of Parliament, we scrap tuition fees...and then what?!?! Because someone then has to fund higher education. Well, you may argue, some benevolent wealthy businessmen could help out. Welcome to the complete privatisation of education...
The truth is and, like it or loave it, the state can be a positive force. We need the state to provide welfare to those in poverty, we need the state to rehabilitate murders so that they can be reintroduced into society and we need the state to provide free education for everyone in this country so that every child has the opportunity of every other child.
We also need politicians with some backbone and principle to implement such brave social change and revive the public's trust in the state's potential. Thanks to Nick Clegg, we still have a long way to go on this one.
Wednesday 15 December 2010
Saturday 9 October 2010
Does music chase money or is money following music?
A Travie McCoy song has got me thinking. I accept this may have not been his intention. In his recent single , "Billionaire", featured heavily on Radio 1, he sings how he "wants to be a billionaire so frickin' bad". Margaret Thatcher would have been so proud! It seems to me that this raises some questions about the music industry itself nowadays. Is the motivation for new artists to make money (and be rich and famous) or to make the best music that they feel they can make? And does this affect how we listen to such music?
Music, in particular pop music, has undoubtedly become in many areas a business. Simon Cowell is regarded as a skilled businessman and not necessarily a great producer of art. He would not hide from the fact that he looks for artists that will sell as many records as possible rather than artists who could be culturally significant. The problem I have with Simon Cowell is that I honestly think he would release the screeching of an electricuted dog if he thought he could sell millions of copies. Oh wait, no that was Leona Lewis....
Travie McCoy's song seems to be expressing 'Cowell-esque' sentiments. He does not want people to love his song "so frickin' bad" (though I find it works quite well as a 3-word review of his song), he doesn't want young artists to be inspired by his songwriting "so frickin' bad", he wants simply fame and fortune. What I don't understand though, is that such an expression of greed is being lapped up by the British public. The song reached No.3 in the charts. Yet if a banker was interviewed on the news going into work at his London investment bank and asked what he was doing it for, a response of "I want to be a billionaire so frickin' bad" would surely be met with a less than sympathetic response. And yet surely both are applying their trade to become rich fat cats. What's the difference?
The issue of music and money also can be seen to be related to artists becoming 'mainstream'. An example of this can be seen in the current ill-feeling by some original fans to the band Kings of Leon. They have developed, seemingly deliberately, in recent times into a 'stadium-rock' sound quite apart from their original raucous and raw style. As a result, they have found much higher levels of success; selling millions of records, repeated chart success and radio airplay, selling out stadiums and headlining festivals, oh and making lots more money. So, on one hand, they may have developed their sound because they want more people to enjoy their music and want to play gigs to more people. There seems nothing wrong with this, ask any small-label rock band "do you want to headline Glastonbury or do you want to play pub gigs?" and I'm guessing Worthy Farm is going to be the preferred destination. However, on the other hand, you could look at Kings of Leon's situation cynically and say that their change in musical direction has led them to abandon their musical roots and alienate the loyal fans that have been there since the beginning for the pursuit of fame and fortune. Some may point to recent, possible signs of ingratitude such as greeting fans who have paid hundreds of pounds for a festival ticket with "We are Kings of Leon, so fuck you!" to say that they have been corrupted by fame. Can Kings of Leon be millionaires and still in touch with their fans and their music?
This all leads me to Radiohead (warning: this may not be the last mention of 'the greatest band ever' on this blog...). Surely, if any band were anti-consumerist and all about the music then it was this band. Here is the group who released OK Computer, an album both critically received but also which flung them into the mainstream, and hated the fame that it brought them. They responded with Kid A and Amnesiac; no singles and melancholic electronic weirdness...beauty also...but unquestionable weirdness. They even released their latest album In Rainbows on a 'Pay What It's Worth' scheme starting from 79p. Here are a band who make the music they want to make, that they think is the best music they can make and give it to their loyal fanbase with no intention of making huge profits. However, could this not also be cynically intepreted? In Rainbows raised Radiohead's profile hugely, made them hit the headlines, all which surely benefited the ticket sales for their subsequent tour...
This rambles me towards a conclusion I feel. Musical success and money are inseperably linked; success means that more people will buy your music and attend your concerts and you will, in a capitalist society, become richer. The fact of the matter is that Wembley Stadium can sell more tickets than my local village hall. But what I think is important is that the artist remains genuine and, above all, still fully inspired by making the best music they can rather than getting the biggest cheque possible. If we as musical punters stick to the principle that we only buy music that we love and that is made by people who still love music themselves, then 'Simon Cowell and co' could yet learn the errors of their greedy ways.
Music, in particular pop music, has undoubtedly become in many areas a business. Simon Cowell is regarded as a skilled businessman and not necessarily a great producer of art. He would not hide from the fact that he looks for artists that will sell as many records as possible rather than artists who could be culturally significant. The problem I have with Simon Cowell is that I honestly think he would release the screeching of an electricuted dog if he thought he could sell millions of copies. Oh wait, no that was Leona Lewis....
Travie McCoy's song seems to be expressing 'Cowell-esque' sentiments. He does not want people to love his song "so frickin' bad" (though I find it works quite well as a 3-word review of his song), he doesn't want young artists to be inspired by his songwriting "so frickin' bad", he wants simply fame and fortune. What I don't understand though, is that such an expression of greed is being lapped up by the British public. The song reached No.3 in the charts. Yet if a banker was interviewed on the news going into work at his London investment bank and asked what he was doing it for, a response of "I want to be a billionaire so frickin' bad" would surely be met with a less than sympathetic response. And yet surely both are applying their trade to become rich fat cats. What's the difference?
The issue of music and money also can be seen to be related to artists becoming 'mainstream'. An example of this can be seen in the current ill-feeling by some original fans to the band Kings of Leon. They have developed, seemingly deliberately, in recent times into a 'stadium-rock' sound quite apart from their original raucous and raw style. As a result, they have found much higher levels of success; selling millions of records, repeated chart success and radio airplay, selling out stadiums and headlining festivals, oh and making lots more money. So, on one hand, they may have developed their sound because they want more people to enjoy their music and want to play gigs to more people. There seems nothing wrong with this, ask any small-label rock band "do you want to headline Glastonbury or do you want to play pub gigs?" and I'm guessing Worthy Farm is going to be the preferred destination. However, on the other hand, you could look at Kings of Leon's situation cynically and say that their change in musical direction has led them to abandon their musical roots and alienate the loyal fans that have been there since the beginning for the pursuit of fame and fortune. Some may point to recent, possible signs of ingratitude such as greeting fans who have paid hundreds of pounds for a festival ticket with "We are Kings of Leon, so fuck you!" to say that they have been corrupted by fame. Can Kings of Leon be millionaires and still in touch with their fans and their music?
This all leads me to Radiohead (warning: this may not be the last mention of 'the greatest band ever' on this blog...). Surely, if any band were anti-consumerist and all about the music then it was this band. Here is the group who released OK Computer, an album both critically received but also which flung them into the mainstream, and hated the fame that it brought them. They responded with Kid A and Amnesiac; no singles and melancholic electronic weirdness...beauty also...but unquestionable weirdness. They even released their latest album In Rainbows on a 'Pay What It's Worth' scheme starting from 79p. Here are a band who make the music they want to make, that they think is the best music they can make and give it to their loyal fanbase with no intention of making huge profits. However, could this not also be cynically intepreted? In Rainbows raised Radiohead's profile hugely, made them hit the headlines, all which surely benefited the ticket sales for their subsequent tour...
This rambles me towards a conclusion I feel. Musical success and money are inseperably linked; success means that more people will buy your music and attend your concerts and you will, in a capitalist society, become richer. The fact of the matter is that Wembley Stadium can sell more tickets than my local village hall. But what I think is important is that the artist remains genuine and, above all, still fully inspired by making the best music they can rather than getting the biggest cheque possible. If we as musical punters stick to the principle that we only buy music that we love and that is made by people who still love music themselves, then 'Simon Cowell and co' could yet learn the errors of their greedy ways.
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