I've just watched yet another of those TV documentaries about how pop music saved the world, especially how it saved it from capitalism. I can't help wondering how the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, and latterly Oasis and U2, would have gone on had they been nationalised.
But they weren't and look what a bunch of sanctimonious arseholes they've become. The Gallaghers, with their fake Mancunian accents, Pete Townsend rabbiting on about 'his generation' and the huge sociological impact of pop music, and all living in the splendid isolation of Saxon sheiks.
The two biggest pop songs of the '60s were actually 'Two Little Boys' by Rolf Harris and 'The Last Waltz' by Engelbert Humperdinck, so let's keep some sense of perspective. Did pop really rock the world in the '60s or did it just give us free love, a dose of clap and the one parent family? Moral degenaracy on a Manchester council estate isn't quite as appealing as on a private estate in Surrey with a nice alimony settlement and a bunch of supporting, sycophantic minnions pampering your every whim.
Pop music became the opium of the masses. Punk was the next big one, and I admit to enjoying Punk, as I did Motown and reggae. But hearing old slappers like Pauline Black of The Selecter now rambling on incessantly about racism and socialism, I can't help wondering how she, and John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), can whine about their 'huge impact on society' with any credibility when the people, in 1979, chose Margaret Thatcher rather than dodgy pop music revolutionaries like them.
Popular music is probably Britain's most free market capitalist industry. So the moaning bastards like Bono, and all the others who whine about equality and revolution, can sod right off. Just as those in the '60s,70's,80's and '90s can. You entertain, nothing more, nothing less.
4 comments:
Most 'popstars' and 'rockstars' degenerate into hypocritical Champagne Socialists and Limousine Liberals. Although I'll give John Lydon a mark for sticking up for Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech in the 100 Greatest Britons programme against Yasmin Brown.
Good Grief, Gregg, you don't actually care what these popstars spout on about? Of course they all talk crap, but a good tune is a good tune, even if it's from Radiohead or U2. Popstars are supposed to offend old people, finding them irritating is a sign of age.
Cheeky bugger Mark, 'a sign of age' indeed. What I object to is seeing on TV, or listening on the radio, to something like the history of Ska/Two Tone and hearing Pauline Black coming out with absolute bollocks. I paid good money to see Selecter Acoustic last year and she kept spouting the same revisionist crap, it peed a lot of the audience off I can tell you.
So yes I do care what public figures/celebrities spout because the gullible believe them.
Tee hee, I saw The Beat playing last September, in between spouting the usual crap, they played 'Stand Down Maggie' but changed the words to 'Stand down Tony' and 'Stand down George'.
Yup, that's right. Two months after TB had actually stood down.
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