Are they still so clever and classless and free?

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1450824589' post='2936298']
Although I was born in the UK, I grew up elsewhere and this fascination with supposed "class" is equally fascinating and baffling. From the outside looking in it looks like a self-imposed categorisation which doesn't exist except in the minds of those who subscribe to the notion. I can't think of any other country where the social origin they were born into in would be factored into the potential or authenticity of a band. It's an amazing concept to think of yourself in that way.
[/quote]

^this - talking about class is a sign of having none.

[TimR]

A middle C is a middle C - doesn't matter who plays it.

[Happy Jack]

Never understood this obsession with class.

I mentioned this thread to Simkins this morning (as he spread the toothpaste on my brush for me) and he said "I have always been happy to ignore my humble beginnings, M'Lord" so that seems to settle it rather.

Whoops! There goes a pheasey!

[Doctor J]

A good Man is hard to find.

[Happy Jack]

A good Man of the lasting kind, certainly.

[Silvia Bluejay]

[quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1450824589' post='2936298']
Although I was born in the UK, I grew up elsewhere and this fascination with supposed "class" is equally fascinating and baffling. From the outside looking in it looks like a self-imposed categorisation which doesn't exist except in the minds of those who subscribe to the notion. I can't think of any other country where the social origin they were born into in would be factored into the potential or authenticity of a band. It's an amazing concept to think of yourself in that way.
[/quote]

Absolutely spot on.

[visog]

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1450813579' post='2936156']
Joe Strummer went to boarding school...
[/quote]


As a Yes fan in the punky class-war days, this always riled me. Yes and Prog were accused of being middle-class where as Punk more earthy and the voice of the working class.

Ironically, Joe Strummer had quite a privileged background as the son of a diplomat where as Jon Anderson was the son of a milkman....

[center]Pulp's, classic lyric springs to mind, "If you call your Dad he could stop it all."[/center]

[colgraff]

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1450857241' post='2936400']
Pulp's, classic lyric springs to mind, "If you call your Dad he could stop it all."
[/quote]
I always found the idea of Jarvis Cocker playing the role of the Common People amusing, although I'll grant that the irony was probably intentional.

[Drax]

Back to the OP, do the media really persist in the notion that working class bands are more legitimate?
Struggling to think of a successful band* in the last 10yrs the media would label 'working class'..

*band - not solo urban acts

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1450824589' post='2936298']
Although I was born in the UK, I grew up elsewhere and this fascination with supposed "class" is equally fascinating and baffling. From the outside looking in it looks like a self-imposed categorisation which doesn't exist except in the minds of those who subscribe to the notion. I can't think of any other country where the social origin they were born into in would be factored into the potential or authenticity of a band. It's an amazing concept to think of yourself in that way.
[/quote]

Just to make it even more baffling/fascinating, we still insist on basing the categories on a system which had already been compromised by the Industrial Revolution. My understanding (disclaimer: GCSE History, so I'm happy to be corrected on the details as it was a while ago) is that originally Britain had a Ruling or "Upper" Class, who owned and inherited the land, and a Working Class, who worked on said land ([i]very[/i] broadly speaking). There would have been a small and rather limited group in between the two (guess what they were called) who had managed to drag themselves out of serfdom by whatever good fortune, but who were disliked by the Upper Classes, who saw them as "new money," which was greatly inferior to inheriting your money - contrast that with today's attitudes!

The Industrial Revolution is usually cited as the point at which this Middle Class started to grow, and become much more influential. At some point during the 20th Century, it became quite clear that these three strata were inadequate to describe all the different echelons of society, particularly as very wealthy businessmen were emerging from "middle class" backgrounds, but couldn't be described as "upper class" because they had worked for their fortune. What about those who were working in technical, non-manual jobs, but not necessarily with the level of remuneration that would give them the typical comfort associated with being "middle class?" So terms like "upper middle class" and "lower middle class" got bandied about, however informally. "Middle class" now covers such a colossal section of British society that, whichever prefix you tack onto it, it's pretty much meaningless.

[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1450859336' post='2936409']
Back to the OP, do the media really persist in the notion that working class bands are more legitimate?
Struggling to think of a successful band* in the last 10yrs the media would label 'working class'..

*band - not solo urban acts
[/quote]

Very good point, actually - as someone pointed out above, Florence Welch, James Blunt would be laughed out of court if they pretended to be working class (just look at Jamie Oliver), but there does seem to be a requirement that urban/grime/dubstep artists should be "street."

[Raslee]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1450862780' post='2936438']


Just to make it even more baffling/fascinating, we still insist on basing the categories on a system which had already been compromised by the Industrial Revolution. My understanding (disclaimer: GCSE History, so I'm happy to be corrected on the details as it was a while ago) is that originally Britain had a Ruling or "Upper" Class, who owned and inherited the land, and a Working Class, who worked on said land ([i]very[/i] broadly speaking). There would have been a small and rather limited group in between the two (guess what they were called) who had managed to drag themselves out of serfdom by whatever good fortune, but who were disliked by the Upper Classes, who saw them as "new money," which was greatly inferior to inheriting your money - contrast that with today's attitudes!

The Industrial Revolution is usually cited as the point at which this Middle Class started to grow, and become much more influential. At some point during the 20th Century, it became quite clear that these three strata were inadequate to describe all the different echelons of society, particularly as very wealthy businessmen were emerging from "middle class" backgrounds, but couldn't be described as "upper class" because they had worked for their fortune. What about those who were working in technical, non-manual jobs, but not necessarily with the level of remuneration that would give them the typical comfort associated with being "middle class?" So terms like "upper middle class" and "lower middle class" got bandied about, however informally. "Middle class" now covers such a colossal section of British society that, whichever prefix you tack onto it, it's pretty much meaningless.



Very good point, actually - as someone pointed out above, Florence Welch, James Blunt would be laughed out of court if they pretended to be working class (just look at Jamie Oliver), but there does seem to be a requirement that urban/grime/dubstep artists should be "street."
[/quote]
Indeed, class is socially constructed in the pursuit of dominance...as is labelling one another.

[Nicko]

Another vote for "class doesn't exist". If you have to work to live and are working class whether you are sweeping the floors or running the cleaning business. If you suddenly win the lottery you are still working class. IMO there is an underclass (those that either can't or wont find a job) and an elite who are born into a life of leisure - what we used to call the aristocracy but now includes any number of "really classy" people like Tamara Ecclestone and Cara Delevingne.

On the other hand there are real socioeconomic grades between which people are essentially mobile. This used to be the old A, B1, B2 etc, but is now simply 1, 2, 3 etc. For example I started off SEC cat 5, and would regard myself SEC cat 2 now. The US of course categorises people by both educational standard and income.

To the question the OP poses. No. The media persist in hyping people who largely don't deserve it using whatever backstory they can find

[colgraff]

Just one question to the previous post, (and I am conscious that we are now miles from the original question), I once met a young aristocrat whose family shall remain nameless and I asked her about their life. She is it was very much a Sword of Damocles situation but in their case the Sword was inheritance tax. You worked your whole life to either save enough so your offspring can pay the taxes on your death without having to sell a large chunk of the ancestral home or you did the work to pay off the tax bill you inherited with the estate.

I confess to not being as sympathetic to this line of thinking as I could have been until I saw some programme on the television a few years later where an elderly aristocrat was living in horrible conditions in a small part of a country estate because the rest was falling down. He had all sorts of commercial enterprises going on which raked millions every year, but only just covered the repair bills. The presenter asked him why he didn't just sell it and live out his days in comfort. He glared at her and said that the home had been in his family since the 13th century and he'd be damned if he'd be the one to get rid of it'

I saw what the young lady I met meant then.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1450862780' post='2936438']

The Industrial Revolution is usually cited as the point at which this Middle Class started to grow, and become much more influential. At some point during the 20th Century, it became quite clear that these three strata were inadequate to describe all the different echelons of society, particularly as very wealthy businessmen were emerging from "middle class" backgrounds, but couldn't be described as "upper class" because they had worked for their fortune.

[/quote]

Sorry Ralph, but I have to pick you up on that.

The whole reason for England's obsession with class is that England more-or-less invented the whole concept and did so WAY before anyone else followed on. The Industrial Revolution was something that happened at different times in different places. It happened first in England (mid-18th century) largely because a substantial, wealthy, well-established Middle Class had already existed for well over a century by then, and had pretty much taken over running the country in the mid-17th century by winning a Civil War against the aristocracy.

By the mid-19th century, when England's innovation was being actively copied across Europe and others were having their own Industrial Revolutions, the Middle Class in Spain, France and Germany was relatively small and politically weak. The appalling destruction of the wars of the 20th century also destroyed any chance of class becoming an obsession in those countries.

Meanwhile in England the class structure which had emerged in the 1640s sailed sublimely on, virtually untouched by three centuries of upheaval and becoming progressively more and more ingrained.

[/lecture]

[lojo]

Class or order of importance can exist in families when adoption, step children etc become part of it, so it sure as hell can exist in society.

I grew up in the 80s and nobody I knew even considered they could opt to go to university, why didn't the adults / teachers inspire that thought in us ? Because we where the lowest and only destined to work in the mines, the factories, as infantry or if we where lucky learn a trade.

Things are more complicated today I agree, the class system is all mixed up.

Great line in a film, the Chinese gang leader said "You can't find any lads who want to kill people anymore, they all want to go to University"

[taunton-hobbit]

Just to refocus - Chris Squire, who I knew personally, came from a fairly ordinary family & lived in a semi as a child, dad drove a London cab & mum kept house (& made a nifty line in kipper ties for a while).
Jon Anderson grew up in Accrington and started his working life in a series of menial jobs..........

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1450865129' post='2936463']
Sorry Ralph, but I have to pick you up on that.

The whole reason for England's obsession with class is that England more-or-less invented the whole concept and did so WAY before anyone else followed on. The Industrial Revolution was something that happened at different times in different places. It happened first in England (mid-18th century) largely because a substantial, wealthy, well-established Middle Class had already existed for well over a century by then, and had pretty much taken over running the country in the mid-17th century by winning a Civil War against the aristocracy.

By the mid-19th century, when England's innovation was being actively copied across Europe and others were having their own Industrial Revolutions, the Middle Class in Spain, France and Germany was relatively small and politically weak. The appalling destruction of the wars of the 20th century also destroyed any chance of class becoming an obsession in those countries.

Meanwhile in England the class structure which had emerged in the 1640s sailed sublimely on, virtually untouched by three centuries of upheaval and becoming progressively more and more ingrained.

[/lecture]
[/quote]

Not at all, I suspected the seams would show on my limited knowledge! (Must admit I'd always thought even the civil war was fought between two different factions of the aristocracy, so thank you for correcting me on that... )

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1450866598' post='2936490']
Must admit I'd always thought even the civil war was fought between two different factions of the aristocracy ...
[/quote]

The two factions were figure-headed by the aristocracy because, well, that's how things were, and the aristocracy continued to provide the "senior management" right up to WW1.

But the country was effectively ruled by the House of Commons, not by the House of Lords, and the Lords knew better than to challenge the Commons ... it was the Commons that controlled the money you see.

It was all helped by another huge hidden advantage that England had, which was that only the heir to a nobleman was himself a nobleman. All other offspring were gentry, and as such they gave the Middle Class a breeding and status that was denied in countries such as France where every child of a nobleman was also noble.

[mentalextra]

Has anyone mentioned The Stranglers, weren't a couple of them 'posh'?

[Happy Jack]

No, they were gentry.

[Nicko]

The Strokes are all extremely "posh" at least as far as this description can be used for Americans.

[BottomE]

Interesting reading this thread. Class is a strange concept whatever way you look at it. What does it matter? None of us can choose our parents or upbringing. However, if i like a song/band then i like it. Not being someone who reads the music press or has an interest in the "back story" this isn't something that gets in the way of my enjoyment of artists/songs.

[sunburstjazz1967]

We live in a country where people that have a white range rover evoque on a never ending pcp plan declare themselves as middle class, I've no idea if that makes their music any more or less valid but I suppose you can fit an amp and a couple of guitars in the back of one with the seats down.

[yorks5stringer]

[quote name='Nicko' timestamp='1450869552' post='2936538']
The Strokes are all extremely "posh" at least as far as this description can be used for Americans.
[/quote]
I'd say however 'it was different Strokes for different folks'

[PaulWarning]

Music is classless, it gives people from all backgrounds a common interest, lots of bands have mixed 'classes' in them, The Beatles and the Clash to name but two, what I do feel uncomfortable about is people with a privileged upbringing going on about what a miserable disadvantaged life the working classes have, what do they know?