is music too middle class?

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
i would personally just substitute middle class for middle of the road. though maybe the problem is that theyre too interchangeable.
Middle-class covers an absolutely massive range of stuff doesn't it. I mean, if you're talking about actual middle class people rather than the convenient lazy shorthand.

Stephanie Thornton makes a really interesting point in Club Cultures that club scenes almost always have disapproving attitudes relating to class - "Sharon and Tracey", "middle class students", "chavs" etc - often within the same scene, and suggests that the fundamental disapproval relates less to the class itself than to people who can't transcend their class by identifying with the subculture.
 

outraygeous

Well-known member
Not just music. A lot of things but middle class is the wrong term / grouping or what ever.

Its a massive subject but no one can really tackle it. What is middle class anyways? It too hard to put a finger on it now.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Class is a feeling.

Seriously, I've been living in households with under 20 K a year incomes for the past decade, you don't see me suddenly getting less interested in Xennakis or whatever in order to go see Three Days Grace.

I'd throw out a reference more understandable for you guys, but you claim everything is middle-class at a certain point.

Ex: "OH, GRIME'S JUST MUSIC FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS NOW."
 

connect_icut

Well-known member
Just about everything good in music comes from the interzone between the upper working class and the lower middle class.

Prob'ly.
 

bruno

est malade
all good music and art comes from a place where class is meaningless. the people who carved the old greek friezes were what we would call lower class, yet the form and beauty of these things is the highest human achievement, the same applies to music.

the obsession with class is the least flattering aspect of a culture, it's ugly in a way that music can never be (unless it's tiesto or something like that).
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
all good music and art comes from a place where class is meaningless. the people who carved the old greek friezes were what we would call lower class, yet the form and beauty of these things is the highest human achievement, the same applies to music.

:eek:
 

bruno

est malade
i honestly can't see what is wrong with what i've said. the idea of class exists, it's the subject of the thread, and i've just said that i think it (or race, or any other arbitrary division) is not where (good) music comes from, all the things that make good art are higher than these divisions and can be accessed by anyone regardless of social standing, etc. these things are petty, ugly, and music/art transcends them. you may not agree with this, but it's what i believe.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Not just music. A lot of things but middle class is the wrong term / grouping or what ever.

i agree but i cant think of a better grouping other than middle of the road.

you should write a book you're wasted here gumdrops

while i appreciate your sarcasm, i think there is something going here. i just dont have time to write a big post about it right now. and tbh i find it hard to flesh it out actually. a problem with discussing class is how malleable and transitory it can be for a lot of people, and how difficult it can be to really nail down a definition of. its also a very emotive subject and people dont like to talk about it. even i dont really love talking about it either, but doesnt mean it has no relevance (how can anyone claim to be interested in 'nuum' music and not think about class or race for that matter at all?!). thats much too easy. but in no way was i saying something like 'middle class people shouldnt be in music' cos a lot of my favourite hip-hop artists for example are m/c (pe, rakim, busta, de la soul, etc etc and im not that fussed that joe strummer was the son of a diplomat cos the clash still made some good records) but i do sometimes wonder if in british culture, its perhaps tipped in that direction a little bit too much. im just interested in the correlation between 'middle class values' being so predominant across the media/british culture at the moment in so many ways and how this might have affected music (i should prob have put british in the subject header).

anyway, im hardly posing a new idea.
heres some older articles -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/oct/28/popandrock (this one romanticises rock and w/c musicians in the typical rock journalist way but prob still has a point even though its a bit old now)

Of course, this isn't a totally new thing. Loaded kids have always wanted a taste of the rock action, and for every Oasis, there's always been a Blur. But the posh quota has definitely shot up in recent times. The first sign of this was probably The Strokes, whose streetwise NYC credentials actually began at L'institut le Rosey, a private boys' school in Switzerland. Now it's come so far that Lily Allen is allowed to lecture us about everyday life despite being raised on the, umm, "mean streets" of Islington.

kind of related - jimmy mcgovern on w/c representation in modern tv -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/nov/07/jimmy-mcgovern-tv-drama-irony
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/aug/27/broadcasting.uknews

McGovern also revealed that he recently nearly abandoned an unnamed writing project for the BBC when he began to feel he was being overlooked in favour of rival "posh" writers. "I downed tools for a while because some other writer was being treated better than me."

The writer, who was born into a large working class family in Liverpool, said that class is still central to everything he writes. "It informs everything. And personally, to me it is still a problem. I have met a lot of people in my life, but there are still lots of situations in which I am ill at ease because I am working class."

According to McGovern, too many television executives "think they are better than the average television viewer" and as a result they try to give them the dramas they think they will want. "So you get this regurgitation of the same sort of thing," he explained. "I am 60 years of age now and white and working class and if a story appeals to me, then probably lots of people will find it appealing too and the reason for telling the story will become clear as they watch."
 
Last edited:
Top