is music too middle class?

[DLaurent]

I think you could make the same arguments for film/art/literature, unless talking film noir of course that's pure grittiness from the golden era of crime stories. A lot uninitiated think it's black and white so it must be all about cut glass accents having only seen a few British films!

In all seriousness I have struggled with class before on a personal level, I went to a grammar school in an area listed on wiki as in the top ten most deprived in the UK. In reality it was just another area of Birmingham. I think it mattered less 20 or 30 years ago pre internet unless you get into the realms of criticism, and not lived experience. I've been to London and everywhere seemed middle class.

 

[DLaurent]

To elaborate... had some jobs (inventory clerk) in Stepney and Wapping and was blown away by the 'luxury apartments'. Was in some area of North West London that seemed rough though, and almost got mugged as soon as I got out my car to collect my speakers from a mate in Lewisham.

I had an arch enemy at school that ended up getting a scholarship to Eton College. That's how good our school was. I googled him a few years ago and he was on YouTube doing stand up about how kids at Eton asked him to come to their room to listen to 'gararge' music.

 

[entertainment]

To what degree are the people doing the middle class bashing actually middle class themselves?

I don't pretend to understand class in Britain but I sometimes get a sense of self conscious anxiety about these rituals and would assume people from the actual working class would be somewhat put off by the whole thing

 

[entertainment]

I am middle class myself, of course, if such a thing exists in Denmark, but instead of the self-abasing routine when someone brings it up, I make a mock crying face and say "Awww did someone not get to go on holiday to Sharm El Sheik?"

 

[IdleRich]

bizarre thread this. All culture is bourgeois cos we live in bourgeois society. The proletarian dictatorship will suppress your public school mates from politically and culturally assembling, of course. there is nothing particularly wrong with this, and any violence from the deposed class will have to be met with violence, though ideally it would be better to phase the reproduction mechanisms of the middle classes out of existence rather than develop some kind of bizarre genocidal gun fantasy.

But less fun.

So yes, dance music journalists will not be able to have the freedom of press. More the better. it is better for them to work as electrical engineers anyway, as I'm sure Liza would agree. @IdleRich I mean just look at this abomination!

https://mixmag.net/feature/we-went-on-a-five-day-tech-house-cruise-and-it-broke-us

jesus wept.

I'll ask her. But first, with that glowing recommendation, I'll need to read that article.

 

[IdleRich]

View attachment 13995

Who is this guy?

 

[version]

Who is this guy?

Corpsey's been posting here for years, Rich.

 

[IdleRich]

To what degree are the people doing the middle class bashing actually middle class themselves?

Certainly the middle-class do this.

Also, remember that "the middle-class" is often split into "lower middle-claas" etc We were talking about Mike Leigh in at least one thread and, while his play Abigail's Party was (and is) loved by almost all critics, a significant dissenting voicec was that of Dennis Potter who said that it was a genuinely spiteful and vicious attack on the lower middle-class - and I think he's right. But even if you don't agree with his analysis, the play definitely does make a thing of "lower middle-class" and concentrates on this group.

I don't pretend to understand class in Britain but I sometimes get a sense of self conscious anxiety about these rituals and would assume people from the actual working class would be somewhat put off by the whole thing

Honestly I reckon that, as a rule, every class hates the others, its only the middle-class that hates itself too.

 

[IdleRich]

Corpsey's been posting here for years, Rich.

Really? I've never seen him - does he write very bland, generic stuff?

 

[IdleRich]

One more thing about public schools - there was this girl I used to go out with and her brother was an accountant or something and had enough money to send his kids to a fee-paying school, which pissed her off straight away and it was always good for an argument at family get togethers, especially cos he was always moaning about how much it cost and how he had no money. So she would say "Well why don't you send them to the local school like one we fucking went to and save the money?"and then he would get really serious and say, as though it was a brilliant point that won the argument in one move " But we were at the same school as people who went to prison".


When I heard that I thought to myself "Well if it was anything like where I grew up almost everyone in the town went to the same school, and inevitably some people in the town went to prison so that was hardly a surprise".

 

[Dusty]

As a lower-middle class Englishman I have just about scraped together the funds to send my boy to private school, it's noodles for dinner for the next year but I've done it. But now you have made me feel like a right cunt Rich, so thanks for that.

 

[Corpsey]

Also, remember that "the middle-class" is often split into "lower middle-claas" etc We were talking about Mike Leigh in at least one thread and, while his play Abigail's Party was (and is) loved by almost all critics, a significant dissenting voicec was that of Dennis Potter who said that it was a genuinely spiteful and vicious attack on the lower middle-class - and I think he's right. But even if you don't agree with his analysis, the play definitely does make a thing of "lower middle-class" and concentrates on this group.

Coincidentally while looking through old threads yesterday I came across this one where k-punk is laying into Mike Leigh for his representations of the working class:

Why Mike Leigh is a blight on British cinema

Pleased to see that the sacred cow Mike Leigh got a long overdue slaying in the Sunday Times yesterday. Minette Marrin dared to break ranks with the near unanimous consensus and proclaim the obvious: that Leigh's films are intellectually lazy, stereotype-ridden, patronizing and simplistic...

dissensus.com

 

[Corpsey]

To what degree are the people doing the middle class bashing actually middle class themselves?

I don't pretend to understand class in Britain but I sometimes get a sense of self conscious anxiety about these rituals and would assume people from the actual working class would be somewhat put off by the whole thing

Middle Class Self Loathing

Any good articles/books about this phenomenon? It's a feeling I'm intimately acquainted with, and it occurred to me as a point of discussion when reading tributes to K Punk which made reference to his pride in being working class. I feel I naturally, unthinkingly inherited it, without ever...

dissensus.com

 

[thirdform]

Middle Class Self Loathing

Any good articles/books about this phenomenon? It's a feeling I'm intimately acquainted with, and it occurred to me as a point of discussion when reading tributes to K Punk which made reference to his pride in being working class. I feel I naturally, unthinkingly inherited it, without ever...

dissensus.com

k-punk was socioeconomically and culturally working class, totally, but politically he was as middle class as they come.

Conversely Engels, whilst socioeconomically being a bourgeois industrialist, was solidly on the proletarian political line.

The british obsession with class pride is an intensely inhibiting factor in developing a political consciousness. The correct scientific orientation is always thinner than as-sirayt, and requires one to subtract all moralistic and romantic considerations.

Behave yourself corpsey and go back to your books!

as-Sirāt - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[boxedjoy]

class shapes consumption - or at least, money and privilege does. I can guarantee you that the people who go out clubbing on a Friday night and stay out til Monday morning every week are not people who work in industries like catering or retail because logistically it would just be impossible. This means that the scenes you can participate in, the connections you can make, the sheer joy of hedonism and escape - it's all only truly freely available to a certain type of consumer.

 

[IdleRich]

As a lower-middle class Englishman I have just about scraped together the funds to send my boy to private school, it's noodles for dinner for the next year but I've done it. But now you have made me feel like a right cunt Rich, so thanks for that.

Sorry.

One thing I will say is that I was lucky to live in an area where the local comp was ok, if it is terrible then you can find yourself facing a moral dilemma.

I think it's one of those things where I hate the system. I don't think that there should be public schools, but given that they exist and we have to live in that world then we have to make decisions on that basis.

In other words, I do think that, although at first it looks like hypocrisy, it may be an entirely consistent position to say "I don't think public schools should exist, but they do and so, given that I want my child to have the best life possible, I choose to send them to a fee paying school".

 

[wild greens]

class shapes consumption - or at least, money and privilege does. I can guarantee you that the people who go out clubbing on a Friday night and stay out til Monday morning every week are not people who work in industries like catering or retail because logistically it would just be impossible. This means that the scenes you can participate in, the connections you can make, the sheer joy of hedonism and escape - it's all only truly freely available to a certain type of consumer.

Perhaps but that doesnt necessarily mean that a specific "class" is excluded- generally if you're in retail or catering then you're the same class background as apprentice/nvq led trades, your bricklayers, scaffolders, sparkys, plumbers etc

If what we're saying is that the service industry has less opportunity for hedonism, then i'm still unsure. When we were kids my mates working in retail would be out till 6 friday Saturday regardless of work the next day, just depends on your constitution in a sense, though there is probably a point where your body can't take it.

Never done catering can't answer that one but you are probably right, food prep on a comedown no thanks

 

[boxedjoy]

oh I've done my share of turning up for shifts after heavy nights, but it's not sustainable long-term at all, even if you can manage to "survive" it your colleagues and your managers know fine well what's going on. I reigned it in before it became a problem but I know plenty of folk who became casualties of trying to cram a week of life into two days.

 

[Mr. Tea]

class shapes consumption - or at least, money and privilege does. I can guarantee you that the people who go out clubbing on a Friday night and stay out til Monday morning every week are not people who work in industries like catering or retail because logistically it would just be impossible. This means that the scenes you can participate in, the connections you can make, the sheer joy of hedonism and escape - it's all only truly freely available to a certain type of consumer.

That's true, but is it any more true of the sort of blue-collar jobs you mention than it is of a typical white-collar desk job?

 

[IdleRich]

@Dusty - how does he find it?