Jay-Z is killing off Glastonbury festival

[vimothy]

Everyone at my school used to like Oasis. I don't think they were ever regarded as a "middle class band" or an "indie band" in the same way that, say, Blur were. Maybe that's just because it's Manchester and Oasis are from Burnage and support City, I dunno.

In the context of this thread, it actually feels like Jay-Z is the more middle class choice. But it's all irrelevant. I'm with whoever said, "you mean there's music at Glastonbury? Fuck me!"

 

[noel emits]

It's rockism, not racism or classism.

There was no official 'dance' tent at Glastonbury until 1995! And there was quite a bit of opposition to that from some quarters despite Orbital playing their big headlining slot the year before and there having been lots of unofficial 'raves' on the site.

 

[Corpsey]

It's rockism, not racism or classism.

I was going to say, I don't think class has much to do with it. Some people just have that sort of attitude towards Hip-Hop. I used to have the same attitude to rock music back when I was 15 and obsessed with Rawkus and Wu Tang...

 

[optimum]

Jay-Z puts on a great live show

 

[tryptych]

This quote from Emily Eavis really pissed me off:

"[Black music] really was bling. And he came along, and him and Mary J Blige carried really important messages in songs. They're really important in a different way to a lot of other hip-hop artists"

so 'black music' is only allowed if it has 'important messages', whereas, say, primal scream will forever be welcome, singing about getting twatted on pills?

Jesus christ, I didn't think I could hate Emily Eavis more, but after that, I do.

 

[bun-u]

It's rockism, not racism or classism.

There was no official 'dance' tent at Glastonbury until 1995! And there was quite a bit of opposition to that from some quarters despite Orbital playing their big headlining slot the year before and there having been lots of unofficial 'raves' on the site.

orbital, chemical brothers, fat boy slim have all had headlining slots without the vitriol reserved for Jay Z - which incidentally was started by the core fanbase on the messageboards after the announcement, not by noel gallagher who was simply laying the boot in once it had all started

 

[jonny mugwump]

i dunno, really this smacks of britpop bullshit- jungle was chucking out the best mutated british pop music of all time over 10 years ago avoiding cliched faces riffs and horrendous union jack guitars- glastonbury has always been hugely eclectic, hardly ever about ROCK music, Gallagher is an irrelevant fool. And always has been.

This has nothing to do with hip hop at all, this is some hideously parochial and outdated idea of what music at festivals... oh god, i can't be bothered....

This has nothing to do with bling, nothing to do with class- this is purely anti- hip hop- the quality of Jay-Z should not even be a factor in this debate.

And how the fuck can glastonbury selling ONLY 100,000 tickets be a failure AND maybe, considering that the festival has never been so big as it has been over the last few years should really raise the consideration that the festival simply has sold out just that little too much and is maybe just a little too NME. Just cool it- you don't need the entire population of the bloody country to be there. And i guess Al Green and Kylie are acceptable even tho they're not rock. Oh, just grow up.

For me, the festival is a surreal zone- not knowing what is next- surely thats the point. Not an endless hellish procession of kaiser chiefs.

I feel so appalled to even get involved in an argument generated by someone who fails to even achieve the status quotidian levels he wants to.

Sigh. Wish i'ld been to the bangface weekender- maybe i wouldn't feel so annoyed.

 

[DRMHCP]

god when i was at university all students seemed to (badly) ape casuals circa 1985 and oasis got played all the time as a kind of hedonistic anthem for drinking cheap booze too.
i hated university - students and britpop created some kind of fucked semi aggressive culture of all the shittiest most boring aspects of british leisure time.

I know just what you mean from my time at university as a mature student in the late '90s. I think it was because the used Oasis etc as an excuse for a kind of vicarious laddism that used to make it so unbearable.
Laddism is unpleasant at the best of times but the kind of NME sponsored fake laddism that these students used to wallow in with Oasis and bands like them as the soundtrack was as bad as it gets. You know the kind of blokes...acting aggressively and boorishly in the student disco/festival enviornment because there were usually no real hard lads around and they could get away with it (big fish in a small pond). I also saw it with real clarity a few years later when i worked at the Leeds festival in 2003/04- drunken middle class prats abusing locals (just because they could) in Tadcaster from the safety of their cars.
Yes Oasis have got a lot to answer for...

 

[luka]

everytime i go on facebook it tells me i should be friends with the boy who wrote that guardian blog thing even though i've never met him and nobody i know has ever met him...

it's a bit weird. mos dan, are you the same person? we definityly have never met have we?

 

[noel emits]

orbital, chemical brothers, fat boy slim have all had headlining slots

Your point?

Just kidding, these are all very 'rock' friendly 'dance' acts, though.

I guess this is just some random thing that has kicked off after a load of people got behind the loud opinions of a few others. There was no such fuss when other hip-hop groups have played. But then De La Soul, The Roots, Cypress Hill etc. all at the rock-ist compatible end of hip-hop.

I'm not a Jay-Z fan so I would say this but there does seem something a little odd about his playing a headline slot, I'm just not sure what it is. Maybe it would really work, I don't know what he'd be doing, but I think people perhaps feel they want something a little but utopian and idealistic to symbolise Glastonbury? Does Jay-Z's live show fit that bill"?

" Erm, obviously not to say that Oarseis would exactly provide this

 

[Mr. Tea]

Just kidding, these are all very 'rock' frindly 'dance' acts, though.

Go on, say it: "Big Beat". (*snigger* )

 

[noel emits]

Well I didn't put scare quotes around 'dance' for that reason, I just find it to be a bit of a dodgy term generally.

But surely we can rescue something from the big beat dustbin?

 

[Benny Bunter]

Now Dizzee Rascal's wading in to the debate...

 

[PeteUM]

This is annoying me. Glastonbury should be about 20000 people and most of them should be crusties. It should look a bit like it's been drawn by someone at 2000AD. It should be kind of exhilarating in a post-apocalyptic kind of way, and drugs should play a major, major role. It should be a vision of an alternative society run by skanky anarchists and there should be a bloody great hole in the fence. Above all, Hawkwind should be playing. It's pretty fucking simple. What is wrong with you people?

 

[jonny mugwump]

ha- never a truer word spoken

 

[slim jenkins]

This is annoying me. Glastonbury should be about 20000 people and most of them should be crusties. It should look a bit like it's been drawn by someone at 2000AD. It should be kind of exhilarating in a post-apocalyptic kind of way, and drugs should play a major, major role. It should be a vision of an alternative society run by skanky anarchists and there should be a bloody great hole in the fence. Above all, Hawkwind should be playing. It's pretty fucking simple. What is wrong with you people?

My idea of hell. Then again, it's my idea of hell as it is.

 

[noel emits]

Don't think I've been since '98 but that's not all that far from my experience of the place before that one, as long as you avoided the main stage area anyway. I guess it's changed quite a bit huh?

 

[gumdrops]

This quote from Emily Eavis really pissed me off:

"[Black music] really was bling. And he came along, and him and Mary J Blige carried really important messages in songs. They're really important in a different way to a lot of other hip-hop artists"

so 'black music' is only allowed if it has 'important messages', whereas, say, primal scream will forever be welcome, singing about getting twatted on pills?

LOLOL@emily

jay-z WAS bling! he was one of the main artists that made it intrinsically hip hop.

i think if someone like the roots was headlining, gallagher and co would have less of a problem (not just cos they are a band). obv the roots are less of a big name than jay-z but i think the glasto crowd would be as familiar (ie not very much) with jigga as the roots' songs. the weirdest thing about this booking is that if jay-z has been booked to 'draw a younger crowd', why not book other 'unusual' glasto artists that might appeal to jay-z or hip hop fans too? why not a few other rappers, or erykah badu and mos def and dangelo or bilal or someone? theres a lot of artists they could have booked but dimwits like emily eavis obv have no clue about black/urban music so just went for jigga. still, i look forward to seeing the crowd react to 'money cash hoes' or 'money aint a thing' lol.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

I know just what you mean from my time at university as a mature student in the late '90s. I think it was because the used Oasis etc as an excuse for a kind of vicarious laddism that used to make it so unbearable.
Laddism is unpleasant at the best of times but the kind of NME sponsored fake laddism that these students used to wallow in with Oasis and bands like them as the soundtrack was as bad as it gets. You know the kind of blokes...acting aggressively and boorishly in the student disco/festival enviornment because there were usually no real hard lads around and they could get away with it (big fish in a small pond). I also saw it with real clarity a few years later when i worked at the Leeds festival in 2003/04- drunken middle class prats abusing locals (just because they could) in Tadcaster from the safety of their cars.
Yes Oasis have got a lot to answer for...

Universities are inherantly conservative institutions, and a lot of what goes on in them is about teaching young people how to behave in a middle class way. Students are just about the most homogenous group in society in terms of dress, activities and political and cultural views.

'Real' lads are a far more diverse bunch IME. Because they tend to do crap jobs which demand very little of them psychologically, they have a huge amount of energy to put into thier passions, which can be anything from gabba to coarse fishing. And most real lads don't see anything 'edgy' about violence, having generally been exposed to it from a younger age than middle class milksops. In football for example, the ringleaders in the trouble are often interlopers from the middle class who are trying to buy into the whole package.

 

[gumdrops]

I guess this is just some random thing that has kicked off after a load of people got behind the loud opinions of a few others. There was no such fuss when other hip-hop groups have played. But then De La Soul, The Roots, Cypress Hill etc. all at the rock-ist compatible end of hip-hop.

none of those hip hop acts were headliners though were they? they were somewhere else on the bill or on another stage. plus that was a time when mags like the nme or whoever would maybe run a bit on more rappers than they do these days.