Common People: Tony Blair seducing Britpop

Tony Blair silmultaneously showing Noel Gallagher his guitar stance and sex face. Gross

Wow, it certainly is interesting to see how a blog topic can mutate and change from its inception to production. I was originally planning a historical outlook at the relationship between music and politics in modern history, how each has influenced, benefited or harmed the other. That will still get a look in, but since we’re strapped for space, I’m gonna push towards a more insane rant regarding Tony Blair and New Labour’s courting of the Britpop movement.

Politics have certainly been an important part of music ever since musicians have been pissed off about things. Guiseppe Verdi’s ‘Nabubboc’ opera of 1814 has been cited as a very early example as a call to arms to Italians against Austrian domination (Moldenhauer, Hans and Rosaleen). From Pete Seeger to Dylan to The Doors to U2 the The Dead Kennedys to Arcade Fire, political or ‘protest’ songs (although I generally wince at that limp-wristed description) have seeped their way into the general consciousness, with varied results. I may be dangerously overgeneralising, but the combined power of most of these songs still have very little influence over a hegemonic political system, as much as they would hate to admit it. For all of Rage Against The Machine’s political ire and vitriol towards commercial greed, have they managed to overthrow, or even slow down, capitalism? I ask anyone who witnessed 20,000+ flag-wearing bogans shouting out “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” blindly at this year’s Big Day Out to argue that they’ve done much to manipulate ideologies.

It’s much more likely for politics to influence music, rather than the other way around. This may be in obvious ways like licensing laws, venue restrictions, culture building or whatever. I wouldn’t paint myself as a Marxist far enough to say that the economy and political structure control everything, but it’s not that far off. The other way is for politicians to actually just be seen WITH musicians (or subcultural types) for personal gain. John F. Kennedy hanging out with Hunter S Thompson, Mark Latham enlisting Peter Garrett, these are never altruistic acts.

Like the name suggests, New Labour was all about being ‘new’, fresh and vibrant. After 20 years of conservative rule, Britain was in shambles. The country was in a recession, strikes and riots were frequent and the youth were virtually ignored. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to introduce a fresh new vision of the Labour party. But how would they ever gain the support of those darn young kids who basically didn’t give a shit anymore? Oh, hey! We’ve got Tony Blair! Yeah, he owns a guitar, let’s have a photo of him strumming it! He smoked pot in college? Great, let’s leak it to the press! Then let’s have him chatting to Damon Albarn about schools funding (Harris)! Genius, good work people, let’s knock off and head home to the pub…

And it worked. Ridiculously well. Blair took a landslide victory, Noel Gallagher went to the afterparty and shook hand with the new Prime Minister and Damon Albarn sulked because he thought they'd actually be asked about policy implementation. And therein lay the genius of the deception. These young musicians were disaffected, distant from all generations preceding it...what they were really looking for was ways to make change. That's what the music was about (to some extent, even if the change was as little as 'taking back music from America'), so of course if some well-dressed educated Labour minister shakes your hand and asks for you thoughts, they were highly likely to go along with it. I probably would.

But when you really think about it - what Britpop was about - the thought of Blair getting chummy with Jarvis Cocker or Albarn is quite ridiculous. The music of that time and its figureheads were rather set on distancing themselves from the past (England and abroad) and carving out their own little world. So to see a political leader, a good decade older than even Cocker, show up at the Brit Awards to announce his love of Oasis would have made CCCS scholars empty their bowels. Did Margaret Thatcher want to invite Sid Vicious around for tea? Was Nixon seen passing the peace pipe to Jerry Garcia? If you have photos, I’ll pay handsomely for copies.

Ok, I’m under deadline for Rave, people are barking at me like rabid mongeese, so I’ll be brief. Just this once. The state needs to keep its dirty fingers off of music, just as it should (in theory) for religion. It’s sleazy, there’s power struggles that mount on top of each other in an already cutthroat industry and all you really end up with is some awful metaphors where boats equal the government and band X are an iceberg. And P Diddy telling people to ‘Vote or die’. Bravo.

Head on over to The Guardian for some more memorable moments of politicians wishing they could be rock stars and rock stars pretending they’re not stoned out of their minds.

Harris, Andrew, (2001), The Last Party: Blair, Britpop and the Demise of English Rock

Moldenhauer, Hans and Rosaleen (1978), Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work