It is too “old” rather than middle class. Not actually helped by bands like Oasis carrying on long after they were relevant and acts like him having a rather dreary solo career. There is also the constant question of authenticity in rock which just starts to alienate young people. Cost is a barrier, relevance too – if a young person in the UK wants to make music what is going to inspire them? It will be hip hop and electronic music, not plodding rock music. It lost the danger element years ago too.
It was shite for the most part even when I was in uni. Bands like Kaiser Chiefs, Pigeon Detectives, The Futurists etc. And I’ve always disliked Oasis for being the type of derivative dad-rock that I despise.
There’s always been a lot of lower-middle class rock and pop musicians, but British pop music is obsessed with “cool”, and there’s nothing cool about being middle class, so a lot of them were passed off as working class.
He *is* right that music is now elitist, but it’s not just the working class that’s been frozen out, the lower-middle class has been too. And he’s right that it’s at least partly about the cost of being one, because no longer can you afford to be a “starving artist” in a city without being independently wealthy, which has caused the proliferation of socially and economically privileged musicians. Gentrification has pretty much ruined music by making the places where it happened inaccessible and homogeneous.
I think as well, rock music suffers from a cultural shift in the internet age, and the death of the shared cultural experience, everything is too diffuse for trends to emerge organically as much as they used to, and so the industry no longer has anything dictating it and so dictates itself, and because it’s focused on profit now focuses largely on the safe and tested.
>working class kids now can’t afford to start a band.
He writes good tunes but he’s not half full of shit.
I remember reading about the formation of Brazilian metal band Sepultura. The two founding members are brothers who grew up in abject poverty in Belo Horizonte, and first started jamming together with a drum kit they pieced together from containers and shit that they found at the dump.
Working class people can’t start a band my arse.
Taken at face value, this is extremely good news. Who wants another Oasis? On further investigation, it’s exactly the kind of delusional, bitter bollocks you’d expect from Noel.
I’m in my 60’s which might explain it, but he is using ‘rock’ in a different way to me, oasis were always a pop band.
That’s fine you filled that space and no remake is ever good, long live oasis
Conflating Rock and the middle classes doesn’t sound like anything new here.
Anecdotally, when I was 13 at school the idea of an estate or working class kid who listened to stuff like SOAD, green day, Muse and the rock/indie 00s lot would have been actively unusual. These, and the entire alternative teen aesthetic, were firmly an adolescent experience you would see in the leafy suburbs.
This was almost 20 years ago.
I disagree. Budget instruments are significantly better than they were 10-20 years ago and even cheaper if you go second hand. You can record an album in your bedroom and publish it on youtube without having to spend a penny on rehearsal rooms and recording studios.
Talking absolute shit. ‘rock’ music, like most, transcends class completely. I don’t know what he thinks rock is though, as Oasis are absolutely not rock… Maybe he means overrated pop music?
Are Oasis rock? Maybe that’s what they think they are but I always considered them Britpop.
Motley crue, Guns N Roses, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chilli Peppers etc, they’re rock music to me.
Oasis were just a bunch of soft twats that the middle class love.
Dunno why this is downvoted. The whole music industry is filled with Brit school types these days. I don’t listen to more rap/rnb types of music but you only need to see festivals that kids out there still like guitar music but hardly any new bands these days and those that are are not working class.
Has he heard his own solo stuff? He had a woman playing scissors on Jools Holland. If it’s gone middle class he’s contributed to it.
it’s not just rock, noel gallagher himself has become too middle class for there to be another oasis
14 comments
It is too “old” rather than middle class. Not actually helped by bands like Oasis carrying on long after they were relevant and acts like him having a rather dreary solo career. There is also the constant question of authenticity in rock which just starts to alienate young people. Cost is a barrier, relevance too – if a young person in the UK wants to make music what is going to inspire them? It will be hip hop and electronic music, not plodding rock music. It lost the danger element years ago too.
It was shite for the most part even when I was in uni. Bands like Kaiser Chiefs, Pigeon Detectives, The Futurists etc. And I’ve always disliked Oasis for being the type of derivative dad-rock that I despise.
There’s always been a lot of lower-middle class rock and pop musicians, but British pop music is obsessed with “cool”, and there’s nothing cool about being middle class, so a lot of them were passed off as working class.
He *is* right that music is now elitist, but it’s not just the working class that’s been frozen out, the lower-middle class has been too. And he’s right that it’s at least partly about the cost of being one, because no longer can you afford to be a “starving artist” in a city without being independently wealthy, which has caused the proliferation of socially and economically privileged musicians. Gentrification has pretty much ruined music by making the places where it happened inaccessible and homogeneous.
I think as well, rock music suffers from a cultural shift in the internet age, and the death of the shared cultural experience, everything is too diffuse for trends to emerge organically as much as they used to, and so the industry no longer has anything dictating it and so dictates itself, and because it’s focused on profit now focuses largely on the safe and tested.
>working class kids now can’t afford to start a band.
He writes good tunes but he’s not half full of shit.
I remember reading about the formation of Brazilian metal band Sepultura. The two founding members are brothers who grew up in abject poverty in Belo Horizonte, and first started jamming together with a drum kit they pieced together from containers and shit that they found at the dump.
Working class people can’t start a band my arse.
Taken at face value, this is extremely good news. Who wants another Oasis? On further investigation, it’s exactly the kind of delusional, bitter bollocks you’d expect from Noel.
I’m in my 60’s which might explain it, but he is using ‘rock’ in a different way to me, oasis were always a pop band.
That’s fine you filled that space and no remake is ever good, long live oasis
Conflating Rock and the middle classes doesn’t sound like anything new here.
Anecdotally, when I was 13 at school the idea of an estate or working class kid who listened to stuff like SOAD, green day, Muse and the rock/indie 00s lot would have been actively unusual. These, and the entire alternative teen aesthetic, were firmly an adolescent experience you would see in the leafy suburbs.
This was almost 20 years ago.
I disagree. Budget instruments are significantly better than they were 10-20 years ago and even cheaper if you go second hand. You can record an album in your bedroom and publish it on youtube without having to spend a penny on rehearsal rooms and recording studios.
Talking absolute shit. ‘rock’ music, like most, transcends class completely. I don’t know what he thinks rock is though, as Oasis are absolutely not rock… Maybe he means overrated pop music?
Are Oasis rock? Maybe that’s what they think they are but I always considered them Britpop.
Motley crue, Guns N Roses, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chilli Peppers etc, they’re rock music to me.
Oasis were just a bunch of soft twats that the middle class love.
Dunno why this is downvoted. The whole music industry is filled with Brit school types these days. I don’t listen to more rap/rnb types of music but you only need to see festivals that kids out there still like guitar music but hardly any new bands these days and those that are are not working class.
Has he heard his own solo stuff? He had a woman playing scissors on Jools Holland. If it’s gone middle class he’s contributed to it.
it’s not just rock, noel gallagher himself has become too middle class for there to be another oasis