Well, it’s that time again…a time to doff your cap and bow to the royal sunshine… a time to lick the back of the Queen’s head and post a donation to the corgi society… a time to polish off your royal mugs and wave your dishcloths above your head and toast the royal couple….. yeah right!
Flashback to June 1977 and The Queen’s Silver Jubilee. That was also the day the Sex Pistols attempted to play from a boat named ‘Queen Elizabeth’ aside Westminster Palace on old father Thames. The performance was halted as the boys were fingered by the long arm of the law.
‘God Save The Queen’ was a massive anti-establishment anthem that certainly got some people hot under the collar… including the BBC, who banned it from the radio. Even so it reach number 2 in the UK charts amidst accusations that there had been some fiddling by the Beeb in order to keep it off the number one slot.
Oh happy days….
…It’s true what Laurence says, but God, how depressing that we now feel a sense of nostalgia for times when there was a voice for change, and an undeniable music force that would not be silenced. We have some great bands today, but most of the truly exceptional talents to have emerged in recent times (Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, Deerhunter, Animal Collective etc.) are American, and deal more with personal politics, rather than the big picture. Admittedly, Arcade Fire wrestle with political fallout, but theirs is a grim reporting of alienation in the modern world, seen from the edge of society’s margins. The British bands who do have something to say, (The Supernovas and Krakatoa are among the best) are not big enough to make a national impact…
As for Britain’s bigger acts, we are hardly likely to see Mumford And Sons or Adele extolling the virtues of anarchy, and with reality TV now an accepted part of the British cultural diet, voices of resentment and retaliation are in short supply. Where is this generation’s Sex Pistols, Clash or The Smiths? I don’t just mean retreads of those bands’ sound or imagery, but where are the genuinely disaffected musical heroes, urging their compatriots and generational terrorists forward into battle? You’ve all gone very quiet out there…
‘This is Joe Public speaking: C-O-N, Control!’
THE CLASH, Complete Control, 1977
