UK middle class rock singers

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Why don't they ever sing in their normal, received pronunciation accents? I mean, northern acts can sing in a northern accent. Cockney singers can sing in a cockney accent. But middle-class people almost never sing in their normal accents, unless their primary register is ironical and whimsical. Freddy Mercury sounded incredibly posh in interviews, but adopted a sort of mid-atlantic accent for singing. There's Mick Jagger's curious southern twang. There's Damon Albarn's mockney. Thom Yorke also sounds very posh but adopts a sort of lower-middle class whiny accent for singing. There's Elton John's ghastly approximation of a West Coast accent. Is rock so classist that it basically becomes impossible for singers to be openly middle class?

(just thought of a counter-example: Pink Floyd)

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

James Hillier-Blount sings in a posh accent, right?

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Thom Yorke also sounds very posh but adopts a sort of lower-middle class whiny accent for singing.

really? hmm

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Very few people sing in their "normal" accents. There's an element of contrivance if they do, as well as if they don't. The way people sing has got a lot more to do with the music they grow up listening to than the way they talk to their parents. Class in 2006 is a far more complicated construct than "all speak like a 1950s BBC announcer". The Arctic Monkeys' singer is Middle Class, but I don't think he's necessarily "faking" his accent.

― Raw, Uncompromising, and Noodly (noodle vague), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

Very few people sing in their "normal" accents.

I accept this: rock is theatrical and that encompasses accent as well. But it seems to me that there is still a definite flight from the middle-class accent. A lot of regional or working-class accents play around a lot with their accents, sometimes singing in an Americanised accent, sometimes their native Scouse or Mancunian or whatever. And I think they were doing that right from the start (Beatles for example). But it's much harder to find middle-class acts who sometimes slip into a middle-class accent, unless they're attempting something jokey and self-deprecating.

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

A lot of regional or working-class accents = A lot of regional or working-class acts

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

Have you ever met, or even heard - outside of the royal family - anyone who actually spoke, in casual conversation in a "normal, received pronunciation accents"?

Even genuine poshos like Charlie Eyebrows (nee Busted) speak in this kind of clipped, vowelless voice which is nothing like the BBC radio announcer/Shakespearian RP.

― I'm Not Afraid Of Electricity (kate), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

Also, what's up with folk singers? Don't they know that the majority of their songs were written before the Great Vowel Shift, yet they sing them in hokey local accents?

― I'm Not Afraid Of Electricity (kate), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:14 (nineteen years ago)

OK, 'received pronunciation' is a red herring. Even Prince Harry speaks some species of Estuary these days. What I mean is clearly middle-class or upper-middle-class accents. And these still do exist don't they?

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

Indeed, very few people speak received pronounciation these days. Not even the Queen, really. Brian Sewell maybe. (xpost)

The most middle class singing voice I can think of is Nick Drake.

― bham, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

And look where that got him.

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:26 (nineteen years ago)

Neil Tenant?

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

Bryan Ferry? Even though he was Northern.

All the 80s synth pop singers like Spandau Ballet and ABC sang with RP accents.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

Middle class British isn't too rock'n'roll, so I guess there is a classist element to the rock mythos. But there's a wider problem with the British accent in general in rock I think. Yes, working-class Londoners can sing in cockney, but when they do it's still often for comic effect. Northerners don't sing in Northern for comic effect, but they're nonetheless almost always making a point with their accent, ie that there's something determinedly local and inward-looking about their concerns. Bands that sing generalised songs are less likely to sing in a regional accent, bands that sing about the particularities of being young and British are more likely to adopt a regional accent. There's no real 'neutral' rock accent that is also British. In fact, the most 'neutral' accent for a British singer is a transatlantic one.

― jz, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

It's an interesting point that synth pop singers could sing middle class. Because synth pop was exactly the kind of music that Beavis and Butthead would slag off as "fag music". There is a masculinity thing bound up with accent too I suspect.

― JBC, Monday, 6 March 2006 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

Possibly Syd Barrett, although his singing accent verged on Australian for some reason.

James Hillier-Blount sings in a posh accent, right?

Nah, he affects an Americal accent: B'yoodifahhhl...

― Jez (Jez), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry that should read American. I've obviously lived in Bristol too long.

― Jez (Jez), Monday, 6 March 2006 14:52 (nineteen years ago)

I want to hear Tricky sing in RP.

― Mike W (caek), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:00 (nineteen years ago)

xp- Nick Drake didn't sing in a middle class accent, he sang in an upper class accent. Because he refused to slum it.

― snotty moore, Monday, 6 March 2006 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

The middle classes shouldn't be allowed to make rock'n'roll.

I'm still reeling from a great quote I read from one of Keane who said that no one knows how hard it is to form a band at public school.

― sonicred (sonicred), Monday, 6 March 2006 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

Brian Eno?

― toby the twat, Monday, 6 March 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

Bryan Ferry wasn't middle class

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 10:28 (nineteen years ago)

Ferry's dad took care of pit ponies (used in mining). Common as muck, like!

― Louis Balfour (Louis Balfour), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:17 (nineteen years ago)

The middle classes shouldn't be allowed to make rock'n'roll.

Ah well, no Beatles, Stones, Who or Dylan then.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

Or Doors, Velvet Underground, Can, Kraftwerk etc etc etc

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:38 (nineteen years ago)

Annie Lennox and Neil Tennant to thread.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:38 (nineteen years ago)

Were the Beatles middle class though? As for Dylan, he may have been middle class but he certainly felt the need to pretend he wasn't in the early days.

― jz, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:40 (nineteen years ago)

Ringo wasn't middle class, that's for sure

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

I can see nothing to suggest Neil Tennant came from anything other than a working class background, Geir. He went to a Catholic comprehensive and then went to a polytechnic. Unless you assume the working class are all criminals, and by extension anyone who isn't a criminal must be middle class?

The dude's from fucking Newcastle.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:42 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't he from Durham?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

Wikipedia says North Shields. The absolutely dreadful article about the PSBs in GQ this month says Newcastle.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

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