Marketing And Pop

It might come as a surprise to you Tom but several bands don't have a marketing plan. Those are generally the ones that I like and I've found very few exceptions so far... By the way, who should be blamed for introducing marketing in the world of pop music? I'd say the Monkees, who were among the first manufactured bands.

Back to your question now (you knew my point of view already ;-)... and besides that, the Monkees were great compared to today's prefab bands): I'd say Hear'say (they have brought cynical chart-focused pop to new heights, where "they", as usual, means the production team manoeuvring the "band", again, where "band" is used in lack of a better word).

eh eh, nice thread tough!

Oh, one more thing: don't be bitchy about countermarketing! ;-)

I think almost all bands do have a marketing plan - it's just not usually as rigid and laid out as Britney's, and not neccessarily called a 'marketing plan'. Maybe it's not even written down. If you're a little indie band, and you choose to, say, take a box of 50 singles to Rough Trade, 25 to Sister Ray and and none to HMV - well, thats a marketing decision. It's done with the motive to get your music heard rather than to make money, perhaps, but it's still marketing.

Marketing's become a dirty word in music terms but it's the only way to get the people you want to hear the music to hear the music. It needn't involve the rigmarole of Britney or Hear'Say, but it's inescapable. I'm not going to bitch about countermarketing because I don't recognise the difference ;) But still, I'd be fascinated to read memos about marketing, say, Radiohead.

Why, the veritable kings of marketing-plans....KISS!

*yawn* why on earth *wouldn't* jive have such a plan? last i heard, they are a for-profit business, right? and the plan was so . . . inoffensive from what i noticed while scanning for 2 seconds. not like it said "do lots of photo shoots with prominent nipples to build young male demographic."

to answer the question, radiohead's.

erf. so you beat me to it.

Marketing plan of average British no-talent band :

1. Boast of being world's best band.

2. Repeat.

(optional: 1a. Claim to be a bisexual who's never had a homosexual experience)

Invariable results:

1. Make cover of all UK music papers before releasing first album.

2. Fail to impress anyone outside of home continent.

3. Become a laughing stock within 2 years.

I'd like to see Toploaders! It probably goes "Jamie Oliver, Dancin' in the Moonlight, re-re-re-re release, new single = not selling that well, don't worry, rerelease Dancin', don't let curly crop his hair, needs celebrity girlfriend, postion him as new Mick Hucknall."

The Britney Spears thing is plausible but surely a fake ("Give Britney 2 weeks off for Xmas" is the giveaway).

I suppose these things must be common. In a lot of cases they would merely confirm the obvious (eg Manic Street Preachers with their double single gimmick and the media-friendly trip to Cuba - carefully timed to coincide with the new album release). Talking about "expanding penetration of the 20-34 demo"...it's interesting how quickly Hear'say are leaving behind their squeaky-clean beginnings, graduating to an appearance on "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" (featuring contributions fully compliant with the requirements of the show's ribald format).

....whose marketing plan would you most like to see leaked?

Ocean Colour Scene - how to sell shit to the masses !

I cannot understand the appeal of this band, whose albums have sold 800, 000 in the uk?- and the music turgid dragging bland boredom plod retro mod rock.

Likewise with The Stereophonics - what a horrid vocal style backed by pub rock crap.

The amount of advertising for Stereophonics new album ! shit sells but who is buying? and why?

both of these crappy bands released albums today. Where is that Tanya to give the slagging both of these deserve.

I was trying to avoid babbling on about them AGAIN, but David made me. "Squeaky-clean beginnings"? What does this mean? hear'say HAVEN'T toured. Their FIRST single is still in the top five; first LP out NOW. Their "beginnings" is today, starts right here: and (far as I can see) Kym has (once again) seized the moment and forced the issue, taken the opportunity to move things straight to where SHE wants to be ("fully compliant" indeed! _Buzzcocks_ is HOBBLED with vacuous self-regard most weeks...). Plus I don't get the thinking behind this "penetrate the demographic" kind of analysis: 16-24 IS HOW OLD SHE IS!! She comes from Bolton, not Pluto, or some Hermetic Order of Jimmy Young- Listening Nuns.

Guess what I'm saying is this: ALL record companies/band managers - from Col.Parker to McLaren to Tom Molton - have strategies/plans/ scams/airline bookings/publicity writers on the go. It's their job (and even Lenin had to check his timetable in order to catch that Sealed Train). As to "manufacture", how are Oasis or Sean Piff Dodo Combs less manufactured than, oh, I dunno, 5ive, for being "self"- manufactured. "Frontmen being told what to do by faceless svengalis?" Good!! Imagine how rubbish movies would be if the actors wrote and directed and set-designed them as well (or the directors had to act: Hollywood wd run out of Butt Doubles in a day). OK, the Beatles invented rock when they invented bands writing their own songs: ok, so it also turns out it makes FAR BETTER COMMERCIAL SENSE. Even so, division of labour-wise (and overstretching of talent-wise), it's still quite weird that more bands DON'T debut-sing songs not written by them — let alone employ songwriters not in the band. Talk abt Rockism! Grrr, rashenfrashen Rick Rastardly... (mumbles on to self for long minutes...)

the above might read a tiny touch more, like, sane, if it read "20-34" where it says "16-24".

(Only you can't read the letter you're responding to as you're responding — or am I being dim and tec-illiterate?)

thats fun..i never thought that such an extensive plan could even exist but for a teen star i suppose there always on the run.

*mark, i just saw a "4d" browser on tv today. very cluttered feel it seemed but it would solve your problem if ya found it.

It's so obvious, but maybe somebody like Marilyn Manson. The "danger" in his image is so transparent, but it would be fun to see the Interscope Insider take on his positioning.

Of course, this kind of thing is happening all the time. Think about it: Hundreds, if not thousands of people depend at least in part on Britney Spears for their livlihood. They have kids to feed, cars to buy, etc. They're going to leave it all to chance, whether they get a return on their time/money investment? Hell no. And there is not a thing wrong with that.

Marketing geniuses: Fugazi. Whether they're in it just "for the music" or not, the way they've set up their operation, advertising in 'zines & so forth, the distintive photographs that make up their brand, all very well done.

I wish that was a real leak, but there's no way. Brilliant hoax, though.

I suspect Radiohead's marketing plan would hold few surprises - I'm sure both they and their label see the band having a long albuim led "career" - though the label's stance on napster would be interesting to read.

The marketing and product overload of Hear'say's releases suggests that the label, probably wisely, sees a small window of opportunity to sell loads. After that - who cares? The band almost definitely don't realise. I'd love to know how much of the setup costs are handed to the band (eg was the house part of their advance? whaty about the recording costs? will they have to pay it all back out of royalties?) They could be in hock for decades!

Did Hear'say have their own lawyers when they signed the contracts? Were they paid for their TV appearances in the documentary? Lots of courtroom fun ahead methinks...

I instinctively agree with Tom that all bands could be said to have a marketing plan, by definition, but I'm wondering how far such a claim gets us. Sure it helps highlight the fact that anti-marketing, or non- marketing is still marketing. The publishing world's current pursuit of 'word of mouth' success stories (no pun intended) is a good example of this. (Best example, an end of year round-up in which _) _White Teeth_ is described as a word-of-mouth success story, despite all the, erm, marketing.) Kid A is still a fantastic example of a record based entirely around a marketing strategy, and a complex one at that. Note that this is not entirely incompatible with 'artistic' or 'political' considerations either. The two go hand in hand.

Which is maybe where I want to refine Tom's suggestion. A marketing plan isn't something that a band has *in addition* to being a band. The very act of being a band, or a solo artist for that matter, is to brand yourself and sell yourself. The simple fact of making music for an audience (even if it's for yourself, or your mum, or your dog) means you are already marketing (whether consciously or not). Whether you want people to like the music or not, music is already marketing. Marketing isn't an optional extra, but a constituent part of this thing we all love to talk about, and on occasion to listen to. (Thus marketing ourselves, in turn, even if by selling a self-image back to ourselves.)

As for whose marketing plan would I like to see? Possibly the Conservative Party's. Now there's another debate, is politics (just) marketing...?

Guy's right: and of course it's this aspect of the battle for (future) control that makes those pesky popstars "the most exciting band of 2001" (because the dynamics of fly-and-the-wall and tabloid intrusion have (momentarily?) skewed the balance away from cynical backroom manouevre towards the artist, however naive). Did they have lawyers? Well, the outcomes of the Pistol vs Glitterbest and Frankie vs ZTT should have established a set-up whereby youngsters w/o respresentation and/or experience can only ripped off a CERTAIN AMOUNT, EVEN IF they read and sign the contract. (ie the contracts these artists had actually SIGNED were deemed nevertheless unfair and unreasonable: court i guess recognising the element of duress present in the situation). Nevertheless...

And competing against 2000 others for the honour definitely counts as duress I think!

they're surviving what they went thru is a (potential) reason why the winners may have hidden reserves of moxie that countless never-won-a-talent-contest indie bands don't: not forgetting that rock culture as a whole was an unplanned surprise, when the semi-manufactured Beatles found themselves so runaway successful that they gained artistic control by default (the leisure planners of the 50s and 60s still signed the chques, but just stood back and let rock happen, because they "didn't get it"). OK, that's not so much the issue here: I just think the addition of fly-on-the-wall brought an unplanned element of uncontrol which tips the whole thing into, well, who knows? Kym's move. No, Susanna's. She's the so-far-blank element. (The boylings are so far pitiful: tho a great fungus beard for Noel IS a great idea: he shd become influenced by the BAND and cultivate a terrific REBEL YELL.)

Why does Suze get the toss clothes,who thought up the parkas,how come I still giggle at the memory of the Big Breakfast presenter squirming when Hannah S Club said 'love juice'? My mate works for a drinks company who aren't enamoured about being associated with pieboy's dead mother.

His words..not mine, Peter + Stu

SIR - How dare Mr Thomson suggest that the Conservative Party are on the level of some vulgar pop singer. They are a proud political party, and indeed they are the only party which stands up for the interests of the good, solid heartlands of Britain, rather than employing the weasel word "multi-culturalism" as a means of eradicating the culture of this country.

If they have a "marketing plan", it is only a means of ensuring that Mr Hague represents his own people in Downing Street, rather than Mr Blair representing a tiny unrepresentative clique.

I wonder what sort of "university" you attend, Thomson? Is it one of the former polytechnics which simply take ill-educated pop fodder from the secondary modern schools?

Yours etc., Lt-Col Anthony Sanderson.

Alex:

"As for whose marketing plan I would like to see? Possibly the Conservative Party's."

Blame New Labour for foot-and-mouth, tour the "heartlands" denouncing the internet and stirring up contempt for immigrants and asylum seekers, warn that Britain will be turned into a "foreign land" during a second Labour term, endlessly get photographed sympathising with beleagured West Country farmers, and then lose 75% of your safest rural seats to the LibDems, and the other 25% to Labour. Consign your leader to the backbenches, promote the man who said "Mess with the SAS and you mess with Britain" to leader as your token liberal, gradually descend more and more into disarray, break up, see your moderate members join the LibDems or Labour and your hardline members join UKIP or the BNP, be the subject of countless tearful obituaries in the Telegraph, cease to exist, and then be remembered only as the subject of innumerable retrospective books and TV series for the rest of time.

Here's a weird thing (follows on from points made by Robin and the good Col.): two of the UK's political leaders are younger than me, which suggests that DOZENS and more of all three party's political advisors, and new-intake MPs are a LOT younger than me. And yet pop and/or rock remains resolutely _unusable_ by UK politics: a nogo zone as a vote-getter, whatever yr politics. Yes, this or that popstar (Gary Numan/Billy Bragg) expresses a preference; yes, certain tunes are momentarily appropriated for party political broadcasts; yes, Ugly Rumours; yes, yes, yes, Red Wedge. Yet it remains wholly untouched (I almost said untainted). There's obviously a lamebrain-kneejerk answer ("they" — i.e. politicians — are tossers and we — the united popkids of the world — are supercool); but this is still a very strange phenom, I think. Ain't so elsewhere: in Yugoslavia-as-was, all warring sides had their pet rock groups (Arkan was married to some Serbian Enya-soundalike) (OK, that's an extreme example: except that, isn't the UK the extreme example, really? I can't really work out if this is a good symptom or a bad symptom. (I mean, how would I feel if one of the Membranes turned up as an MP? Sad, alarmed, excited?)

Not sure where I stand on this issue, though I think the divide between pop culture and "establishment culture" is obviously narrowing as the pop generation becomes the establishment. Politicians may make public no more links with pop than they did in 1983, but the links are there, far more than then; it just isn't as obvious as it might be.

Robin: "you think" the divide is "obviously" narrowing. Well, is it obvious, or do you just think it? I agree that common sense says it OUGHT to be narrowing: that's what I was flagging, really — that in a rather more obvious sense, it ain't. You can sell car tyres with the VU's hymn to bondage; but — except in the most peripheral and easily countered way — you can't make post-Elvis music operate towards political shortcuts IN THIS COUNTRY.

And BTW, using the phrase the "establishment" is a rather slippery way of not having to answer the question I was after exploring: I know Macca is one of the country's wealthiest men and that Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson owns the whole of Scotland; I don't mean that everything with a backbeat is unrecuperably countercultural — I mean exactly what I said, that while there are certainly MPs in all sides of the House who know who the Dead Kennedys are, say, they would, in the course of their discussion of the DKs (or whoever) have to put their MP-ness completely in brackets. The, um, discourses are mutually incompatible: MPs can be surgeons or modern opera buffs or Sanskrit scholars or Chelsea supporters, maybe even collectors of the works of Tracy Emin and the Chapman Bros (tho this veers towards rock culture) — but not anything recognisable as active ILM-ists. So is it something abt Brit politics; or is it something abt Britpop?

So let's think about Greil Marcus' Double Trouble. You might disagree with the Clinton-Presley claim, but it was claimable and discursable in a way that no British equivalent would be. But why might this be? Possibly because America's definitive rock icon is an individual, a pioneer, which is the image politicians like of themselves. And Britain's definitive icons - the Beatles - are stronger as a group but prone to falling out and splitting. Which is a truer image of politics than ClintonElvis but also not one that politicians, especially presidential politicians in Thatcher-cum-Blair mode, are willing to embrace. We don't have a pop presence in politics because we don't have an Elvis, in other words.

I don't really buy this specific argt, Tom: (a) we DO have an Elvis: he's called Elvis. (b) Ireland no more has an Elvis than we do [except in the sense of (a)], but the phenom I'm talking abt – the gulf, the divide, the discursive anomaly – doesn't (I think) apply there. Besides, tho Elvis is Marcus's hook, he's arguing for a cultural- political linkage at every level of pop and rock and the underground.

Yes, Mark, I was far too evasive. I was in a rush and didn't really think through what I was saying, 'tis my excuse :).

I would agree with you that it logically *should* be happening but in fact it isn't, really. However there are odd incidents which are quite telling - I know this is local politics, and a ceremonial role therein at that, but I remember when Rose Simpson of the Incredible String Band became lady mayoress of Aberystwyth in 1994, and it was very heavily reported, especially considering that the ISB aren't *that* famous. Partially this is down to the preponderance of ageing hippies in managerial positions in the UK press and news media, but it had a wider significance; the cultural death of everything John Major was seen to represent, and the occupation of that territory by the generation that followed and had, initially, seemed quite threatening to the custodians of the post-war official culture. If Rose Simpson had reached such a position after May 1997, I don't think it would have been so newsworthy because the old hippies had actually taken power by then, so she was no longer from a totally different background to the government.

But Tom's point is very well-made and convincing, and I'd pretty much second it.

Their (Hear'say) "beginnings" is today, starts right here (mark s)

No, the beginning was the tv series - the applicants beholden to the selection panel.

Kym has (once again) seized the moment and forced the issue, taken the opportunity to move things straight to where SHE wants to be (mark s)

Yes, but my suggestion was that a decision may have been taken to let her off the leash.

OK then tack #2. (Argument a) did it for me, curses.)

Aside from the Beatles (which I stand by the reasons above re. non- identification), what is the current pop culture in the UK based on. Dance music pretty much. Is the general non-rockness of UK music culture now a factor? (Esp. compared to '97 and the Blair-Oasis no.10 meeting etc. when rock was much more important).

Incidentally, speaking of Elvis:

No. 15! HA HA HA HA HA.

I really had better put up that pop-eye I've been sitting on.

Tom:

"Is the general non-rockness of UK music culture now a factor?"

Absolutely. When Britpop was in ascendence it could remind the babyboomer politicians of their youth while at the same time connect them in some way to youth culture. The dominance of dance offers babyboomers (who *are* "the establishment" now, essentially) no such reference point.

"Esp. compared to '97 and the Blair-Oasis no. 10 meeting etc. when rock was much more important."

Yep, see my comments above. Blair could have his own nostalgia and relevance with "The Kids" in the one go by jumping onto the Oasis bandwagon; there is no equivalent today.

So is it something abt Brit politics; or is it something abt Britpop? (mark s)

Nothing to do with Brit-pop (as opposed to Britpop). But a lot to do with the British class system (and associated notions of high and low culture). British politics, and Parliament in particular, has long traditions that are steeped in elitism. Pop music still doesn't sit very well with that (hence the slightly raised eyebrows in some quarters over Blair's early soirees with McGee, Gallagher etc.). Contrast that with one of the examples you gave, Ireland: a small nation with no imperial baggage. One could quite easily imagine people like Bono or Sinead O'Connor running for political office, should the whim take them.

Blimey! Help!!: guess I got myself into this.

David: (i) hear’say weren’t named until AFTER they’d been picked; surely the marketing plan for the band-qua-band only began when the personnel fixed, except in the most general terms (record LP; release single; do promo TV appearances). I just think it’s weird to suggest that the aesthetic gameplan for them predated their actual existence as a combine. That’s not machiavellian, it’s just dotty (a strategy so clever it could apply to whichever of the 2000-choose-5 possible permutations of group that might arise: such strategists shd be headhunted by NATO and dropped into Kosovo). (ii) Follows on from (i) Unleashed compared to when? Post-audition she was already vocal and bolshy (and brave, actually) on things that mattered to her. Pre- audition: well, then it was HER choice not to unleash herself. Yes, there’s surely been a decision not to SQUELCH her: yes, doubtless, this decision has ‘bad’ motives as well as ‘good’ (and some of it is just this judgment: unleashed Kym gives better TV than leashed Kym); but unless you believe unleashed Kym is an ‘act’ (a pre-planned, long- planned act? how paranoid is THAT?), then the point is, she unleashed herself, and they are in NO POSITION to discipline her. I’m not saying the band entirely control their destiny: I’m saying, the idea that the TV set-up makes them MORE puppetoid than whoever is plainly false. And that while Stars in Their Eyes Culture is superficially squeaky clean, fly-on-the-wall Stars-in-Their-Eyes precisely and by design mixes scandal and dirt and manipulation with squeak and clean. I think this mix is intrinsically more volatile than anyone bargained for (and I think Kym intuited where the power lay sooner than the programme- planners – but you know, maybe she just looks like Joan Jett, and maybe I’m just a sap for that). (iii) Beginnings is when their single sold in cartloads = powershift.

Robin: yes, ceremonial is a good word. And quarantine is another: local politics has been stripped of power. And I’m interested in EXACTLY where the quarantine lines fall, and why. The Saatchi Gallery nurtures YBA and Sensation: this is certainly borderline rock culture — but it still ends up in the RCA.

Tom: the Beatles point is good; (a) collectivity and band-ness etc, as a symbolic shape or map not currently usable (70s terrorists used it a teeny bit – but mostly borrowed bounced back via non-Brit sources). (b) Key to GM’s Elvis-Clinton story is the dialectic of success- failure, promise-betrayal: well, these are elements not dealt with at all in our public version of the 60s groups. We split in those who consider them a success (still), and year-zeroists, who consider them a failure (but some successor a success). (c) I think argt abt the exact constituent nature of Britpop is not remotely relevant (clearly Robin Cook is not sitting discussing with Peter Hain whether itv wd be better to mention Magazine, Underworld or the Poohsticks in his next speech on ethical arms sales); the entirety (bar a tny number of retired ex-rockers now otherwise employed) is off-limits. (d) David's second point: this is contradictory. If Britpop counters the elitism, then it's its content which counters it, no?

David:

"British politics, and Parliament in particular, has long traditions that are steeped in elitism."

Indeed, and slower to change than perhaps any other aspect of British society, so at least 10 years behind the general population in terms of acceptance of pop music and pop culture into the "mainstream".

"One could quite easily imagine people like Bono or Sinead O'Connor running for political office ..."

And of course one of the singers stuck furthest in the middle of the road (Dana) tried. A teen idol aiming for the same position (Ronan Keating) has threatened the Irish with the same thing. Both were taken quite seriously, as far as I could see. Their British equivalents - Barbara Dickson, say, or Gary Barlow - would never dream of holding such ambitions, which sort of proves your point.

Fuck: I meant to say somthing abt Oasis at No.10 - what was so telling abt this meeting was that it was a meeting of the Totally Mutually Unaffecting — you couldn't meaningfully carry one story across to the other. Oasis became purely generic (coulda been Blur, coulda been the Spicers): stripped of themselves. And if it's true that politics is simply too "elitist" to connect with pop (even Genesis), then that means — among other things — that the entire Wilson-Heath-Thatcher- Major-Blair project is revealed as been purely spectral at every level: which is possibly true (though I doubt it).

Mark:

"success-failure, promise-betrayal; well, these are concepts not dealt with at all in our public version of the 60s groups."

Of course not, because our "public version" is the new establishment of babyboomers sentimentalising their youth. Decline and betrayal therefore aren't allowed into it; one could draw a parallel between the Stones, solo Beatles etc. crapping out by the mid-70s and Wilson returned to power at that point with a government which seemed as weary and depressing as his 60s administration had seemed buoyant and optimistic, but that's rather stretching the analogy, and certainly further than our rose-tinted "public version" of the 60s groups could ever go.

I hate that I can't read the sendings I'm actually responding to, as I'm responding. The high-low culturd thing is obviously true, but its what NEEDs explaining, that's what I'm trying to say, it's not an explanation.

Mark:

"Oasis became purely generic (coulda been Blur, coulda been the Spicers): stripped of themselves."

Though for me, at least, it would have felt subtly different had it been the Spice Girls, because for someone Blair's age, they wouldn't have had the obvious echoes of the sounds of his youth.

"And if it's true that politics is simply too "elitist" to connect with pop (even Genesis)"

Maybe it is, but the entire British cultural landscape has changed enormously nonetheless. Only 11 years ago a BBC news report on the Stone Roses referred to "the popular music charts", an incomprehending turn of phrase which I simply can't imagine being used today.

"then that means - among other things - that the entire Wilson-Heath- Thatcher-Major-Blair project is revealed as been purely spectral at every level: which is possibly true (though I doubt it)."

It isn't true. It just sometimes seems that way when you look at how certain aspects of the old world *haven't* changed.

Mark:

"The high-low culturd thing is obviously true, but its what NEEDs explaining, that's what I'm trying to say, it's not an explanation."

You would need entire, very long essays to explain something as complex as that. A forum like this is not the ideal place, though I think some of my longer writings touch on it to an extent.

The high-low culturd thing is obviously true, but its what NEEDs explaining, that's what I'm trying to say, it's not an explanation (mark s)

Hope I'm not misunderstanding your point.

'High Culture' = Product of the Universities, Art Schools, Music Academies, Drama Schools etc. etc. (traditionally held in high regard by the elite, and those seeking passage into/towards it).

'Low Culture' = Product of the lower social classes and the untutored (aimed at a popular audience and not traditionally associated with high social status).

British politicians would only associate themselves with pop musicians where they have fully transcended their humble beginnings (eg McCartney), or when they want to hitch a brief ride on a popular phenomenon (eg Oasis/'Cool Britannia'). And even then they risk displeasing many conservative (small 'c') people who remain hidebound by the distinctions I've referred to.

last swift points then bed:

1. OK, if the Wilson-Heath-Thatcher-Major-Blair project is somewhat unspectral, then howcum the Brit-design small-entrepreneurial creativity pushed out into the world by this axis, not unsuccessfully (and let’s ignore the wider social costs momentarily) doesn’t in ANY SENSE co-ordinate with ditto in pop, which is economically co-eval. Join the dots from Ron Arad to the Smiths (say): you cd do ao techno- culturally, but politics can only admit ONE end of this. [this is v.unclear, to me also: I need precision examplesto make a precision point.]

2. our "public version" is the new establishment of babyboomers. Not the one I meant, isn’t: partly I meant Matthew Bannister-Jamie Theakston-Ant&Dec. But I don’t think ILM’s discussion of promise-and- betrayal is any more broadly coherent: it keeps getting broken down into bogus personal epochs. [promise-and-betrayal is my major major topic: so ANYTHING I say comes across as cryptic and overcompact: will deal]

3. elitism and acceptance: I don’t accept this model of gradualism and adapting – of out Close Lobsters-fan as Fisheries Minister by 2010. Residual elitism is the symptom, not the explanation; and all versions I’ve heard of class explanation just bug out (Joe Strummer = diplomat’s son, as one counter-example). David’s explanation may come closest: rival systems of spectacle.

4. So let’s go back to Tom’s: we already have a Queen, so we can’t accept the King as King. In the UK, Elvis is just Elvis. So I was wrong after all.

I am very very tired. All the above is true but none of it is in english any more.

If babyboomers are now the establishment, howcum high-low persists and is still everywhere. This is what I want people to tell me.

Mark:

"Our 'public version' is the new establishment of babyboomers. Not the one I meant, isn't; partly I meant Matthew Bannister-Jamie Theakston-Ant&Dec".

If you did, fine. However it is the babyboomer side of the new establishment that is responsible for sentimentalising the 60s, which I think was what we were talking about. I know who you're talking about - the clique of modern mainstream pop culture that is half youth and half *everywhere*, but of those you mention, the only one who has affected in any way how we see the 60s is Bannister, who effectively pushed boomer nostalgia to colonise Radio 2 with his changes to R1.

"If babyboomers are now the establishment, howcum high-low persists and is still everywhere. This is what I want people to tell me."

Possibly because of the innate (small c) conservatism of the British and a certain instinctive national reluctance to *really* overthrow cultural barriers (as David hinted)?

"I am very very tired"

Me too, so let's continue this tomorrow. Or later today. Whatever.

On the whole boomer-60s tip, Me (to Father, some time ago): Dylan didn't change the world, the Vietnamese did.

It is true, though, that politicians seem unwilling to align themselves with pop musicians. Maybe the political classes have bought the whole "4 real" thing. If they're going to hitch their wagon to someone or something, it had better be (i) something which will get them votes without alienating a significant portion of the demographic it's supposed to appeal to (ii) something who will remain more or less on-message, unlikely to spoil everything by "keeping it real" and expressing unwelcome or unhelpful opinions (iii) something which they’re sure won’t be wince-makingly unfashionable by the time of the next election.

But this doesn’t run strictly on high-low cultural lines: I think the UK political classes are absolutely desperate to use pop music, because they obsess about appearing 'relevant' (did Massive Attack ever get round to suing the Tories for unauthorised use of that tune on a Party Political Broadcast?). But they're scared of being associated with the pop likes of Hear'Say as a result of the widespread perception of those acts as manufactured and (somehow) 'false'. All spin and no substance, you see? There's an equal and opposite fear of aligning with a loose cannon outside the control of party discipline. It doesn't matter that these assumptions are plainly wrong.

All of the above is relevant to discussions of high and low culture (which clearly still exists for the same reasons of power, wealth, education and exclusion which it ever did) but tangentially.

Of course, you can look at this from the other end: I can't think of many people in pop who'd want to associate too closely with politics: too old, or too ugly, or balding, or too serious, or too worthy, or not worthy enough, or just not fitting in with the marketing plan.