tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/brit-pop-11256/articlesBrit pop – The Conversation2018-02-21T09:37:31Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921502018-02-21T09:37:31Z2018-02-21T09:37:31ZBrits 2018: why everyone loves Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You<p>“Not me,” I hear you protesting. “You don’t speak for me.” And perhaps that’s right – perhaps you, dear reader, have more elevated taste. After all, a simple tune with fairly banal romantic lyrics backed by four chords and a cod dancehall rhythm can hardly be said to be positioned on the cutting edge of music.</p>
<p>But among pop music fans, you’d be in the minority.</p>
<p>Released back in January 2017 as one half of a double lead single from the album ÷ (Divide), Shape Of You been around for over a year now. And it’s been inescapable, saturating the cultural atmosphere via radio playlists, Yates’ wine bar jukeboxes, busking pitches and M&S food adverts. It’s one of those songs most people know through exposure – even those who have never actively sought to listen to it (full disclosure: prior to writing this piece, I was one of those people).</p>
<p>In our shiny new era of digital streaming, we can get a fairly accurate sense of how often media is consumed – and it seems that a lot of people have actively sought to listen to this song, again and again and again. Aside from winning the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/grammys/8096731/grammys-2018-ed-sheeran-best-pop-solo-performance">Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance</a> last month, the song boasts staggering statistics.</p>
<p>It’s the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/05/ed-sheeran-named-most-streamed-artist-on-spotify-in-2017">most-streamed track</a> of 2017 and the most popular song ever on Spotify, having notched up 1.5 billion streams. It reached number one in the singles charts in <a href="https://www.ecr.co.za/coca-cola-top-40/ed-sheeran-makes-shocking-decision-about-his-new-album/">44 countries</a>, spending over a year on the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8095233/ed-sheeran-charlie-puth-clean-bandit-julia-michaels-hot-100-chart-moves">Billboard Hot 100</a> chart and currently <a>holds the record</a> for the number of weeks spent in the Billboard top 10. The official YouTube video has racked up more than 3.2 billion views – and isn’t showing any sign of slowing down.</p>
<p>And, despite a late challenge from Dua Lipa, who has garnered five nominations for her breakthrough hit, New Rules, Sheeran’s song is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brit-awards-predictions-nominations-ed-sheeran_uk_5a5cbc47e4b03c418967b0af">widely considered favourite</a> to win Best Single at the 2018 Brit Awards. </p>
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<h2>Sounds familiar</h2>
<p>So what is the secret of Sheeran’s success? Ignoring the lyrics – and Sheeran’s boy-next-door appeal that sets him apart from the commercial crowd (and which obviously plays a large part in his success) – on the face of it the musical and sonic elements at play appear simple. There is a cycling progression of four chords – familiar, well-worn changes to any ear raised on pop music. Speaking of pop music ears, those acutely attuned might notice a similar harmonic sound and a lift of the log-drum intro from Sia’s <a href="https://youtu.be/31crA53Dgu0">Cheap Thrills</a> (2016), and the odd melodic contour lifted from TLC’s No Scrubs (1999), to whom the publishers eventually <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/music/no-scrubs-ed-sheeran-shape-of-you-2024238">gave some credit</a>.</p>
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<p>The looping chord progression is a Sheeran speciality – rather than a lazy detail or evidence of basic musical understanding, Ed constructs his compositions so that they can work in a live context with his looping technology. On stage, the looper works as a simple recorder, playing back layers of material that are created in real time, allowing the performer to build textures and combinations, stacking and nesting musical ideas.</p>
<p>Loopers take practice, and nerve – watch Ed perform on a looper facing a crowd of music legends at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q93R3du4Eb8">Stevie Wonder All Star Grammy Salute in 2015</a> – but when used with skill they can make a one-man show sound like a full band, showing audiences how intricate and economical arrangements can be crafted in real time. </p>
<p>Shape Of You was made for this with its textural and dynamic changes, its distinctive elements combined and held within the bounds of a simple chord progression. The puzzle pieces fit, reconfigure and slide into place in a satisfying way – familiarity and invention at the same time.</p>
<h2>Scale of success</h2>
<p>The melody in Shape Of You uses a pentatonic scale, possibly the most used scale in the history of music. The simple scale made of five notes (“penta”, meaning five) is responsible for so many of our most enduring melodies from Amazing Grace or My Girl by the Temptations to popular contemporary hits like Sam Smith’s Stay With Me and James Bay’s Hold Back The River, as well as some of the most frustrating ear-worms – Cotton-Eye Joe by Rednex, anyone?</p>
<p>From ancient music traditions from China, Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia, reaching back to the most <a href="http://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/mystical-pentatonic-scale-and-ancient-instruments-part-i-bone-flutes-020826">primitive bone flutes</a> and folk music from all around the world, this simple scale is as easy to play as it is to touch the black notes on a piano or pluck the open strings on an guitar. The scale is so embedded in our brain’s language centres that we all seem <a href="https://youtu.be/ne6tB2KiZuk">innately able</a> to sing and understand it.</p>
<p>Consider the classic track <a href="https://youtu.be/0CFuCYNx-1g">Superstition by Stevie Wonder</a>, which also uses a pentatonic scale. Here, Stevie stacks up numerous pentatonic riffs and phrases – the melodic cohesion achieved by the pentatonic scale’s lack of dissonance allows for a different type of complexity to emerge in the rhythm, syncopation, texture and articulation of each layer, the movement and energy between call-and-response phrasing.</p>
<p>A similar thing is happening in Shape Of You, wonderfully demonstrated visually at the 5:30 mark of this <a href="https://youtu.be/ZpMNJbt3QDE?t=5m31s">video take down of how the track was made</a>, published by the New York Times late last year.</p>
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<p>Then there’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqwea8ZSbk">that Dem Bow beat</a>. That dancehall-inspired skip in the rhythm which we’ve been hearing a lot lately (from Rihanna’s <a href="https://youtu.be/HL1UzIK-flA">Work</a> and Justin Bieber’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE">Sorry</a> to, more recently, Duo Lipa’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qgadSvNyU">New Rules</a>). However erroneously labelled “tropical house” by Rolling Stone, that clean, on-trend pop production and propulsive rhythm finally allowed Sheeran’s music to enter the club.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Kardos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK singer-songwriter’s single was the most downloaded song of 2017 and the video has been viewed 3.2 billion times.Leah Kardos, Senior Lecturer in Music, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813952017-09-15T02:03:59Z2017-09-15T02:03:59ZMy favourite album: Pulp’s Different Class<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184324/original/file-20170901-26017-m21e3d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jarvis Cocker in the film clip for Common People. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from Youtube</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The album is an artistic statement, a swag of songs greater than the sum of its parts. In this series, our authors nominate their favourites.</em></p>
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<p>For many, the explosion of Britpop on the global music scene in the 1990s was a bright counterargument to the grunge sound emerging from the US at the time. It was the musical contribution to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Britannia">Cool Britannia</a> revitalisation of British creativity, later co-opted for jingoistic purposes by New Labour. </p>
<p>The 2003 documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358569/">Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop</a> is rather preoccupied with the famous feud between Britpop powerhouses Blur and Oasis. The film characterises this as something of a class war between middle-class Blur and working-class Oasis. But no band better captured the real tensions between class and youth in the time of Cool Britannia than Pulp and its 1995 album Different Class.</p>
<p>My first taste of the album was what is now recognised as Pulp’s greatest single, Common People. It has a catchy pop hook, no doubt, but I was drawn in by Jarvis Cocker’s sardonic storytelling. I wanted more and as soon as I had enough pocket money saved, Different Class became the second album I ever bought. It remains my most listened to. </p>
<p>Regularly listed among the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140201180055/http://www.1001beforeyoudie.com/1001_albums_uk.html">greatest albums</a> <a href="http://www.nme.com/photos/the-500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-100-1-1426116">of all time</a> it combines clever pop musical styling with honest lyrics about fumblings, infidelities, and music festivals (such as their controversial single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6lXpk0vkEU">Sorted for E’s and Whizz</a>). Above all, it’s an album full of stories from everyday people living their everyday lives. </p>
<p>Pulp was first conceived by a teenage Cocker and his friend, Peter Dalton, in 1978, with other members joining over the years.
In his introduction to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12764721-mother-brother-lover">Mother, Brother, Lover</a>, a published collection of his lyrics, Cocker describes his blueprint for songwriting as “an attempt to marry ‘inappropriate’ subject matter to fairly conventional ‘pop’ song structures.” </p>
<p>This blueprint is undoubtedly the formula for success in Different Class. Punters could see themselves in lyrics that evoked the hazy smoke lingering around the pool table at the pub (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM">Common People</a>), or the exhausted collapse at a café table after a night out (Bar Italia). These weren’t things you were supposed to sing about, but Pulp did. </p>
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<p>Pulp still trod some of the well-worn territory of pop music - love and sex - but the romantic soft focus was removed from the lens. Owen Hatherley, author of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11281898-uncommon">Uncommon: An Essay on Pulp</a>, observes with a shudder that Pulp write songs about sex that focus on “embarrassment, mess, and clothes”. </p>
<p>There is still room on Different Class for the astonishment of unexpectedly falling in love in a song like <a href="https://youtu.be/EFSdf_VeYG0">Something Changed</a>. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qxn7DLcNwQ">F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E</a>. they remind us that every day love “isn’t chocolate boxes and roses – it’s dirtier than that, like some small animal that only comes out at night.” The band explores the awkwardness of first sexual encounters in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfte0NVxUQE">Underwear</a> and the torture of unrequited love in <a href="https://youtu.be/qJS3xnD7Mus">Disco 2000</a>.</p>
<p>The most prominent theme of Different Class is, of course, class itself. It’s the kind of gritty subject matter usually left to earnest rockers like Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen rather than bands breaking on to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139803/">Top of the Pops</a>. But Pulp got fans singing and dancing to searing commentaries on class and privilege. The album opens explosively with <a href="https://youtu.be/S0DRch3YLh0">Mis-shapes</a>, a call to arms for working class youth to reclaim a society after the years of Thatcherism. </p>
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<p>Raised on a diet of broken biscuits, oh we don’t look the same as you, we don’t do the things you do, but we live round here too … Brothers, sisters, can’t you see? The future’s owned by you and me.</p>
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<p>The class warfare finds a more intimate outlet in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMkg8AlFZo">Pencil Skirt</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMQi0pZY_J8">I Spy</a> as the lyrics explore the transgressive potential of sexual relationships between the classes. Both songs are tales of “a bit of rough” undermining the middle classes with adventures in tawdry sex and infidelity with posh birds. The lover who laments with bittersweet regret that class difference is exactly what gives an embrace such frisson in Pencil Skirt transforms into a sinister class terrorist crowing with delight over a cuckolded toff in the Leonard Cohen-esque I Spy. The sweet revenge promised in Mis-shapes comes to fruition.</p>
<p>It was <a href="https://youtu.be/yuTMWgOduFM">Common People</a> that presented the most honest and accurate discussion of class as an inescapable phenomenon for those without the means and privilege to pretend otherwise. Based upon an actual encounter Cocker had with a young woman while studying at Central St Martins in London in the late 1980s, the song mocks her misguided class tourism. She could slum it with common lovers and a cheap apartment but class – real socio-economic disadvantage – is something inescapable:</p>
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<p>You’ll never fail like common people, you’ll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance, and drink, and screw because there’s nothing else to do.</p>
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<p>The irony, of course, is that the song launched Pulp into celebrity and with that comes a form of privilege. It did not, however, sit well with the band. Seven years and another two albums later, Pulp undertook a nine-year hiatus, returning only for a reunion tour, not to produce new material. </p>
<p>While Cocker’s cocaine addiction is easily presented as more attention-grabbing evidence of decline (as was the famous bottom-waggling incident at Michael Jackson’s performance at the 1996 BRIT Awards), guitarist Mark Webber’s habit of playing with his back to the audience was most revealing as to how uncomfortable the band were with their level of celebrity. </p>
<p>Their discomfort with the tawdriness of fame and fortune found its outlet in their next album <a href="https://youtu.be/JXbLyi5wgeg">This Is Hardcore</a>. If we see Different Class as the working class ingénue moving to a flat in the city with some mates to try make it as a model or actress, This Is Hardcore finds her a few years later making pornos just to pay the rent.</p>
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<p><em>Are you a music or culture academic who would like contribute to this series? Please contact <a href="mailto:james.whitmore@theconversation.edu.au">James Whitmore</a> or Suzy Freeman-Greene</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jess Carniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Different Class, Pulp got fans singing and dancing to searing commentaries on class and privilege.Jess Carniel, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603992016-06-13T15:00:26Z2016-06-13T15:00:26ZBrexit and Britpop: Europeans have stronger cultural links to the UK thanks to English language music<p>As the European referendum campaigners try to outdo each other with spectacular claims and counterclaims about the risks and benefits of remaining in or leaving the EU, what has become clear is that it is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/36407446">not just the Tory party</a> that is deeply divided on the issue, but <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/06/eu-referendum-leave-campaign-closes-gap-to-narrowest-margin-yet/">Britain as a whole</a>. </p>
<p>The ambivalence is even part of the “in” rhetoric, with statements frequently prefaced by assurances that the politician is “no lover of European bureaucracy” or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTLzRHrGHds">some such qualification</a>. And there are suspicions that even at the top there is a lack of wholehearted support for the European project, with both <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35743994">Jeremy Corbyn</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-dont-misread-eurosceptic-david-cameron-over-brexit-boris-johnson-warns-a6772006.html">David Cameron</a> having been accused of previously tending towards Euroscepticism.</p>
<p>The British problem with Europe is something which is not found to the same extent on the continent: not only do most people there <a href="https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2011/essay_eurosceptic_19dec08-1345.pdf">feel more positive</a> about the “European Project”, but they also <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/21/europe-britain-icm-poll">feel warmer</a> towards Britain than Britons feel towards their neighbours across the Channel.</p>
<p>The reasons for these feelings are obviously complex, but something which can play an important role is music. The English composer Vaughan Williams believed that folk songs could encapsulate the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VzxZBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=vaughan+williams+folk+songs+spirit+of+a+nation&source=bl&ots=B0BdNCEhEo&sig=PqyA1ohg8dhMteWOcwTHS9w93ug&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZtfjVzJXNAhXMIsAKHQo0BvEQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=vaughan%20williams%20folk%20songs%20spirit%20of%20a%20nation&f=false">spirit of a nation</a>, and researchers today are finding strong links between <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Music-and-Identity-Politics/Biddle/p/book/9781409430384">music and identity</a> – be it national, regional, ethnic, or related to language or subculture. Many aspects of identity are mediated and reinforced by music. </p>
<p>Whereas Vaughan Williams harked back to an age when folk music was the staple of ordinary people, today its place has been taken by popular music. In fact, popular music, from rock to dubstep, cuts across social classes in a way that very few other art forms can. Crucially, it also crosses national boundaries, but it does so in unequal ways.</p>
<h2>The same songsheet</h2>
<p>The French top 40 singles chart at the time of writing is <a href="http://www.billboard.com/charts/france-songs">dominated by English songs</a>, which make up three-quarters of the list. In the same week’s chart for Europe, the first non-English song <a href="http://top40-charts.com/chart.php?cid=31">comes in at number 25</a>. In the German chart for this period, only <a href="http://top40-charts.com/chart.php?cid=12">six out of 40 tracks are not in English</a>. Most of these English titles are by British or US artists, though occasionally they will be by European acts singing in English. </p>
<p>This is not a recent phenomenon. Since the Beatles cut their teeth performing in the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/7949677/The-Beatles-in-Hamburg-50-years-on-from-the-bands-first-concert.html">red light district of Hamburg</a> in the early 60s, English language popular music, largely from England, has been an intimate part of the soundtrack of young people’s lives on the continent. This is reflected in the album listings, with seven out of 10 top-selling albums of all time in Germany being in English by acts which include Phil Collins, Genesis and Queen. </p>
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<p>Clearly this is not just about young people today, but young people over the last 50 years; in other words, most people alive now. It almost goes without saying that this traffic is mainly one way: the <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/uk-top-40-singles-chart/">equivalent charts</a> in the UK are all in English. The all-time charts do include one European band – ABBA – but of course they are known through their English language renditions in the UK (although they did sing in other languages).</p>
<p>This means that popular music sung in English, much of it from Britain, is part of the identity of continental Europeans. It gives them a deep connection with British culture which simply does not exist in the other direction. Sure, there are exceptions such as Kraftwerk and the Gipsy Kings, bands which had an impact in the UK, but even here one can ask to what extent the British fans understand the foreign lyrics. And this raises another key aspect of this phenomenon: language. </p>
<h2>Cultural learning</h2>
<p>When British children learn French or German at school, their exposure to that language will be mainly in the classroom. However, German and French children have their language lessons hugely reinforced by all sorts of other sources, chief among them: popular music. The result is that they have a much more comfortable and personal relationship with contemporary British culture, than British children do with that of the continent.</p>
<p>Of course, many people from the UK have experience of Europe, particularly of holiday, second home and expat/retirement destinations such as Tuscany, the Dordogne or Magaluf. But these are enjoyed for their weather, history or general atmosphere. </p>
<p>Often they serve to reinforce stereotypes about Europeans rather than to soften them. They are also places where British people tend to congregate, forming communities <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/11193034/Unsociable-British-expats-fail-to-make-local-friends.html">more than integrating</a> with the locals. For the British, Europe remains essentially alien, in a way that the US and Australia are not, and this is again because of the language and popular culture links with the old Empire. Britain shares rock stars, celebrities, TV and films with the Anglophone world in a much more fluid and mutual way than with EU countries.</p>
<p>The powerful influence of English (language) popular music helps to explain why for most Europeans the UK is a natural and welcome partner. The UK is not just a part of their continent, but also part of their world-view; not only a neighbour, but a member of the family; indeed, Britain is a part of their inner lives. </p>
<p>Europeans might see the EU referendum in the words of a Queen/David Bowie song that many of them know by heart:</p>
<p><em>“Under pressure that burns a building down,
Splits a family in two…</em></p>
<p><em>Watching some good friends,
Screaming, Let me out!”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jochen Eisentraut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Music has helped Europeans develop a better understanding of British culture than Brits will ever have of Europe.Jochen Eisentraut, Lecturer in Music, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/555072016-03-02T02:23:01Z2016-03-02T02:23:01ZLady Gaga vs Lorde: why both tributes captured the essence of David Bowie<p>On January 10, 2016, I received a text message from a friend who is a devoted David Bowie fan: “There was an Internet death hoax about Bowie. I’m still shaking,” she exclaimed. Hesitantly, she decided, </p>
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<p>There’s no official news as yet, so I think it’s safe to assume that it is fake.</p>
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<p>Her skepticism was warranted, given that Bowie had only two days prior released his 25th – and what would become his final – studio album, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/07/david-bowie-blackstar-review-a-spellbinding-break-with-his-past">Blackstar</a>. </p>
<p>But of course, the reports were not fake. The news spread like wild fire as headlines across the globe announced the death of an icon. Blackstar would be his parting gift to his fans and to the world of pop that he himself had helped to shape. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, an <a href="https://theconversation.com/david-bowie-pop-star-who-fell-to-earth-to-teach-outsiders-they-can-be-heroes-52995">outpouring of grief ensued</a>. Bowie-themed nights and tributes began to flow, but the most talked-about homages were the recent performances by <a href="http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/02/lady-gaga-gives-the-academy-awards-a-performance-for-the-ages/">Lady Gaga at the Grammy Awards</a> and <a href="http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/lorde-performed-stirring-bowie-tribute-brits-original-backing-band/">Lorde at the BRIT Awards</a>. </p>
<p>These two performances were polar opposites. Gaga’s tribute showcased a medley of songs, the singer whizzing through many of Bowie’s classics – Suffragette City, Changes, Ziggy Stardust, Rebel Rebel, Fame, Let’s Dance to name a few – at lightning-bolt speed. </p>
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<p>The performance – complete with brass section, a dancing robotic electric piano, and references to Bowie’s famous alter egos, Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust – contained all the glitz and glamour one would expect to find at a Grammy Awards performance.</p>
<p>Lorde’s tribute, on the other hand, was much more pared back. Devoid of stage props and Bowie-esque makeup, the singer - alongside Bowie’s band - delivered a haunting rendition of Life on Mars. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Lorde at the Brit awards.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Lorde and Lady Gaga have since been pitted against each other, as commentators, fans, and music critics compare the two performances. Many concluded that Lorde’s was the better, more fitting, and more appropriate tribute. The most frustrating aspect of this comparison, however, is the way in which <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/77293349/lordes-david-bowie-tribute-at-the-brit-awards-so-much-better-than-lady-gaga">Lady Gaga’s performance was derided</a>. </p>
<p>Gaga’s tribute was denounced for being “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/lordes-tribute-to-david-bowie-brit-awards-2016-heartbreaking/">over-the-top</a>”, “too superficial”, “too theatrical” and “too strenuously pop”. Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones, tweeted a veiled criticism after Gaga’s performance:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"699437406873743360"}"></div></p>
<p>Lorde’s performance was, by contrast, described as <a href="http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/5-ways-lordes-bowie-tribute-was-better-than-lady-gagas">“subtle”, “real” and “powerful”</a> and was thus celebrated for being more “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/lordes-brits-tribute-to-david-bowie-so-much-better-than-lady-gaga-at-the-grammys-20160225-gn3e93.html">authentic</a>”. </p>
<p>This commentary spoke volumes about who is deemed worthy of paying tribute to an artist such as Bowie. At the core of the Lady Gaga-vs-Lorde debate is the ideology of authenticity, which is deeply embedded in rock-music discourse. </p>
<p>This ideology situates rock and pop music in opposition to each other: rock is supposedly real, authentic, sincere, and honest, while pop music is supposedly banal, artificial, contrived and vapid. By this understanding, rock is thus viewed as superior to pop.</p>
<p>How can Gaga, a supposedly inauthentic, vapid, and contrived pop star, possibly pay homage to such an authentic and real artist like Bowie? Lorde is deemed more worthy of such a tribute because, in spite of her pop identity, she embodies the ideology of authenticity.</p>
<p>Part of what made Bowie such a great contributor to both pop music and pop culture was his ability to be artificial as well as real, to be theatrical whilst being honest, to be contrived <em>and</em> authentic. </p>
<p>The Lady Gaga-vs-Lorde debate is therefore both unproductive and arbitrary. Both performances showcased a different side to Bowie’s artistry: Gaga’s tribute focused on his performative and theatrical side, highlighting in particular his fascination with technology, artifice, and fantasy worlds (Labyrinth immediately comes to mind). </p>
<p>By stripping these things back, Lorde’s tribute celebrated Bowie’s musicality, highlighting instead his songwriting ability through a predominantly musical performance of one of his greatest songs: Life on Mars. </p>
<p>Both of these tributes captured the essence of Bowie. When considered together, rather than being pitted against each other, they can be seen as capturing what quintessentially made him a truly enigmatic and unique artist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kat Nelligan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lady Gaga and Lorde have both paid tribute to David Bowie in very different ways. Debating who did it better is rooted in an ideology of authenticity that pits rock against pop. In reality, Bowie embodied both.Kat Nelligan, PhD candidate, tutor and lecturer in Popular Music Studies , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/278662014-06-30T04:36:32Z2014-06-30T04:36:32ZDavid Cameron’s ‘Cool Britannia 2’ – be there and be square<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52528/original/dhnrzv9t-1404090478.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What political message is Cameron now trying to communicate?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Psycho Delia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the gardens of No 10 Downing Street today, UK-time, Prime Minister David Cameron will host a reception to celebrate “the best of Britain’s creative industries”. Tory celebrities such as Sir Michael Caine and Simon Cowell appear on the guest list, together with less-than-A-list musos such as Eliza Doolittle and luvvies such as Dame Helen Mirren, Emma Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch. </p>
<p>The fact that Cumberbatch <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9509662/Benedict-Cumberbatch-takes-a-swipe-at-flatulent-David-Cameron.html">described Cameron</a> as “fat-faced and flatulent” indicates that the party organiser, Gabby Bertin, might have struggled to get the notoriously Labour-leaning Brit celebs to attend the party. What political message is Cameron trying to communicate?</p>
<p>As a number of commentators <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/jun/09/david-cameron-cool-britannia-bash-invitation">have observed</a>, the event looks like a cover version of Tony Blair’s New Labour reception held in July 1997, which featured an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/arts/pictures/image/0,8543,-10504949973,00.html">era-defining shot</a> of Oasis singer Noel Gallagher shaking hands with Tony Blair while Young British Artist (YBA) Damien Hirst looked on admiringly. Later Gallagher admitted to snorting coke in the Downing Street loo. </p>
<p>Cameron, of course, is well known for his fixation with Tony Blair and the manner in which he rebranded the British Labour party in the 1990s, led it to a landslide victory in the general election of May 1997 and launched a fateful programme of constitutional, educational, health care, and criminal justice reform. </p>
<p>Cameron aspires to do something similar for the British Conservative party, rendering it, if nothing else, “nicer”. Consequently, it’s not surprising that the gig in the gardens has been <a>dubbed</a> “Cool Britannia 2”. </p>
<p>What, we might wonder, was Cool Britannia mark one? And what did it represent politically?</p>
<h2>The original Cool Britannia</h2>
<p>Cool Britannia in fact predated the arrival of the New Labour government in May 1997, but Tony Blair and his media guru Alistair Campbell were quick to latch onto the evolving Brit pop scene of the mid 90s to give the reinvented party a hip cachet that distinguished it both from Old Labour’s sterile class war rhetoric and the mixture of sleaze and stuffiness that characterised the last days of John Major’s Conservative government. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52544/original/379yqvj7-1404093021.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Damien Hirst’s exhibition ‘Death Explained’ at the White Cube Gallery in London, 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Daniel Deme</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Newsweek journalist Stryker McGuire had first noticed the new optimism that gripped London in the wake of Thatcher’s mid-80s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/oct/09/big-bang-1986-city-deregulation-boom-bust">Big Bang</a> that reinvented the City as a global financial hub. </p>
<p>After the trauma of the 80s, new Brit art characterised by the fashionably acclaimed work of Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, Brit fashion with its sought after designers Alexander McQueen and John Galliano and most of all Brit pop in the shape of Suede, Blur and Oasis represented a new and egalitarian cultural scene at ease with a post-imperial multiculturalism. </p>
<p>An impressed Mcgire deemed London “the coolest city on the planet”. Subsequently, in March 1997, Vanity Fair declared Britannia Cool with a front cover depicting Patsy Kensit and Noel’s brother, Liam, as the faces of a “London that swings again”. </p>
<p>Blair and his spin team harnessed this multicultural, post-imperial and egalitarian hipness to a New Labour agenda that embraced the globalised market but sought also to modernise the UK image to fit a post Cold War order in a world without borders. </p>
<p>Blair’s favourite academic, London School of Economics’ Professor Lord <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/Giddens.aspx">Anthony Giddens</a> identified in <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Third_Way.html?id=GrIWlBc2954C">The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy</a> (1998) the dilemmas the end of the Cold War posed, notably: the death of traditional socialism; the social divisiveness of “market fundamentalism”; the problem of inclusivity and social justice; and the challenges of globalisation. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52533/original/c6cgwvk4-1404091604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geri Halliwell wearing her Union Jack dress at the 1997 BRIT Awards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Giddens, Blair’s renewal of UK Inc would:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>help citizens pilot their way through the major revolutions of our time globalisation, transformation in social life and our relationship to nature.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If Cool Britannia, with Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell dressed in an iconic Union Jack mini dress, represented the culture of the third way, Blair’s programme of modernisation constituted its political agenda. </p>
<p>As Blair told it, in his Labour Party Conference speech of 1994: “modernisation is not the enemy of justice, but its ally”. It involved a “complex journey” towards a renewed sense of “Britishness”. </p>
<p>More precisely, it demanded constitutional reform on an unprecedented scale. By the end of 1997, the government had held referenda in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. As a result, Wales and Northern Ireland found themselves with new assemblies, Scotland with a parliament and London an elected mayor. </p>
<p>Somewhat curiously, Blair considered this exercise in devolution and the abdication of parliamentary sovereignty would somehow unite the kingdom. In his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/mar/28/britishidentity.tonyblair">Britain Speech</a> (2000), he argued that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the constitutional changes we have made, and a new attitude to engagement with Europe, are not a threat to British identity but the means of strengthening it for today’s world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than anything else, Richard Rogers’ Millennium Dome symbolised Cool Britannia and the “values” Blair thought made it great. The fibreglass carbuncle on the face of South London opened with a self-referential festival in January 2000. It announced “who we are” and “what we do”. Blair called it, “a triumph of boldness over blandness, of confidence over cynicism, and excellence over mediocrity”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52542/original/s9r5b6zp-1404092772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The O2 – Millennium Dome, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">.Martin.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This progressive narrative, moreover, served an ideological purpose. Blair’s image-makers presented him as above politics, and the third way as a depoliticised project in techno managerialism that “synergised dynamic markets” with “strong communities”. </p>
<p>New Labour functioned not as a party but a form of corporate populism. Its close ties with celebrities, the BBC and the Murdoch press turned the party into a vast media corporation, politics into theatre and voters into increasingly detached spectators. </p>
<p>Hope and posturing rapidly gave way to voter alienation and disillusionment.</p>
<p>Nothing exemplifies this failure of the political class and its irrelevance to the demos than Cameron’s deluded endeavour to reboot Cool Britannia 2.0. </p>
<p>The Blair-lite attempt “to woo new voters” through celebrity by association merely gives official approval to narcissism on steroids. In an era when Brits appear anxious rather than cool, such posturing only further alienates the rulers from the ruled and reduces politics to a spectator sport – three cheers for uncool Britannic democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Martin Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the gardens of No 10 Downing Street today, UK-time, Prime Minister David Cameron will host a reception to celebrate “the best of Britain’s creative industries”. Tory celebrities such as Sir Michael…David Martin Jones, Associate Professor, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.