THE DEATH OF POP
Nothing could have more forcefully sealed the fate of pop music than the Buckingham Palace concert for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. With an audience of ageing royalists and their quiescent teenage children, the performances of near-geriatric Brian Wilson, Brian May and Ray Davies marked pop music as a dying art. Gone was the teenage rebellion, dissolved into mawkish royalism. Sophie Ellis-Bextor's performance only proved that her naughty image was a sham.
In 1977 the pop charts celebrated the Queen's silver Jubilee by putting the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen ('she ain't no human being') number two in the hit parade. The gradual decline of pop's power to shock, though, has been marked through the years since. The turning point was Bob Geldof's Feed the World concert in 1986, when with Midge Ure and the stars of the day, he turned rebellion into aid. The coalescence of church and pop has been continued since by U2's Christian rocker Bono, just back from touring Africa with the US state department. At Princess Diana's funeral, royalty and rebellion met halfway with the people's princess remembered by pop's elder statesman Elton John; not long after it was Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell singing happy birthday to Prince Charles.
Truth to tell, pop music was never rebellious, but merely took a ride on the generational conflicts of the post-war period. With that framework losing its purchase, pop music has fulfilled its role as adjunct to the royal pageantry of England.
NINETY-MINUTE PATRIOTS
The coincidence of jubilee and world cup saw England decorated in the Union Flag and the Cross of St George, tempting fuddy-duddies like the Daily Telegraph's Bill Deedes to welcome a new age of patriotism. Don't be deceived.
It is true that the Jubilee engendered little opposition, but only because it contained little meaning. Patriotism today makes precious few demands on the populace, and can be worn lightly, as the consumer lifestyle choice it really is. Beckham's decisive penalty against Argentina restored what national pride there is in the England team. It is no substitute for a positive identification with British success that served the country's ruling classes so well in the past.
The attitude of the British elite to sovereignty was already decided by 1990, as described in the papers to a conference organised by Chatham House, the Foreign Office think-tank. Conference organiser Mark Franklin moaned that:
'No attempt to differentiate the question of sovereignty form that of cultural identity has so far been successful in dispelling the myth that a further pooling of sovereignty in the European Community will mean the suppression of the British way of life with all its distinctiveness.' (Britain's Future in Europe, p9-10)
Dependent for political influence on its European alliance, the elite has now achieved its aim of reducing popular nationalism to the level of cultural identity. And if England were knocked out, while Ireland went through, the country would be following them instead.
-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'