The BBC’s Today programme looks at the Word magazine article that accuses British pop of going posh, with “the majority of pop musicians… now privately educated, or went to stage school.”
The magazine compared a Top 40 from a week in October 2010 to the same week in 1990, when it found nearly 80 per cent of artists were state school educated…
“This has been a gripe I’ve had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It’s never been worse,” he says.
“The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven’t got 96 O levels you ain’t getting a job.”
“In the old days you got a job in the music industry because you knew something about music. Now when they see your CV they don’t take you unless you’ve been to university, full stop.”
But does the same requirement for academic credentials dominate when it comes to bands trying to break through?
“I think that when all the A&R people wear Jack Wills clothes it tells you where they’re going. It’s become snobbish. It’s become a snobbish culture.”
The article goes on to point out that whatever has happened to pop, grime and dubstep are both viable, popular genres dominated by working class people.
(Image: Harrods, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from herry’s photostream)