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Janet Street-Porter tells why charity concerts by pop stars make her want to scream
In the mid 1960s, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye were revolutionary artists, changing the landscape of popular music forever, bringing the hopes and aspirations of black people into the mainstream, giving them a focus and an identity in a way that has never been equalled. Many of them are now penniless, having received few or no royalties. Even though their talents are as undimmed as ever, they’ve been thrown on the scrap heap by the music industry because they’re not in fashion. It’s interesting that it takes a white middle-class organisation like the BBC to set out to chronicle the hollow vacuum that now exists at the heart of American music. It’s ironic that pop music believes it is an appropriate conduit to "save" Africa, to make us aware of poverty and debt, suffering and injustice. Pop music in the 21st century is also the industry of conspicuous waste, a business so obsessed with the next big thing that every week young men and women are routinely hyped up and then dropped when they don’t fit this year’s marketing strategy. These days talent is sifted via prime-time television series, signed up in response to viewer reaction, styled and marketed in order to offend as few people as possible. It’s about as threatening and revolutionary as a Big Mac. Pop groups are always droning on about environmental issues, and yet they set an appalling example of waste. Chris Martin from Coldplay, a self-important environmental whinger, and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow are said to drive the Toyota Prius, an eco-friendly car so trendy there’s a two-month waiting list. Shame, then, that Mr Martin also uses private jets to meet up with Gwynnie and the baby while on tour promoting his new album. When Sir Bob Geldof, no matter how sincere, tells me that a concert in Hyde Park is going to help raise awareness of poverty in Africa I just want to scream. I know about malnutrition, rape and suffering in Africa, as does anyone with half a brain cell. What constituency of pop does Maria Carey represent other than conspicuous consumption? She is the woman who issues demands about what side she can be photographed from, wants red carpets on pavements, dozens of candles in dressing rooms, who is known as the nightmare diva to end them all. Elton John spends a huge amount of time raising money to help AIDS sufferers in Africa. He also gives a huge chunk of his income. For many of the people listed in this line-up, however, it’s a chance to get on worldwide television, sell a load of albums and feel very pleased with yourself at the end of the day. The Spice Girls re-forming? Geri Halliwell’s recent efforts to promote herself via a television documentary and press interviews have been widely derided as shallow and self-seeking. Make no mistake about it, Live8 is the marketing moment to end them all - and that’s why most of the people on the list are those who are already easily recognisable brand names, relentlessly marketed on a global level. I thank them for giving up their time. I recognise their good intentions. But ultimately they won’t make any difference at all.—The Independent |
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THIS
will be remembered as the year pop music finally lost any credibility
from Bob Dylan’s protest songs of the 1960s finally ending up in
2005 in the car park of good intentions and zero content. Dylan’s
autobiography was a fascinating chronicle of a committed young man
devoting his life to music he found inspirational, a story of long
nights in clubs playing with folk musicians who truly believed their
music reflected the American underclass. An excellent series on BBC2
at the moment, entitled Soul Deep, has been essential viewing
for anyone interested in the era when black music spoke directly from
the heart, untainted by marketing and glossy packaging.