Whiny Thumbsucker Dissents in - where else - The FT

[Tom Roche]

Is this guy next Julie Burchill?

There have only been a few anti-Peel articles over the years, and just one or two this week, but they all seem to pounce on how at some point he modified his accent... which to my endless amusement appears to be a near-capitol offence in the UK, is it not...?

Obviously the article which follows is so clueless it is - to me - more amusing than upsetting.

Tom R
Atlanta






ARTS & IDEAS



RADIO. 


It's only pop music, guys, not Beethoven: 





By MARTIN HOYLE 
550 words 
1 November 2004
Financial Times
London Ed1
Page 15
English
(c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved 

The Princess Diana syndrome was in evidence last week. Insomniacs
surfing the dial on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning could be excused
for thinking that the world had lost an international peacemaker or the
curer of Aids. The voice of John Peel was heard throughout the land, in
a subtly varying range of accents. 

In a Front Row devoted entirely to the sexagenarian DJ, Andy Kershaw
unwittingly put his finger on why some of us remained impervious to the
Peel spell. The former John Ravenscroft from the Wirral had first
pretended to be a down-home Scouser when in Beatles-fancying America,
but his whole life had been an attempt to deny middle-class roots and
public-school education. Possibly admirable (and doubtless necessary),
it explained the clash between northern drone and talking proper that
the night's nostalgic sampling threw up. It was strange, too, to recall
the inconsistency in Peel's initial attitude to what he once termed
Middle England and his acquiescence in ultimately being taken to its
bosom in Radio 4's Home Truths. 

On various wavelengths the superlatives about the most important figure
in British music in the past 40 years came thick and fast. Gambaccini,
Holland, Albarn - colleagues and proteges, mediafolk and musicians -
paid tribute. With all due regret for a notable broadcaster and
much-loved individual, am I alone in finding the reaction OTT? Peel's
innate rebelliousness caused him to pioneer lesser-known areas of music
and unknown artists, but he could sound like self-parody. At worst there
were moments for Pseuds' Corner. 

And the self-importance of the pop and rock world as it emerged over
those few hours was suffocating, ludicrous and sinister. This is pop
music, guys, an industry aiming ephemeral products at impulse buyers
with instant gratification in mind. Beethoven's late quartets it ain't.
Plumbing the mysteries of human existence, delving into the recesses of
the human heart, assessing man's place in the universe: none of these
are its business nor should they be. 

It's not created to be revived and reinterpreted over the centuries.
It's not Bach, "A Groovy Kind of Love" and "A Lovers' Concerto"
notwithstanding. Loading it with such portentousness merely emphasises
how eagerly we scuttle towards the easy, the glib, the populist and
anything lending itself to pseudo-sociological and quasi-artistic
generalisations. All we needed was Christopher Frayling to announce a
memorial in Hyde Park. As it was, a grieving statement from Tony Blair,
in tones indistinguishable from those used when speaking of war
casualties, set the perfect seal on the whole sad event. 

Peel was an influential broadcaster who formed the taste of many music
fans and helped some unknown performers to recognition. He was good at
his job. Let's not make his memory, his undoubted professionalism, tacky
with hyperbole. Even now, I'm sure, Front Row is preparing for Mozart's
250th birthday in 15 months' time. Three minutes of stilted questions to
an obscure academic from a carefully primed presenter reading from a
cribsheet, stumbling over the foreign words and alien names? You can bet
that there will be no word from Downing Street. 

Martin Hoyle