The Grain

OMM managed to get its decade review out on the weekend with the usual album and singles of the decade lists, as well an article from Morley outlining the infantile nature of such exercises. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. Instead it was an interview with one of the ‘people of the decade’, Michael Eavis. When asked a question about Jay-Z’s ‘controversial’ headline slot giving Glastonbury a shot in the arm (alright, it wasn’t a question, but a sports journalist-esque statement with “didn’t it?” added at the end, thus allowing the interviewee to realise all he is required to do is agree), he said this . . .

“Oh yeah, and the whole culture of Glastonbury had a facelift. And it was the year before Obama was elected in America. God, it was so nicely timed, that.”

First things first, and those comments on Obama strike me as more than a little unsettling. Is he name dropping Obama on the basis that both he and Jay-Z are African-Amercian and therefore automatically linked? Is he comparing the now established conservatism at Glastonbury to America’s own neo-con vein and inability to integrate following years of de facto and de jure segregation? Is he deluded to the point of thinking that Glastonbury is influential enough to impress ideas upon the American people? It’s nicely timed that an artist who is black and American headlined Glastonbury because a black American became President as well?

Putting aside the fact that one is an event of international significance, and the other is the sort of thing that gets Radio 1 news announcers excited, there is the question of progress. Obama is a representation of progress, just by gaining office he represented an achievement and marker on many social and fronts, but Jay-Z is surely not in a comparable situation as an artist (although his business credentials can surely be lauded). James Brown, Eta James, Otis Redding, Miles Davis, Arethra Franklin, and a list of others that would be obscenely long (given the history of pop music) were able to gain mainstream recognition and the in times of segregation and racial tension because the establishment never had a problem allowing minority groups to become performers; its positions of power that were the issue. 

But attempting to forget this odd connection of events, instead looking at the comment with different eyes, and Eavis may just be saying that Glastonbury is a fair gauge of the nation as a whole. Here I would certainly concur, because Glastonbury reflects us (the UK) as an inherently conservative nation afraid of change.

If a facelift is taken by its dictionary definition (courtesy of Merriam Webster) as “an alteration, restoration, or restyling . . . intended especially to modernize [sic]” then the Eavis quote becomes a particularly bizarre statement.

As a proposition, allowing Jay-Z to headline nearly 20 years after hip hop hit the mainstream as modernisation does not seem reasonable, especially given the context of mainstream press writing its days of a creative force off. Simon Reynolds in the Guardian and Sasha Frère-Jones in the New Yorker have made bold statements about its demise as an art form by way of a lack of vitality, innovation and relevance. Jones goes as far as to say “that hip-hop is no longer the avant-garde, or even the timekeeper, for pop music” before holding up Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 as the exempler of ‘relinquishing the controls’  and becoming “hip-hop by virtue of rapping more than sound” as increasingly electronic (and European) rhythm and beats are adopted.

Although Jay-Z took the stage a year before The Blueprint 3 dropped, this line of thinking was still prevalent, and offered the backdrop to Eavis’ claim that Jay-Z represented some sort of genuine modernisation of Glastonbury. The backlash (and poor ticket sales) to Jay-Z’s presence seem especially odd given Glasto’s history of new music, electronic, dance and hip hop, nestled away in smaller stages, but actually revealed the conservatism of middle England when this music dares to leave its perceived niche. The shock should have been that Glastonbury is not some counterculture, outsider festival its myth might suggest, but a fair representation of middle England, including all its prejudices, and a right of passage for the middle – upper class (and certain caches of celebrity). Jay-Z became a weird threat in a world where Oasis and Coldplay can rule, and parents can enjoy the artists of their youth and buy a segment of ‘hippie’ life in a very capitalist way.

It’s not as if Eavis had booked a genuinely idiosyncratic and outlandish (in the best possible sense) figure such as Lil’ Wayne, that may have caused some confusion in the middle class ranks attending Glasto. Or an act such as Outkast circa Stankonia in 2000 or Speakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2003, when their popularity and sales were at a level that could easily justify a mainstage appearance and may have justifiably represented some progress. No, he booked the most popular, and I would argue safest MC alive, with sales good enough to laugh off some fellow headliners. Why the controversy then? The only answer is our conservative nature and aversion to change, which has led to Glastonbury becoming a romanticsed vision of something that does not exist – a weird 60s, hedonistic rerun, except this time it’ll cost you a couple of hundred quid.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe what it really reflects is the perception of Glastonbury as part of ‘the establishment’ and a section of those at home watching its usually mainstream and conservative acts on the main stages (Tom Jones etc), affronted that they may have to change the channel or be confronted by a hip hop artist, but even that would be a sad state of affairs. A facelift is actually ‘renovation that improves the outward appearance but usually does not involve major changes’, and Jay-Z certainly fits that bill.