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?

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