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| Elton John - Queen of England |
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| Talk,
Justin Harries,
14 January 1999 | |
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This week, the results of a massive international poll were announced, which promptly sent ripples of disquiet through the press. The survey was to see how many of our cultural ‘personality-based’ exports were know to our terrestrial cousins around the world. In other words, the survey wanted to uncover the people that make Britain Britain. Top of the list – Elton John.
‘The people of Britain,’(a nebulous mass of folk that apparently ‘represent’ our views) seemed upset at this result. I felt this was strange, since I thought everyone loved Elton (in fact, before embarking on this article, a fellow writer urged me not to be so mean to the man who wrote ‘I’m Still Standing’). But I think that despite all their respect for the man, ‘the people’ really didn’t want the grandest of dames representing our artistic crowning. It seems they wanted a touch of more, ‘up to the minute’, Britpop.
Here is my own psychotic re-enactment that never happened of a discussion between myself and ‘the people of Britain.’
TPOB: "But so much is happening in our country, things that are new, alive, vibrant."
JH: "This sort of banal eulogising has been wheeled out many times before – on this occasion about Britpop. Forgive for dissing ‘this country’s finest contemporary achievement’, but the combination of barrel grinding yelpings and back to basic musicianship (instruction manual included) seems as appetising as our culinary habits."
TPOB: "Hey! Britpop’s REAL music, authentic, grimy, truly British – the musical equivalent of early Ken Loach or Mike Leigh kitchen sink realism."
JH: "OK, then why do you expect music of this sort to be even a blip on the radar of other nations, who are similarly furnished with their own indigenous music – why should they give a shit?"
This is the problem. Britain has on occasion produced some very fine music, but to rest on, or even worse, to attempt to replicate the laurels of the past seems a reductive attitude. And to take ourselves so seriously in such a poll is as silly as the poll itself. As for Elton being a mirror to our cultural achievement? A has-been who now just enjoys prancing around in stupid frocks and writing songs for Disney. Perfect.
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