Rock and music hall in 1970s Britain

Finally back at work on an essay on music hall in British rock music in the 1970s. The idea came to me when I was completing the BRM project. There were countless rock artists who adapted or alluded to music hall style in the decade, from Bowie and the Sex Pistols, to Kevin Coyne, Ian Dury, and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. There was far more to the story than I had room for in the book. 


The new essay traces the rise of the rock/music hall sub-genre; in various ways, the bands that appropriated music hall style were searching for  a way to signify their discontent with art rock, or with 60s counterculture. It took a bit of work to limit my focus, since there are so many bands that fit in the genre. My primary focus will be on three groups: Slade, the Moodies, and Sham 69. These bands suggest the diversity of the genre, as well as a shared critique of rock's new aspirations to art.  


I originally planned to include Ian Dury in the essay, but the more I learned about him, the more I regarded him as an exceptional case. It's true that Dury's debt to music hall performers like Max Wall and the raunchy Max Miller is obvious enough. It's also the case that Dury conceived of himself more as a popular entertainer in the music hall tradition than as a "rock star." Yet unlike the bands I discuss, Dury and the Blockheads have a mostly uncontentious relation to 60s rock icons or the counterculture. Moreover, Dury's self-conception and star image as a master of the vernacular, a quintessentially British wordsmith, doesn't quite fit with the story I'm trying to tell. I didn't think I could tell the story of Slade, etc. and do justice to Dury's complex case. 


I finally saw the Ian Dury biopic, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (2010), and thought I would blog a bit about it here: but it left me cold. There are some good performances, but overall, it tries a bit too hard. Too bad: an important part of the story of UK punk is the contribution made by artists who were fellow travelers in the movement but not really 'punks' themselves: Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Lene Lovich, John Cooper Clarke; hell, nearly the entire roster of the Stiff record label. Like Dury, most of these artists were still rooted in the music of the 1960s, but managed to be credible to the punks as well. This movie didn't tell that story. Nor did it have any insights into Dury's performance style or musical taste; it just take these things for granted.  If you want to see a surreal rock bio-pic, you're still better off watching 24 Hour Party People again (2004, dir. Michael Winterbottom). Here's my favorite scene: 

Music hall rock has something to do with the sea change that transformed British society, at the start of very bleak decade. 70s Britain was marked by social unrest: worker's strikes, government declared states of emergency, IRA bombings, rampant inflation, massive unemployment. The situation in British rock was similarly divisive. 

The new, though not necessarily younger, bands like Slade and T.Rex were polarizing, pitting a younger rock audience against their older brother's and sister. At stake seemed to be the future of rock: was it music for students (read: intellectual), or was it for the kids?

(As Bill Inglot notes, was there EVER a greater example of the album cover as mission statement?)

It was perhaps inevitable given the spirit of contention that marked the times that Marc Bolan and Slade came to symbolize a backlash against the 60s, even if Bolan himself was a product of that decade if there ever was one.

My larger point in the essay is that music hall style gained a new significance at this moment, distinct from its older meaning and its history. Music hall performance put a premium on entertaining audiences. Singing involved audience participation; comic skits broke down the fourth wall. Utilizing many of the same devices, rock groups like Slade set themselves apart from rock groups more more interested in attaining artistic distinction than entertainment. 


I plan to  treat Slade, Sham 69, and the Moodies in

separate sections of the essay. I also want to share my writing process as I go along,on this blog; please stay tuned!