Before I go any further, I need to explain why this post is even necessary. I don’t much like Glastonbury, so pass on. There’s a couple of problems with that. The music is not a problem. Yes, I think it’s rubbish. But that’s pop music, and it’s disposable and ephemeral by definition. I still say there has been a serious decline in pop music, and this monotonous, mechanical thud is not music. But old folk have been saying that about young folk’s music since ever. My favourite music was dismissed in similar terms. So I can pass on by on that. But there’s more to it. This corporate jamboree has commodified not only music, but mentalities, ideals, principles, everything that seems opposed to the system taken over and turned into its defence, without people even knowing. It’s hilarious to see people who think they are being counter cultural being so utterly absorbed by and dependent upon the system they claim to oppose. As I survey the scene at Glastonbury I see symbols of social and ecological protest covering the all-too-familiar priorities of money and power, set over against people, but with this difference – in cultural terms, the people themselves are the passive agents of those priorities. The whole spectacle is consumptive to the core. People see a festival, and another excuse to grin another few days away happily whilst the planet burns. I see the corporatisation and trashing of a site rich with spiritual history. But nobody gives a damn about the spiritual dimension of life these days, other than posting the odd meme or two on anti-social media. ‘I’m spiritual but not religious’ is the pick-and-mix morality of the age of narcissism. If you think that’s tetchy, read biologist Robert Winston’s view on this in The Story of God 2005. He notes that if we look at religious life in closer detail, what we see is a shift away from worshipping a traditional God, and towards a view where the individual, and life itself, are worshipped as divine. I suggest you find his book and read it at length, because I don’t have time and space to summarize his arguments (Winston is not only one of the world’s leading fertility experts, he is a practising Jew, and can speak with authority).
There is a rather selfish quality to some New Age religion, a focus on individuals getting what they want. Some New Age beliefs, such as Transcendental Meditation, do aim to change the world for the better … However, a cursory glance at the titles on offer in an average high street bookshop suggests that much New Age religion is focused upon individuals, not on society: Empowering Your Life With Dreams; The Alchemy of Voice; Transform and Enrich Your Life Through The Power Of Your Voice; The Power of Oneness — Live The Life You Choose.
Moreover, some New Age religions promise not just happiness, peace, fulfilment and so on, but often material wealth. The Sokka Gakkai movement, whose teachings are an offshoot of Buddhism, maintains that chanting the phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo can, by itself, create wealth. The publications of Louise L. Hay recommend making affirmations such as 'my income is constantly increasing'. And New Age religion is itself a big business, with books, CD-ROMs, workshops, spiritual retreats, business seminars and healing outlets raking in millions of dollars. New Age religion is a kind of 'spiritual Thatcherism', stressing both the power of individual choice and the ultimate desirability of worldly success.
Winston 2005 ch 9
There’s more to be said, obviously. Winston writes of Neolithic man’s search for the transcendental. When I think of Glastonbury, that is what I think.
So this is what I am objecting to, not just the music. That said, the music is godawful too, artists who are creatures of the corporations, whose tentacles run through the mass media and culture. And the masses lap it up. So the character of the music is important, in that it reflects its corporate character. It’s the extent to which the adoring masses fall in line and play their part so passively that’s the issue for me. I see the symbols of social and ecological protest, I hear radical statements from the stage, I hear the cheers from the masses. But I am not inclined to think the revolution is just around the corner. In fact, if this is anything to go by, we will be waiting forever for the changes needed. This is rebellion and protest consumed as entertainment, the rebels paying for the privileged, keeping the engines of the system they claim to be opposing turning over. There is an alarming gap opening up between symbols and truths, between ideals and reality, between meanings and practices. In an increasingly media saturated society, in which millions of people access their own reality at the push of a button, we are confronted with something absorbing and thwarting: a manipulative culture which quite cynically appropriates radical ideals and causes and incorporated them, so that something which seems a radical stand against the system actually buttresses it so firmly as to have the rebels standing in its defence whilst believing that they are rebelling.
I surveyed the press and, of course, the right wing press had a field day at the mountains of rubbish left behind at the end of the festival. I’ll give some quotes from the comments under the articles, to give a flavour of what people are saying. Before I do that, it should be made abundantly clear that there is a distinction to be drawn between eco-campaigners and festival goers. Critics want to conflate the two so as to be able to criticize climate warriors as hypocrites. That’s not true, and I for one detest Glastonbury and all it represents, from the rotten music, the consumptive crowds, and the corporate trashing of a spiritual site. Others are inclined to be lenient, given the evident popularity of the festival. They should be aware that that popularity may well be more apparent than real, given the corporate connections running through the mass media means that we will be deluged with positive commentary.
“These will be the same little snowflake who protest against pollution and climate change just as long as it is someone else cleaning up the mess and paying for it all
“The lefty greeny virtue signalling generation and what at the bottom of it they are genuinely like..the future does not bode well.
“Did Sir David after his speech quickly disappear before the end of the festival as not to be embarrassed by all the mess left behind by all his enviromental and eco warriors friends.
“They nod and agree with all the save the planet rhetoric and chastise others, but totally ignore actually doing something about it! Someone else will do it/pick it up after all; selfish, arrogant people who have their hands constantly out, but offer nothing to society in return.
“Obviously the green environmental credentials of both organisers and attendees fall a very long way short of what they would have you believe.
“Those lefties have violated the fields, plants and wildlife of Glastonbury, even though David Attenborough gave a speech on single use plastics ban they still left a sea of plastics and fields full of non recyclable tents and other waste.
“There was also considerable use of drugs, especially 'Nitrous oxide, like CFCs, is stable when emitted at ground level, but breaks down when it reaches the stratosphere to form other gases, called nitrogen oxides, that trigger ozone-destroying reactions' (Wiki).
“The hypocritical Left Wing indeed!! Practice what you preach, before Corbyn taxes your middle class gardens and considerable inheritances!”
I would just ask, how many, precisely, of this crowd actually are Greens, lefties, and/or Green lefties? I don’t know. I do know they cheer the slogans and boo the Tories. But I don’t take people by their self-image.
I broke ranks on this, and I’m glad to say I haven’t been alone.
First, the music. Ian McNabb from The Icicle Works objected to the rotten standard of the music.
“It has been brought to my attention that some of my Glastonbury rants smack of jealousy/bitterness? Well OK let me spell it out a little clearer. My beef with the majority of the artists who dominate the media and the airwaves in the 21st Century is that they are either not very good, just OK or plain awful. I hear very few good singers (most cannot sing at all), hardly ever a great song, and the art of being a hard-working musician and learning how to play your instrument properly would appear to be consigned to history.
What we get to see are people who are where they are more by luck than judgment. The bean-counters now run what's left of the industry and what we see is artists who can be slotted into existing holes without a problem. I see ersatz "punk" bands, disposable singer/songwriters, everything before us is a piss-poor version of something that happened decades ago and was truly special.
My biggest annoyance is that there are many, many great artists out there who NEVER get a go on the fair. You can see them in a pub/bar by you this weekend. You will never see them on Jools Holland and The Guardian will never feature them, I will humbly and with your unwritten permission include myself in this number.
But we're here, working our arses off every weekend NON-STOP without any help from the channels who could so easily raise our profile if they even bothered to hear what we are doing. We are supported by small, faithful fanbases which (barely) keep us in the game. So yes. I get pissed off when I see rubbish being beamed into my home everyday. Jealous? No. Bitter? Nah. Annoyed? Sometimes. Not all the time. We troubadours are very grateful for what we have. Sometimes an open mind/ear from the Gatekeepers would be helpful I x”
I posted a comment in agreement with this on Ian’s page and then shared it to my page with a commentary of my own. I really don't care who it annoyed. In fact, I hope it did annoy, because it is precisely the people who swallow Glastonbury's self-image who are most in need of a reality-check:
Spot on Ian McNabb. "My biggest annoyance is that there are many, many great artists out there who NEVER get a go on the fair. You can see them in a pub/bar by you this weekend."
I am glad to know some of these artists, get to see them as often as I can (good gig coming up July 19), and have been happy to have given them a plug here and there over the years. So why not just enjoy them and stay quiet? I do, in the main. But folk who have had the nerve to stick their heads above the parapet on this are getting shot down for telling it like it is. And I'll defend them.
I always loved Ian McNabb's music, from back in Sefton Park, must have been 1984 (gee, where did that time go). Ian has the nerve to say what I'd prefer not to have to say. Each to their own, and all that complacent stuff that collapses standards so that in the end nobody knows and cares so long as people are 'happy.' But some things are becoming beyond insufferable. I know loads of singers and musicians who never get anything like the coverage this dreck gets. And they are a sight better than this tripe (music for the corporate form - just think of it in terms of character de/construction). And they are all out there doing their bit every week. Not sure ranting does any good though. Because those who consume this dross wouldn't know the difference, and don't care to know either. Because they are 'happy' and enjoying themselves. And it is we are miserable. Just don't set me off about the fake change-the-world radicalism: ("There needs to be a culture change" heads one article on the mountains of waste left behind. This is not counter-culture but very much an expression of contemporary culture. These people are passive consumers of capital’s ‘consumer democracy.’ People may be crying out for genuine public community but they lack the capacity to build it. And then people wonder why this civilization is heading for the skids.
I nearly always avoid such comment, keep it private. I'll admit to being well out-of-kilter with this 'culture' and 'civilization.' But people I know and love are getting flack for voicing their opinion, and I'll defend them - not out of loyalty - I recently exchanged some words with Ian on football - but for being right. Ian is spot on.
More positively, as I start to temper my temper, I have this dream of having music all around, not as a one-off, walled off festival (did you see the "I see no borders" flag hung on an eight foot security fence keeping the plebs out?), but as the polyphonous soundscape of life, music in celebration of the recovery of our dancing grounds. This crowd are celebrating their incorporation. But rather than controversialising (and having to controversialize), let’s see what we can do to make life a total festival of music. That requires attunement in all areas.
I like all kinds of music. I dislike intensely the repetitive, mechanical, infernal anti-music of the corporate form. (OK, I've been reading the Inferno, again - this stuff makes me feel like I am stuck in it, try Inf. 1: 118-120). For various reasons, I can't stand loudness, the brutal cacophony of the modern soundscape. I hear it all around. Everything seems to have to be accompanied with a beat now, news as entertainment. It is the soundtrack to our obituary. (And now the wheels of heaven stop / You feel the devil's riding crop / Get ready for the future / …)
I love what Ian Prowse says here:
"Music, that thing which is right up there with shelter, food, warmth and oxygen as a basic necessity for human life.
There should be more of it."
That's my positive point. So well said the two Ians.
I normally pass on by. I am certain that many of my musical favourites can be held by others to be pretty low quality and low taste, certainly when it comes to pop music. It’s not really that I am arguing about, although there were certain ‘artists’ here who are so false and nasty I despair at the fact that people give them houseroom. It's galling to know the fine singers and musicians out there whose talents go unrecognized (and OK they do it for love of music not fame and fortune) and then see and hear (not sure which is worse) some of the stuff being passed off as music. In the blessed name of Elvis, the television set must be glad I don't have a gun. I think ears have been raised on mush. I shudder to think how this translates into politics. Ben Barber's book "Consumed" is good on what he calls ‘infantilism,’ referring to how easily people have come to be manipulated by the appeal to feelings and emotions rather than reason.
Rant not over, it'll just go back to being channelled more positively. Delete, delete, delete, switch off, use earplugs and blindfolds, have a stiff drink, have several, sing some songs, take a hike, stay cool, as a careers advisor once told me, which was odd, seeing as I've never been cool.
And it’s almost reassuring to note that there has been signs of, if not a backlash exactly, but a slight complaint from people who are socially and environmentally friendly. In the letters page of The Guardian, people are saying politely what I state plainly – this is not counter-culture, it is a continuation of the very consumer culture social and environmental radicals protest.
“Although your many pages of Glastonbury coverage in G2 on Monday didn’t entirely overlook criticism of the event, they were predominantly positive. But for many of your readers, the prospect of attending an event costing hundreds of pounds is as remote as that of attending one costing thousands; yet while your coverage of an example of the latter, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop festival, has been – rightly – mocking, you’re much more respectful of Glastonbury, though some of the expensive “alternatives” marketed there are just as ridiculous as those at Goop. The image I take of Glastonbury from your coverage is of a meeting place for mainly rich people with a sense of entitlement. When you add in that many of them travel there by car, almost all carry technical gizmos that only exist on the back of environmental and human degradation in the third world, and the event’s massive consumption and waste of single use resources, it’s clear that – in the face of the stark crises facing our planet – Glastonbury is part of the problem not part of the solution. Brief pauses to cheer on David Attenborough and Extinction Rebellion don’t invalidate that balance sheet.”
Albert Beale, London
One can scarce forbear to cheer. Heartily. You make these points alone and you risk being accused of being a misery and a killjoy. The blanket positivity across tv and media is infectious, with people joining in the party atmosphere. It takes guts to spoil the party atmosphere. But it takes guts to transform society and put it on a sustainable footing. It takes more than an appearance of Attenborough and various climate campaigners seeking to spread the message to turn a festival such as this Green. That so many media outlets have been so positive in their coverage of this festival, and have been for years, should tell you something. There’s no threat to power here.
And what about the other beings and bodies with whom humans share this planet?
“I wondered this year (as other years) about what happens to the other inhabitants of the festival site – birds, mammals, bats, insects, reptiles – during this invasion by thousands of humans and a huge volume of noise (The greenest Glastonbury ever?, G2, 1 July).”
Judy Gahagan, London
So I’m glad I broke rank from all the happy smiling people cheering the eco-slogans and raising the eco-banners. This is a passive radicalism at best. In the main, though, it's fake and phoney, handing all the ammunition conservative forces need to identify environmentalism with the entitled snowflake generation. That identification is spurious. But people who push the environmental cause need to make that clear. I’ll make it clear, Glastonbury has nothing to do with me and nothing to say to me. And the music is pants, too.