"The Silencing of Other, Rougher Voices Brings with It a Creeping Blandness"

"Damon Albarn of Blur was mocked as the posh boy of Britpop when in fact he'd gone to a comprehensive in Essex and his family was just mildly bohemian. Nowadays he'd be decide[d]ly 'below stairs'. Sandie Shaw, who emerged from Dagenham in that regional and social upheaval in the 1960s, told the culture select committee that a career in pop had become unviable 'unless you’re Mumford & Sons and come from a public school and have a rich family that can support you'."


Stuart Maconie in the New Statesman discerns "a curious gentrification of pop culture."