If you've read my tweets in the shiny new Twitter gadget I just installed in the margin, you know I wasn't too impressed by the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. I liked the opening for its ability to show a variety of elements of British culture, not merely the clichés everyone already knows.
The closing ceremonies were supposed to do the same thing. According to our commentators, the slate of music was chosen to be not necessarily the best British songs of all time, but rather a representative selection of songs. I can agree with the "not necessarily the best" part, but representative? The impression one got was that Britain recorded a bunch of famous classic rock anthems before 1980, and after that, have done nothing but bubblegum pop.
There was plenty of old music, so I assume people over about fifty were probably happy, though I suspect they would be disappointed that other than an appearance by Ray Davies of The Kinks, there wasn't much that isn't already the stuff of mainstream radio. Anyone younger - and appreciative of light pop - was likely glad to see the Spice Girls reunion, though they seem to be less remembered than the height of their fame would suggest.
Trouble is, the Spice Girls, Take That, and George Michael - who mostly appealed to the same people - formed most of the representation of the eighties and nineties. For that huge part of the audience that is under fifty and not into bubblegum, our entire musical experience was summed up by Fatboy Slim and one song by half of Oasis. Okay, there was the Pet Shop Boys too, but they were relegated to playing during the athletes' march; I looked down at the wrong time and missed seeing them altogether. What's especially odd is that two bands that would have brought some balance to the program, Blur and New Order, were there, but only for an earlier concert outside the stadium.
Look, I realise not everyone can get the perfect show for them. To quote, ironically enough, the Rolling Stones, "you can't always get what you want." Just because I'd like to see them end with the Jesus and Mary Chain covering Paranoid Android doesn't mean everyone else would. But really, a retrospective of British music with no punk, metal, new wave, Madchester, trip hop, or grime? That lack of depth made the whole production seem like nothing more than a really big Super Bowl half-time show.
No comments:
Post a Comment