Friday, October 31, 2008
Mp3 blog: Rock The Dock
File-hosting has come a long way since I started this blog. So I thought I'd try sharing one of my favourite albums:
Britpop stars support the working class in this very listenable compilation.
Background
At the end of the 90s, Britpop had reached its zenith and would soon decline. The sheen had worn off, and drink, drugs, fame and the vacuity of lad culture had taken their toll. As went Britpop, so went New Labour: 'Cool Britannia' was soon exposed as more window-dressing for the same old exploitation and greed.
It's the same old song
Beneath the hype, the working class continued to fight the erosion of its living standards and the profit regime imposed by neoliberalism. This crystallised in the fight of the Liverpool Dockers, who went out on strike after fellow union members were sacked for refusing low-paid overtime. They remained on solidarity picket for three years, sacrificing their jobs and security for the principle of international solidarity.
The response at home and abroad was immense, but not sufficient. The company set the workers up to break the union and introduce low-cost labour at the docks. Government indifference and criminal neglect by their own union leadership hung the dockers out to dry. The strike may have failed to defend the workers' interests. But it showed that, beneath the rhetoric of 'management priorities' and the law, the same question remains: which side are you on?
Open up, it's the pigs - paramilitary police attempt to intimidate the dockers
The Music
Britpop was always a marketing designation first. The cheeky chappie personae of its leading lights fit with the postmodern ethos of the times: the kids don't care about the issues any more and just want to have fun. Damon Albarn could adopt a mockney accent, Noel Gallagher could give two fingers to the camera, and rock rebellion was reborn, stripped of any content.
But Rock the Dock shows Britpop had a heart. It was put together by Gallagher's record label; Gallagher himself had become disillusioned over his trip to No. 10 Downing and wanted to make amends. Perhaps the breadth of this compilation shows how common this sentiment was: many of the leading lights of Britpop contribute tracks. This is no stodgy exercise in agitprop: contrary to the conceits of most music journos, politics and music make a great mix.
A yobbo with heart - Gallagher at a Dockers' benefit in 1998
Oasis kick it off with a live version of Don't Look Back In Anger - an odd choice, given the strike had been lost by the time the compilation was released, but at least he name-drops the dockers from the stage. Beth Orton is here with Best Bit, proving she never received the acclaim she deserved. Billy Bragg (of course), Ocean Colour Scene, Primal Scream - bands that were huge in their own right are here, standing with the workers.
Equally pleasurable are the lesser lights assembled here, which gave me a first listen to Britpop's second tier. Cast, Rumbletrain, Lovers and Gene add jangly, morose songs about working class life. Smaller's track Aimless is one of the best here, an angry two minute hymn to alienation. Even The Chemical Brothers shine with Setting Sons, a driving highlight and the only electronica track on the disc.
Women of the Waterfront
The only weak point is Doxx Band's The Line, apparently assembled from the dockers themselves. The song itself is lovely and sincere, particularly the little rap in the middle (how many times do you hear Northerners rap?) But it degenerates into fuzzy guitar noodling that could be better left out. Chumbawamba channel English folk harmony through anarcho-syndicalism with One By One, a blistering attack on the dockers' union leadership. But they open with a quote from a docker's wife, in obvious distress about her poverty, who keeps repeating "You don't know" how bad it is. The moralism grates a little: obviously we do know, at least a little, otherwise we wouldn't be listening. Finally, there's one obvious oversight: where is Cocaine Socialism by Pulp? Bar none, the song sums up best the rank hypocrisy of New Labour and Britpop's co-option.
In Never Cross A Picket Line, Billy Bragg asks, "Where is the might of the labour movement?" The labour movement didn't come together to defend the dockers. But Rock the Dock shows it could have, and garnered mass support for doing so. Britpop found its soul as the labour movement was losing its own, a fact both honourable and tragic.
Download Rock The Dock here.
Britpop stars support the working class in this very listenable compilation.
Background
At the end of the 90s, Britpop had reached its zenith and would soon decline. The sheen had worn off, and drink, drugs, fame and the vacuity of lad culture had taken their toll. As went Britpop, so went New Labour: 'Cool Britannia' was soon exposed as more window-dressing for the same old exploitation and greed.
It's the same old song
Beneath the hype, the working class continued to fight the erosion of its living standards and the profit regime imposed by neoliberalism. This crystallised in the fight of the Liverpool Dockers, who went out on strike after fellow union members were sacked for refusing low-paid overtime. They remained on solidarity picket for three years, sacrificing their jobs and security for the principle of international solidarity.
The response at home and abroad was immense, but not sufficient. The company set the workers up to break the union and introduce low-cost labour at the docks. Government indifference and criminal neglect by their own union leadership hung the dockers out to dry. The strike may have failed to defend the workers' interests. But it showed that, beneath the rhetoric of 'management priorities' and the law, the same question remains: which side are you on?
Open up, it's the pigs - paramilitary police attempt to intimidate the dockers
The Music
Britpop was always a marketing designation first. The cheeky chappie personae of its leading lights fit with the postmodern ethos of the times: the kids don't care about the issues any more and just want to have fun. Damon Albarn could adopt a mockney accent, Noel Gallagher could give two fingers to the camera, and rock rebellion was reborn, stripped of any content.
But Rock the Dock shows Britpop had a heart. It was put together by Gallagher's record label; Gallagher himself had become disillusioned over his trip to No. 10 Downing and wanted to make amends. Perhaps the breadth of this compilation shows how common this sentiment was: many of the leading lights of Britpop contribute tracks. This is no stodgy exercise in agitprop: contrary to the conceits of most music journos, politics and music make a great mix.
A yobbo with heart - Gallagher at a Dockers' benefit in 1998
Oasis kick it off with a live version of Don't Look Back In Anger - an odd choice, given the strike had been lost by the time the compilation was released, but at least he name-drops the dockers from the stage. Beth Orton is here with Best Bit, proving she never received the acclaim she deserved. Billy Bragg (of course), Ocean Colour Scene, Primal Scream - bands that were huge in their own right are here, standing with the workers.
Equally pleasurable are the lesser lights assembled here, which gave me a first listen to Britpop's second tier. Cast, Rumbletrain, Lovers and Gene add jangly, morose songs about working class life. Smaller's track Aimless is one of the best here, an angry two minute hymn to alienation. Even The Chemical Brothers shine with Setting Sons, a driving highlight and the only electronica track on the disc.
Women of the Waterfront
The only weak point is Doxx Band's The Line, apparently assembled from the dockers themselves. The song itself is lovely and sincere, particularly the little rap in the middle (how many times do you hear Northerners rap?) But it degenerates into fuzzy guitar noodling that could be better left out. Chumbawamba channel English folk harmony through anarcho-syndicalism with One By One, a blistering attack on the dockers' union leadership. But they open with a quote from a docker's wife, in obvious distress about her poverty, who keeps repeating "You don't know" how bad it is. The moralism grates a little: obviously we do know, at least a little, otherwise we wouldn't be listening. Finally, there's one obvious oversight: where is Cocaine Socialism by Pulp? Bar none, the song sums up best the rank hypocrisy of New Labour and Britpop's co-option.
In Never Cross A Picket Line, Billy Bragg asks, "Where is the might of the labour movement?" The labour movement didn't come together to defend the dockers. But Rock the Dock shows it could have, and garnered mass support for doing so. Britpop found its soul as the labour movement was losing its own, a fact both honourable and tragic.
Download Rock The Dock here.
Labels: Britpop, Liverpool Dockers, music, working class
