James Blunt gets mother's backing in 'posh pop' row

Jane Blount says Harrow-educated son has faced 'harsh criticism', amid claims musicians are too middle class

James Blunt's mother today waded into the debate about whether pop stars these days are too posh, emailing the BBC to complain that her Harrow-educated son was subject to "harsh criticism" because of his privileged background.

The suggestion that at least 60% of contemporary chart pop and rock acts feature former public school pupils was first raised in a recent issue of the music magazine The Word. The rise of privately educated performers such as Lily Allen, Florence Welch and Chris Martin, it was suggested, spelled the end of working-class guitar heroes.

According to the magazine's editor, Mark Ellen, in the past the rich were not interested in popular arts. "If they dabbled in the performing arts at all," he wrote, "it would be within the highbrow ghettos: opera, ballet, classical theatre. In the past 10 years, the well-heeled young have decided it would be a jolly hoot to annexe popular culture en masse."

The December issue of The Word compared the top 40 hits from a week in October 2010 with the same week in 1990, when nearly 80% had been educated at state schools.

The BBC picked up the debate, and the 1980s pop producer Pete Waterman told the Today programme: "This has been a gripe I've had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It's never been worse. The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven't got 96 O-levels you ain't getting a job."

Blunt's mother, Jane Blount, responded: "I was most interested to hear Pete Waterman's thoughts on public school rock stars. His attitude is reflected by most of the critics in UK.

"My son, who is hugely appreciated worldwide, receives harsh criticism here and we have, rather sadly, been aware that it is because of his background. We a! re relie ved that on the whole James's fanbase take no notice of the critics.

"His album Stay the Night (which, of course, I think is fantastic and so do most people who hear it) is doing so well around the world. Peter Waterman contradicted himself finally as he said that no number of exams will make you popular or successful in the music world."

The DJ Annie Nightingale told Today perceptions of class backgrounds owed a lot to marketing. "When that whole kind of great big wave happened in the 60s you just sort of felt 'they're changing the world,'" she said. "It was about working-class people being able to do very well."

But, she cautioned, "even then they had to pretend to be more working class than they actually were. A lot of them had fairly comfortable middle-class backgrounds. John Lennon did, and Pete Townshend. But not Roger Daltrey and not Keith Moon".


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