As I have no intention of going to Glastonbury I am not really qualified to care who is booked to appear as I am an armchair festival watcher (in much the same way as my fellow Nottingham music champions comment on the local music scene) and with a click of the red button I can watch any band that I like. I remember a storm in a teacup in 2008 when Jay-Z appeared and it was deemed by the masses that he didn't belong somehow among the 'proper' bands and musicians. This wasn't (in the majority) a racial prejudice because the naysayers had the same moans about Metallica, it was simply that the commentators have an idea about what should and shouldn't be seen at one of the biggest festivals of the season. One of Jay-Z's (I call him Jay Zed but only when he is in this country) most vocal detractors was Noel Gallagher, at the time a member of an inexplicably successful piss-poor Beatle tribute band. Mr Zed answered his critics by not only turning out an amazing performance, but by pissing on Gallagher's picnic by opening his set by leading the audience with a chorus of 'Wonderwall'.
There seems to be a feeling that Glastonbury is an indie festival and that bands shouldn't be allowed to appear unless the NME says that they are any good, forgetting that the NME hasn't been relevant since the days when the M in MTV stood for 'music'. It matters not that these are the same people who don't know what 'indie' actually means.
This is something that goes back years; some people , let's call them 'idiots', think that 'indie' is a specific genre of music rather than being short for 'independent' as in they are signed to an independent record label. One of the biggest 'indie' record labels of the 1980s was PWL Records, Pete Waterman's label and the home of Stock Aitken and Waterman. By default the biggest 'indie' acts of the late 1980s happened to be Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, and Rick Astley. At the time it was easy to deride S/A/W for their disposable brand of formulaic pop music, but take the trouble to listen to them now with fresh ears and you'll find that the songs are perfectly crafted blasts of pop. Even now listening to such hits as 'I Should Be So Lucky' and 'Never Gonna Give You Up', you can't help but sing along with great affection - just look back at the Rick-rolling meme to see how ingrained such songs are. This might be seen as sacrilege but how was their working method any different to that of Tamla Motown? Perhaps that is a subject for another day and another article. I once had to show someone the Indie Chart in the pages of the aforementioned NME to prove this point, but not before I had been laughed at for claiming that Astley was an indie singer.
Anyway, to return to Glastonbury, it has been announced that Kanye West is to play the festival this year (he is NOT headlining because he is not playing on the Sunday, there is only one Glastonbury headliner) and it is like 2008 all over again with people saying he has no place on the bill. I pointed something out on Twitter yesterday:
Reminder: It's called The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, not The White Boys and Guitars Weekend.
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) March 17, 2015
The line about 'white boys and guitars' is actually borrowed from John Peel who used it when explaining why he was getting frustrated that the listener votes for the Festive Fifty didn't reflect the eclectic nature of his show. Twitter is a notoriously difficult place to convey tone and it was perhaps inevitable that someone decided that I had shared a racist viewpoint. Thankfully this dickhead didn't carry on the conversation once I had explained the tweet to him so presumably he is working on an apology for misunderstanding what I meant. Everyone else seemed to get it, my point wasn't anything to do with colour, it was about this feeling that a rapper shouldn't be playing at Worthy Farm. For what my opinion is worth, Kanye West has as much right as any other artist to be appearing. People forget that a performing arts festival should encompass everything for everyone and if you don't want to watch Kanye West (and neither would I in all honesty) then it is a matter of choice given that there is a good chance that Glastonbury are going to be continuing the tradition of having more than one stage in operation.
It is my only hope that someone on the BBC presenting team has the courage (should the opportunity arise, he might not do interviews) to tell him that Beyonce deserves it more than he does.
Listen to this week's edition of The Sunday Alternative here.
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