Nicholas Barrett

In today’s guardian Dan Hancox describes ‘Lethal Bizzle’s Pow’ as an “anthem for kettled youth”.  As much as I like the track I can’t help feeling disappointed that a group of East London teenagers flattering themselves for 3 minutes is the best we can do.

I was at the December 9th student march and yes Pow and Tempa T’s hilariously over the top ‘Next Hype’ did become the soundtrack and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy hearing them on Parliament Square.  However comparing them to the Sex pistols has to be an indictment of the ‘iPod generation’.  Both Pow and Next Hype were recorded long before David Cameron came to power and student fees became an issue. Neither track has a single lyric that could be interpreted as Political but apparently that doesn’t matter.  “Its not about content, its about energy and aura, the persona I portray gives a voice to those who use it as a way of expression” says Tempa T and he’s half right because Next Hype does that brilliantly.  The problem is that the collective ideals behind the student demo’s were about so much more then just energy. 

‘God Save the Queen’ by the Sex Pistols not only had more energy then anything before it but was also the first experience of counter culture for many young people, including myself.   After it was written John Lydon said “You don’t write a song like God Save the Queen because you hate the English race.  You write a song like that because you love them and you’re fed of seeing them mistreated”.  It was intentionally  recorded as a direct response to the Queens jubilee, a day that was supposed to distract everybody from the rolling blackout’s and rubbish piled high in the street that sadly came to define the late 1970’s.  On the day itself the band were arrested after playing the song life on a boat on the Thames, the single reached number one but the BBC deemed it too offensive to play.  Its more then a unspecific expression of anger, its an alternative national anthem for the disenchanted.  It would be another nine years before anything got close to conveying that message so well.

That batten was passed to a song that also referenced the Royal Family as a personification of England’s broken class system, if you doubt that conscience connection then just try driving prince Charles and his wife though a student protest.  ‘The Queen is Dead’ by the Smiths is a masterclass of young working class conviction.  It came out at time when Thatchers government had turned the north into a post industrial wasteland and the only thing anybody could rely on was a high level of unemployment.  The song was anger conveyed in a sullen and thoughtful manner that still works as a portrait of what its like to feel detached from your nations identity.   Its ghost continues to haunt a student movement representing a lost generation condemned by a lying political class.

If Pow and Next Hype are the best thing we can find to represent ourselves then something’s missing.