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Only a few months ago, British rockers were lining up to get behind Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now some of the same Britpop stars who initially supported Blair are condemning him in the new issue of New Music Express for proposing several anti-youth policies.|
Titled "Ever Had The Feeling You've Been Cheated?" (the Sex Pistols' famous closing line), this week's NME features interviews with the Verve, Blur's Damon Albarn, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds, all of whom attack Labour's move to cut government assistance to unemployed young people, many of whom are aspiring artists and musicians.
Perhaps best articulating the concerns of British musicians, Creation Records president Alan McGee told NME: "My business needs [songwriters], and they'll do that best after two years on the dole writing tunes. On the one hand you've got Tony Blair making this thing about Cool Britannia, but on the other hand they're taking away the means for the next generation of artists and musicians to go away and create."
As previously reported by JAMTV, Prime Minister Blair -- himself an amateur
guitarist -- recently met with Oasis badboy
Noel Gallagher, an event which received much
publicity. When NME asked Primal Scream's
Bobby Gillespie whether he would ever attend a
reception for Blair, Gillespie quipped: "Only with a pound of
Semtex." (Semtex is a plastic explosive.) (Seth Hindin)