Primal urges
Yesterday, I clocked a chubby, middle-aged office type clambering into a big, shiny 4×4, a Che Guevara T-shirt stretched proudly over his quivering paunch, and it got me thinking about Bobby Gillespie. Everyone’s favourite working class hero/drug-hoovering uber-hedonist, Gillespie’s been doing the rounds for a while promoting the Primals’ new album, Beautiful Future. And it’s got The Guardian in a right fit of pique.
Reviewing it, Alexis Petridis acidly points out Bob’s tendency to address listeners as the lobotomised drones of the capitalist system. “‘Congratulations, you live in a dream, in the dead heart of the control machine,’ sneers Gillespie, a man recently spotted confronting the grimy reality of life on society’s margins by attending the Mayfair launch of a $250,000 diamond-encrusted ice dagger designed by Jade Jagger for use in the world’s most exclusive bars, including Crystal, the London nightclub run by Prince William’s Eton pal Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe.”
True enough. Thing is though, if Bob’s ‘faults’ can be listed as 1) his apparent forelock-tugging fascination with celebs and toffs, 2) kow-towing to the capitalist system by way of advertising deals with Carphone Warehouse and others, and 3) empty, urban agitator rhetoric, they’re all flaws he shares with each and every one of us.
So he talks like Che but walks like a chattel of capitalist society? Well, how revolutionary do most of us like to think we are? And, equally, how revolutionary are we? How many times have you announced your intention to string your boss/MP/local chav gang leader from the nearest lamppost? And how many times have you gone ahead and done it? When was the last demo you went on? The last time you bought the Morning Star? The last time you abandoned Grand Theft Auto IV to launch your cherished second hand BMW 5 Series into the front window of the local BNP office?
And I bet you’ve been in more 4×4s than urban riots. But you still like to think there’s more to you than a craven, status-obsessed conformist. Just like Che Guevara T-shirt bloke (who probably owns everything Primal Scream ever recorded). Just like Bob. And that’s why I’ll cut Primal Scream more slack than they deserve. Because at the end of the day, they’re ludicrous pop stars, nothing more, nothing less. And because they’re a bunch of armchair warriors - exactly like the rest of us.
Sarah Maybank
We are listening to The Verve
I don’t doubt that at least some of what Sarah Maybank says here is true enough (although it doesn’t say much for the demographic of this magazine if it is) - that many people are lazy or hypocrites when it comes to what they claim to believe in. However the point that she seems to overlook here is that PRIMAL SCREAM are making money out of it and the rest of us aren’t.
Comment by 45Mick — 12/08/08