Mar 012012
 

Chav-hate has even trickled into the popular music scene. From the Beatles onwards, working-class bands once dominated rock, and indie music in particular: the Stone Roses, the Smiths, Happy Mondays and the Verve, to take a few popular examples. But is is difficult to name any prominent working-class bands since the heyday of Oasis in the mid 1990s: it is middle-class bands like Coldplay or Keane that now rule the roost in music. ‘There has been a noticeable drift towards middle-class values in the music business,’ says Mark Chadwick, the lead singer of rock band the Levellers. ‘Working-class bands seem to be few and far between.’ Instead there’s an abundance of middle-class impersonations of working-class caricatures, such as the ‘mockney’ style of artists like Damon Albarn and Lily Allen.

(p. 133, Owen Jones: Chavs – The Demonization of the Working Class)

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