When BBC 6 Music was at risk, the backlash was loud and effective. Now students and the welfare state are under fire, musicians and DJs have nothing to say
First they came for BBC 6 Music, and everyone who had ever looked at a guitar, never mind played one, spoke up. Then they came for affordable higher education, the maintenance allowance, 500,000 public sector jobs and the foundations of the welfare state – and the music world remained silent.
The protests against the closure of BBC 6 Music earlier this year comprised effective anti-establishment campaigning from within. Middle-class, indie-loving, media-savvy 18-40-year-olds in their tens of thousands joined Facebook groups, signed online petitions, added Twibbons, wrote letters of complaint and politely but efficiently kicked against the pricks. Naturally, they won.
Music fans stood up to save the station, but so did many leading figures within the music and broadcasting industries, including Lauren Laverne, David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker, Lily Allen, Adam Buxton, Phill Jupitus, Richard Bacon, Emily Eavis and Edith Bowman. They were undoubtedly driven by a passionate commitment to the music the station plays, though the fact that several of the above had shows on 6 Music made their outspokenness seem a little less selfless. Cocker was happy to find himself front and centre in the battle to save the station: "Just because you are a part of a bit of the establishment, you don't have to sell out your ideas. The thing to do, if possible, is to try to change that establishment; to try to engage with the establishment to make something good. It is time to man the barricades."
The question facing a Britain polarised between youth-led masses and a venal political establishment is: why won't the 6 Music rebels man the barricades now there's something more important to save than their own jobs? However, there are notable exceptions to this silence in the music world. The mainstays of the Red Wedge generation are still doing what they were doing 25 years ago: Johnny Marr dismissing the prime minister's outspoken love of the Smiths by publicly forbidding him to like their music, and Billy Bragg, naturally, speaking at the UCL occupation. Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, tweeted his support for student protestors, and Arcade Fire voiced theirs at recent London show. Dizzee Rascal told me last week the protests were "good to see", and fellow grime MC Ghetts has done the same. On Rinse FM, bashment team the Heatwave have been dedicating political tunes to Nick Clegg and David Cameron.
But elsewhere the silence of careerist musicians and broadcasters has been deafening. Here are students trying to bring down the government, for God's sake. Lily Allen inadvertently summed up the mood among Save 6 Music campaigners in a piece for the Guardian in March: "If you look at everything that's happened in the last year or so at the BBC, you can't help but feel that they are scared of taking risks."
Rightbackatcha, pop world.