The BBC’s ‘Seven Ages of Rock’
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Not since Steve Coogan donned the role of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson in 'Twenty Four Hour Party People' have I been so taken with any music-related footage on screen as I had with the BBC series 'The Seven Ages of Rock'. As it hit its climax, coming onto familiar ground, I found myself nodding perpetually at the screen, saying, "yes, yes, I knew I was right". I indeed was not alone as many other honest music fans would appear to be. When we bang on about how commercialism destroys rock 'n' roll and how it's so important for a band to stay true to themselves, we're not just being pretentious indie twerps, we're fighting for what we believe in and at last, the BBC of all people, have reassured our ravings. Almost makes the license fee worthwhile.
Last nights episode, the seventh in a remarkable series that has charted the rise of rock music from the pop-tastic kitsch of the 60s, through to punk, electro, rave, garage and college-rock into where we are today, the seventh stand of a generation defining idea, that began at the birth of modern indie circa The Smiths. It progressed as the whole series did down a pseudo-timeline that linked newer bands to their inspirations making a kind of family tree that noted the importance of some of our best musical exports. By time the Manchester scene had led way to Stone Roses we were bang up to date, talking about the bands that we all grew up with and with that came the inevitable re-launch of an age old debate between Blur and Oasis.
We all know that Blur were the more talented band (it's just fact, surely?), and yet as they referenced the dispute, calling on Albarn and Gallagher to comment, it seemed as though the show was favouring Oasis due to their massive commercial success, or so one would have assumed. Blur were first on the scene, possibly too soon even, and had already hit their third album before Oasis' sudden and since unmatched brilliance of 'Definitely Maybe', yet were leaned on as the underdogs. The north and south divide was once again at the centre of a cultural deliberation and though this show admittedly championed Oasis as the frontrunners in the rather pointless competition they were then the subject of the first reason the programme was so indisputably brilliant. When we say that a band outgrowing themselves is a bad thing, some of you think we're being ostentatious and or as some would say, "up our own arses", but what the programme did so fiercely was point out in a far better way than we could drunkenly scramble was what it means when, say, Oasis played the 'Familiar To Millions' dates. It noted the disconnection between the fans and the band, the gig being so big that people at the back had only the sound of the audience singing to occupy their ears and pin pricks on the horizon faintly looking like their heroes to watch. It was a direct mirror of the Green Day Milton Keynes shows with fans feeling detached and disappointed with their idols. It's the first time that the feeling of the crowd at what has been regarded as a legendary event has been voiced as the negative sentiment it was and at that point you realise that the programme wasn't just a 'this is what happened, and here's what everybody thought and said etc' kind of deal but the makers knew and understood what music was about and knew that Oasis had pushed it all too far, destroying the very essence of what being an indie band was. From that moment, as was so poignantly pointed out, the original term of 'indie' was dead and Oasis were the final nail in its coffin...
And so the wave began; a stream of 'indie' bands redefined to mean not bands that were on independent labels or existing outside of the industry and markets, but public-ready guitar groups such as Travis, Stereophonics, The Verve and Coldplay. These were all bands who have been championed by history but in this instance shunned as the surfers of a tried and tested formula that they all were; OK, but never as great as the mainstream market would have them believe. This was fast turning into an indie kids dream, all the mediocrity of the British scene banged to rights and hung as the placid rockers they all were. Then something unbelievably incredible happened, just when we were learning about the fundamental decline of indie music the BBC wheeled out its most double-taking moment by revealing the band who 'saved British music'... the band was The Libertines. The fact a usually PC station like BBC1 would recognise The Libertines as musical heroes was dumbfounding, but the praise continued, hailing them as the most important music makers of the past ten years and the band that sparked something in our hearts that Oasis had blown out. It was brutally honest and fantastically spot-on, putting what so many of us knew up there on the screen for all to see, unbiased, constructed and fairly.
A music documentary that really, genuinely understood the most significant moments in British music has never been made to this standard. It wasn't about who made the most money, coming to the conclusion that they by default must be important, or even by how many fans or whatnot they had... this show knew what made a legendary band legendary and put it all into terms everybody could understand. I have honestly never seen such an insightful stab at explaining the importance of music and the effect it has on culture, and how a stream of mediocre bands or an apparent positive move forward, like playing an ungodly sized gig, can have such a destructive impact on the very core of what made music so special. In it's conclusion 'The Seven Ages Of Rock' also voiced the well known observation that due to such a rich and exciting history of music evolution, the ability to be original is now something of a Holy Grail, and the best we can hope for is that artists use their influences to progress, bit by bit until something fresh is born, the bastard sons of various genres and inspirations so to speak.
We are indeed coming to the end of the seventh age of rock... the indie scene is now the mainstream, and it'll take somebody completely outside of it all to make us pay attention again. We're snowed under by mediocrity and even the Libs have been copied and moved on themselves to other major post-band successes. We are living and moshing through what's been described as the best time in British music, or at least since 1977, and as it looks to unfortunately implode under its own size in the not too distant future we can only ponder what the eighth age will bring.