Second-Generation Irish Rock Musicians in England: Cultural Studies, Pop Journalism and Musical 'Roittes'
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I-j1\ Ij 0 -1wý-ý /),:-/ Second-Generation Irish Rock Musicians in England: Cultural Studies, Pop Journalism and Musical 'Roittes' SEAN CAMPBELL A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirementsof Liverpool John Moores University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December2002 SeanCampbell Second-GenerationIrish Rock Musicians in Englan& Cultural Studies,Pop Journalism and Musical 'Routes' Abstract This thesis focuseson a relatively under-researchedimmigrant-descended group: the second-generationIrish in post-war England. Taking popular music as a casestudy, the thesis examinessome of the key ways in which the second-generationIrish have been discursively managedin both academicand journalistic discourses.To this end,the thesisdevelops a critical dialoguewith particular aspectsof Irish Studies,British Cultural Studies,and the discourseof popular music journalism. Much of this dialogue is, in turn, refractedthrough the prism of specific themesand issues,especially those pertaining to assimilation,essentialism, and 'white ethnicity'. In addition to theseconsiderations, the thesis also addressesthe questionof musical croutes',examining the variegatedaesthetic strategies that have been mobilised by second-generationIrish rock musicians such as John Lydon, Kevin Rowland, Shane MacGowan, Noel Gallagher, and The Smiths. Throughout,the thesis is infonned by a desire to challengethe invisibility of the second-generationIrish in academicand journalistic discourses;to highlight the diversity and cOnlPlexityof second-generationIrish experienceand identity-fonnation processes;and to point to the productive and diverseways in which second-generationcultural practitionershave reconfiguredpopular culture in England. Acknowledgments I would like to expressparticular gratitude to Timothy Asbplant, GlendaNorquay and most of for all to my supervisor,Gerry Smyth, the support, encouragementand guidancethat I have receivedthroughout the courseof this project. I should also thank the School of Media, Critical andCreative Arts at Liverpool John Moores University, and the Departmentof Communication Studiesat APU in Cambridge,for the various kinds of support that they have provided. The University of Liverpool's Institute of Popular Music and Institute of Irish Studies,as well as the library at CambridgeUniversity, have also been extremely helpful. I would like to thank the participantsof various conferenceswho have respondedto earlier versionsof the chapterscontained in this thesis.* These include the 'Beyond Boundaries11' InternationalConference at the University of Salford with the University of Toulouse-LeMirail, 21 February 1999; the 37th American Conferencefor Irish Studies,Roanoke, Virginia, USA, 13 May 1999;the InternationalAssociation for the Study of Popular Music 1Oth International Conference,University of Technology, Sydney,Australia, II July 1999; the Conferenceof the British Association for Irish Studies,Bath Spa University College, II September1999; the 39th American Conferencefor Irish Studies,Fordham University, New York City, USA, 8 June 2001. A numberof peoplehave helped out in a variety of ways. Most especially,I would like to thank PeterChilds, John Gabriel, Donald MacRaild, Lance Pettitt, Jon Savageand Nabeel Zuberi. My brother, FergusCampbell, offered boundlessenthusiasm and unending constructive criticism during eachstage of the thesis.Finally, I would like to acknowledgeLeah's patience, supportand understanding,which has sustainedme throughout this project. Table of Contents Introduction 1. Locating the Second-GenerationIrish in England: BetweenEssentialism and Assimilation 15 11.Unthinking 'Albion': British Cultural Studies,'White Ethnicity' and the Irish in England 41 III. Soundingout the Margins: Cultural Studies,White Englishnessand Second-GenerationIrish 85 Rock Musicians IV. The Critical Receptionof Second-GenerationIrish Rock Musicians in the British Music Press 113 V. Re-thinking Second-Generationhish Music-Making in England: The Caseof The Smiths 174 Conclusion 244 Bibliography 253 Introduction Beginnings: 'Britpopl and the Importance of Being Irish The germ of the idea for this thesis was forged in responseto a particular moment in the mid- I 990s,when a number of academicand popular discoursesbegan to increasethe visibility of the second-generationIrish in England, who had hitherto been a largely overlooked immigrant-descendedpresence. ' At this time, a study published in the British Medical Journal, and widely reportedin the mainstreampress, demonstrated that while second-generationIrish people had conventionally beenconceived as a fully assimilatedand largely indistinguishablecomponent of the host population,they had in fact experienceddisproportionately high instancesof ill-health, having 'significantly higher host 'for death' The mortality' than the Population most major causesof .2 study suggested,therefore, that it might be useful, at least in the context of health provision, to differentiatethe second-generationIrish from the ostensiblehomogeneity of the white English host population. 3 And while this conclusion was, of course, directed specifically at the realm of health provision, the implication was clearly that the second-generation Irish were, in important ways, distinct from the host population and that this difference should, moreover,be fort-nally recognisedand acknowledged. At approximatelythe sametime as the publication of this medical study, second-generation Irish difference was becoming increasingly visible in an entirely different context, that of At this time, the Oasis,led by the Irish popular music culture. rock group second-generation brothers,Noel and Liam Gallagher,who had attainedan especiallyhigh-profile media status had 4 after their group achievedconsiderable critical and commercial success, authoriseda 5 biographyof Oasisthat unambiguouslyforegrounded their Irishness. This apparentdesire to by assertIrish difference coincided with similar gesturesmade other second-generationrock musicians.For instance,the former Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr, spoke (in the aften-nathof a major IRA bomb attack on his hometown of Manchester)for the first time about his personal 6 experienceof anti-Irish prejudice, while John Lydon, the fonner Sex Pistols' lyricist and vocalist, who re-emergedin the mid- I 990s for that group's much publicised re-union tour, publishedan autobiographyentitled No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs in which he explicitly locatedhimself in an immigrant Irish narrative.7 This apparentlycollective desireto assertIrish difference servedto highlight a dimension of thesemusicians' backgroundsthat had hitherto been marginalisedin both academicand journalistic discourses,and therebydrew attention to the scarcelyacknowledged fact that some of the most high-profile and critically canonised English rock musicians of the past three decadeshave been the immediate descendantsof working-class Irish Catholic labour migrants. Thoughthis point did receiverecognition in a highly exceptionalarticle by the music journalist 8 Jon Savage in the Guardian newspaper in 1995, the increasing visibility of the second-generationIrish in the realm of popular music culture was largely eclipsedby a correspondingendeavour to recruit second-generationrock musiciansfor an entirely different Project, the phenomenon of 'BritPop', a 'defiantly nationalistic'9 discourse that emerged in the London-based music pressin the mid- I 990s, predicatedupon the notion of an ostensibly 2 homogeneouswhite Englishness(rather than a multi-ethnic Britishness).10 Oasiswere arguably(and, perhaps,not entirely unwillingly) the most prominent band to be critically designatedunder the aegisof Britpop, which posited the group as an Anglo-Saxon archetype-" Other second-generationrock musicians,meanwhile, were, in much of the discoursearound Britpop, taken to be its principal predecessors.Thus, The Smiths were conscriptedfor what Melody Maker called the 'Home Guard' of Britpop, while Marr was honouredas a key 'Britpop icon'. 12 Suchassertions were not restrictedto the domain of popular journalism. Indeed,the Britpop thesisreceived a quasi-academicrendition in Michael Bracewell's England is Mine: Pop Life in Albionfrom Wilde to Goldie (1997), which characterisedsecond-generation rock musicians as quintessentiallyEnglish, claiming, for example,that the 'project' of The Smiths was 'organically English'. 13 More formally academicengagements with Englishnessand popular music at this time also posited second-generationIrish rock musicians as representativeicons of an archetypal Englishness,whilst making little or no referenceto their Irishness.For example,at the InternationalAssociation for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) conferenceheld at the University of Strathclydein 1995, a panel on national identity and popular music included a paperon Englishnessthat rhadereference to Lydon, Elvis Costello, The Smiths and Oasis without oncementioning their Irishness.14 Also at this time, the Commission for Racial Equality published a pedagogically-drivexi 3 (to Roots Future: Ethnic multi-culturalist text coincide with a touring exhibition) entitled ofthe Divei-sityin the Making ofBi-itain, whose expresspurpose was to 'focus on those areaswhere descendantshave post-warimmigrants and their made the most striking contributions since 15 in Britain' However, text the Irish they settled . while this explicitly acknowledged presenceof immigrantsin an introductory chapteron Irish migration to Britain, the authorsfailed to register a single Irish