Page 314 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book
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17 January 2020
MUSIC
Meet the pop stars who are classical virtuosos, from Black Midi to Black
Country, New Road
Will Hodgkinson meets the young bands who have benefited from a Noughties boom in music education
Will Hodgkinson
January 17 2020, 12:01am, The Times
Black Country, New Road are typical of the new brand of noisy virtuosos
In 2014 I interviewed Prince, and the outrageous superstar said something surprisingly conservative. “Bring
back school music programmes worldwide and you will see test scores rise in every area of education,” the
Purple One claimed. “Our teachers are the most important people we can empower right now.”
Prince, who died in 2016, would have been alarmed to hear what has been happening to music education in
Britain. Last year the British Phonographic Industry surveyed more than 2,000 teachers for a report on
access to music in schools and found that, while music provision in private schools had risen 7 per cent, it
had dropped in state schools by 21 per cent. One in five primary schools now has no regular music lessons.
Ironically, this comes just as a new wave of underground bands who benefited from free state music
education has arrived to show us what we are in danger of losing. The Comet Is Coming; Black Country,
New Road; Black Midi; and Jockstrap are four critically acclaimed cult bands who are challenging, noisy,
adventurous, creative — and know their staccato from their legato. They belong to a world of dive bars and
DIY record labels that is traditionally associated with people who spend more time perfecting an air of
dishevelled insouciance than practising their scales.
