The music industry loves a shelf-stacker-to-pop-star success story. Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian
Time was when pop stars were not supposed to be real people but mythical superheroes. Reality wasn't allowed to get in the way - Jim Morrison's background-erasure ran to claiming his parents and siblings were dead.
This week it emerged that Calvin Harris, electronic bedroom boffin du jour and purveyor of electro-squelch topped with handbag house, is to write and produce songs for the new Kylie album. It's a promising musical fit for the princess of future pop, especially after the misfiring R'n'B of her last studio album, Body Language.
But despite his album title making the grandly ridiculous claim that I Invented Disco, Harris also clearly wants to "keep it real". His "people" are falling over themselves to point out that he spent two years stacking shelves at his local Marks and Spencers, and that the whole thing is such a no-frills enterprise that he has worked the bulk of his pop alchemy through an ancient Amiga.
There's nothing unusual about that, of course, except for the way the most mundane aspect of his background is being touted as his most potent pop qualification. Nowadays, the only collar to be seen with in the new pop aristocracy is blue. Aside from her obvious musical edge, Amy Winehouse is infinitely cooler than Lily Allen thanks in part to the latter's silver spoon. It seems the days when pop and its practitioners were expected to be demi-gods may be drawing to a close. Now it's a menial (or better still, dangerous) job that makes you cool.
Ozzy Osbourne started as a bricklayer but that didn't really fit the Prince Of Darkness narrative. Madonna worked at Dunkin' Donuts but stints nude modelling makes for a better legend. And James Blunt is forgiven for an awful lot because his backstory as a soldier implies courage way beyond his anodyne muzak.
Meanwhile, the Horrors take real care in constructing an entire universe around their Dickensian Punk, but all anyone seems interested in is how posh they all are - their determination for rock to be a grand fantasy only plays into the hands of critics who say they understand nothing of real life.
More and more, it seems that pop stars are now expected to have paid their dues in the real world or face endless sniping about having had it too cushy. But isn't that at some cost to the brilliant lies that pop was built on? Or is the clue in the question: would Calvin Harris be the toast of the fashionable fringes had he stacked shelves at the local Aldi?
