The British are uniquely self-conscious about their music taste. Call it a hangover from the Swinging Sixties when the Beatles and the Stones made Liverpool and London the centre of the cultural world for a few brief years... but Brits of all ages buy into the idea that the pop groups you like are a vital barometer of your intelligence, hipness quotient and, most crucially, your youthful vigour.
A phenomenon such as Guilty Pleasures could only work in the UK, because we're the only nation that would waste our time worrying about the haircuts or dress sense of the band who made a record we like. And its this stifling, irrational relationship between age, fashion, music and notions of cool which continues to kill our best music scenes at birth. Towards the end of last year, the phrase 'New Rave' appeared. As usual, the phrase was all over the mainstream press within days of first popping-up in the NME. As usual, the sneering began immediately, from journalists who hadn't been out dancing since 'Screamadelica' was all the rage. New rave was a clever, suitable name for a bunch of young bands, producers, remixers and DJs making a connection between the day-glo hedonism and minimal art-disco of the acid house era, and the irreverent black/white fusions of late '70s/early '80s punk-funk. But, having successfully made our music culture into a set of middle-aged post-grad obsessions - white blokes with indie guitars; miserabalist singer-songwriters; ultra-stylised post-Madonna divas - the 40-something dominated cultural press had no intention of bigging up a new thing that made all of us over 25 feel old. So it did what it always does. It sniggered. It assured us that this stuff had all been done before. And then it starved the scene of publicity. Of course, the best bands and producers from the new rave scene - who had all tried to distance themselves from the tag, knowing exactly what was coming - will hopefully ignore all this and just plug away at what they're doing. But the speed at which music scenes are built up and knocked down has become a major reason why the music business continues to collapse, and one which no-one wants to admit responsibility for. The Mercury panel have gone some way towards redressing this imbalance, with deserved nominations for debut albums by Klaxons - a record that arguably defines British pop 2007 more than any other - and the brilliant and utterly underrated New Young Pony Club. But whether even the commercial clout of the Mercurys can help an industry which, in the first six months of 2007, has seen a 10 per cent slump in sales and a slew of disappearing debut albums, remains to be seen. Everyone can blame illegal downloads as much they like. But new acts aren't breaking, and I reckon the cynicism of the fourth estate - and our equally jaded and out-of-touch radio brethren - has to accept much of the blame. I'm not suggesting that new rave or anything else The Kids make should be given blanket positive coverage. I'm suggesting that the media either hire some young writers who truly understand the good and the bad of youth culture, or keep their greasy mitts off of music scenes that haven't had time to grow yet. Stick with your Bootleg Beatles and Counterfeit Stones. And leave them kids alone.
