Northern Attitude

I’ve been thinking about how various UK bands deal with their northern identity and how the media treats them. The Beatles made it trendy to have a northern accent - prior to that, northern accents were rare in UK popular music apart from the folksy approach of singers such as Gracie Fields and George Formby. From then on, it was far easier to be seen as a serious rock (or pop) act but to retain a strong northern identity.

In recent decades, northern accents and ‘attitude’ have often been perceived (or self-consciously deployed) as signifiers of something grittier and ‘more real’ within UK music (to some degree the same is true of the American Deep South, though it is not an exact parallel). There are too many examples (and possible counter-examples) to list the entire history, but here are a few.

The Fall, despite being intensely artistic and obscure in many respects, embody ‘northern attitude’ in other ways. Mark E. Smith is famously rude and difficult, has stayed close to his roots in Manchester, and likes to treat music as ‘just a job’ like any other. This dour approach embodies a deliberate proletarianism, as opposed to the perceived snobbery of the South-East and London. He is clearly wary of being seduced by the music business, and he has dealt more or less effectively with this by remaining as self-consciously Mancunian as possible. A more corruptible figure might have had greater financial success, but the respect in which he is held revolves largely around the feeling that he has remained uncorrupted, and his northern attitude is in this respect a badge of honour. 

Oasis strike me as having profited by displaying a rather cartoonish version of their northernness. During the Britpop period, the press hyped the rivalry between Oasis and Blur. Oasis portrayed themselves (and were accepted by the press) as a hard-working, basic rock band who were taking rock music back to its roots. By contrast Blur (the Londoners) were seen as arty and effete. The media focussed on Oasis’s aggressive posturing and blokey appeal, simultaneously valorising and patronising the band. The fact that Oasis went on to play some of the largest concerts ever in the UK at Knebworth and elsewhere is testament to the fact the public related to the band, perceiving in them something down-to-earth and real.

Today we have the Arctic Monkeys, from Sheffield, probably the best young band in the UK. The interesting thing about the Arctic Monkeys is that they hardly play up their northernness at all. They sing and speak in strong Sheffield accents, and were initially truculent about attending awards ceremonies, but there is little self-conscious mythologising of their northern roots (in sharp contrast to Oasis). In truth, they are simply a brilliant band that happen to come from Sheffield, but the North-South divide has come to be such a strong part of the mythology of UK music that it is almost impossible for the media to talk about the Arctic Monkeys without resorting to the old cliches of northern attitude.

- Hugh

Comments

[Yuval Taylor]

This is all news to me--I know very little about the divisions in the UK scene--and it's fascinating. Is the whole "northern attitude" a pose, or is it real? What about London prole bands like the Clash? Are there any songs by these bands that reference their northern attitude explicitly?

[Hugh]

It's all quite complicated of course, and sometimes there is the same kind of proliness attached to London (or other) bands, but I think there is a definite respect in which northern bands have been treated as (and presented themselves as) grittier and more real than London bands (who can also be seen by northerners as tainted by being too close to the London music industry).

Plus there are real differences between the north and London, witness the difference between Eastenders and Coronation Street (if that means anything to you) - different sense of humour, different attitudes about a lot of stuff.

Songs that reference northern attitude explicitly? I'll think about it but examples might include The Fall's "Leave the Capitol", "The English Scheme" and "The North Will Rise Again" (the latter both from Grotesque) and, in a very different way "Cigarettes and Alcohol" by Oasis. "Common People" by Pulp could be mentioned - though it is maybe more about class than the north/south thing.

[Hugh]

One thing that is a little hard to disentangle here is the north/south divide and the relationship between working class and middle class. What I'm talking about here with respect to the Fall and Oasis is basically a northern working class attitude - Mark E.Smith's contempt in The English Scheme applies just as much to the Lancashire middle class as to "soft southerners".

However, southerners and the London media often assume that anyone with a northern accent is working class, and when bands play up their northernness it is more likely to be northern working class roots that they play up. Bands who actually come from nice bits of Yorkshire are most likely to pretend they are from Leeds (sounds grittier) and London journalists are on that basis likely to assume they are 'proles'...