I've been meaning for a while to quote an excellent mad-as-hell rant that appeared on Helen Radice's blog. She's an English harpist, but don't prejudge her:
Clearing out my CD rack I came across Pulp's Different Class album. I loved this album like most people when I was about 17 but hadn't heard it for ages. So it's having a well-deserved Renaissance chez Radice. To make stuff "accessible", the classical music industry soft-soaps everything into relaxing, uplifting, smooth classics (Classic F Off). But pop music doesn't do this: they're allowed to release dark, fin de siecle songs. 'Common People', obviously, from Different Class ("And we dance, and drink, and screw, / Because there's nothing else to do"); 'Spy' is even angrier ("My favourite parks are car parks, grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag. Take your "Year in Provence" and shove it up your ass"), and that's before the later work on This Is Hardcore. And this is popular music - that is, with wide appeal. In the quest for accessibility classical industry moguls are missing something. Pop musicians do face enormous constraints from the industry but at least they don't all have to release "flute moods." It's the songs with sadder or darker elements that are often most loved because they connect with multifacets of our experience, not just the gin and tonic at seven.
