💬 Sam Fender has entered music's class disparity chat

Sam Fender promo shot for People Watching album campaign

This week's newsletter has some new music, some news, and some thoughts about the dominance of private school system in British culture as well as a little dive into some of the data behind musician Sam Fender's comments.

Before I begin this week's newsletter, I wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been listening to Drowned in Sound's podcast. Alongside some kind feedback and encouragement, this solo project pod shot into the Music Top 20 of the Apple Podcast chart alongside big podcasts from BBC, Apple, etc. Subscribe on Apple podcasts here and listen to this week's episode with the inspiring campaigner Frances Fox. Discover why she brings a big pink bus filled with bio-glitter and temporary tattoos to festivals like Wireless and Reading & Leeds to discuss climate justice.

Drowned in Sound's podcast, which maps the future of music by speaking to pioneers, innovators, and inspiring change makers, is available wherever you get your podcasts.

In The News This Week

You have a few days left to have your say about the future of live music - Kate Nash speaks to Evening Standard about why it's important
Loads of big names including Munroe Bergdorf, Danny Dyer, Lambrini Girls, Matt Smith, and many more have joined the Music Fans' Voice campaign - Kerrang! covered the story here
1000+ musicians released a silent album to protest against non-consensual AI - Negative White wrote a short reaction about how inspiring the campaign was
If you're confused by the AI billionaires vs copyright debate, here's a quick video from Imogen Heap speaking to Channel 4 news
My favourite grassroots venue in the UK, The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge has won inspirational venue of the year - Yorkshire Post has more info
UK government's culture secretary Lisa Nandy, accused protesters in the arts of “gagging society, self-defeating virtue signalling and moral puritanism.”

Hot Topic on the DiS forums: Good solo albums from artists more known for being part of a bigger band - some real gems to revisit and discover in this thread.

Image Of The Week

What's your role in the resistance? We discussed this poster by Tolmeia Gregory, which you can pick up here, on this week's podcast.

Quote Of The Week

SAM FENDER

“The music industry is 80 per cent, 90 per cent kids who are privately educated. A kid from where I’m from [North Shields] can’t afford to tour, so there are probably thousands writing songs that are ten times better than mine, poignant lyrics about the country, but they will not be seen because it’s rigged.”

Thought For the Week

MUSIC'S CLASS DENIAL

Sam Fender's comment got my brain whirring at 33rpm. I've been digging into class inequality in music - on and off stage - for a while and various studies suggest that despite just 7% of population going to private/independent schools these people, often from generational wealth, disproportionately have the power and dominate many industries.

As someone from a working class background who often works with working class artists, Sam Fender's comments certainly "feel" true, which is part of the reason they've resonated so much. There's plenty of data out there to back up his comments about the disparity.

For instance, the CreativeAccess study in 2024 of creative industry professionals found that the majority of respondents agreed working class representation is lacking, especially at a senior level: 74% agree it is harder for working-class people to land a role in the creative industries and 70% of respondents say your class affects how you’re seen by your peers

Sam Fender got me thinking that there's no chance 16 year old me, who didn't even think university was for the likes of me, whose Mum was a hairdresser and Dad a decorator, could do half of what I've done. I couldn't have dreamed of starting a global music publication read by 3 million music fans at its zenith, working for BBC, writing a column for 4 years for Sunday Times (after they featured me in this list of 'influencers' alongside royalty, famous actors, sports stars and people like Lily Allen), managing artists like Charlotte Church, consulting for start ups, being flown by governments to places like New Zealand and Iceland to share my knowledge, or running an independent label that launched the careers of global artists like Kaiser Chiefs, Martha Wainwright, and Bat for Lashes.

Starting over now, I don't think I could have done 10% of that, no matter how focussed and determined I am. Confidence, as much as capital and connections is a huge barrier to entry.

I was incredibly lucky to be early at this whole publishing on the internet malarkey and building an audience in the early 2000s when there weren't billionaires and everyone with a smart phone online to compete with, certainly helped.

If I wanted to make music rather than just pontificate about it online, my ambitions would be pretty low too. There was a survey last year that really struck me when researching my interview with the CEO of Youth Music about how divided the UK is:

...only half (52%) of young people in the north of England see themselves as musical in comparison to 62% of people in the south. Surveying 2,100 children and young people across the country, we found that people in Yorkshire (49%), North West (57%) and North East (52%) are among the least likely in England to feel supported when making music. As well as this, only 25% of young people from the North of England have recently played their music in public, and only a shocking 2% had the chance to play at a local music venue, further highlighting the deterioration of opportunities in the region that was once the musical powerhouse of the UK.

Stories like this one in the Guardian last week, confirm what I already know in my bones. I feel it in music and media alike.

It's especially stark in meetings when I'm still asked "where I holiday", to try to decipher my class, to work out which Ski Resort and holiday homes my family own... It took me a decade of not being able to afford any trips that weren't for work to realise what was going on.

Anyway, here's the key stat from the Guardian piece:

"Almost a third (30%) of artistic directors and other creative leaders were educated privately compared with a national average of 7%. More than a third (36%) of the organisations’ [surveyed] chief executives or other executive directors went to private schools."

The 'is pop music too posh' chatter isn't new. It's a perennial "debate" that has gone on for centuries. You may remember back in 2011, as streaming's winner-takes-all business model began to defund a lot of cultural ambition, this discourse about the unequal opportunities ramped up - there were even discussions about it on BBC Radio's flagship news programme, Today. With various crises in the economics of music, this discussion doesn't seem to have stopped since.

I'm not in a position to give much back financially but I try wherever I can to speak up or to invest time into various projects I volunteer on. Given that thousands of you are reading and reacting to my social posts, this newsletter and listening to the podcast, I'm going to try to discuss class - as well as the intersectional issues - much more this year. I'd be really curious which voices you'd like to hear discussing these topics on the Drowned in Sound conference and at some conferences I've been booked to speak at - especially interested in examples of how class divides have been bridged in other countries or how class divides have been overcome historically.

I already touched on my background and start in the industry in episode 1 last weekend with Matt Griffiths the CEO of Youth Music who are doing amazing things to try to address inequality, reset peoples' ambitions, and provide access to resources. At the time of recording a few weeks ago, Matt said 25% of Youth Music's projects were at risk. Now they have released their latest data and it's 41% of projects at risk?! There's a match-funding campaign coming in March, I hope you will sign up for updates about how you can best support that.

I'll leave you with this thought related to what Trump is doing in America and the rhetoric is being imported over here: Will the kickback against DEI lead to fewer opportunities for anyone who doesn't come from generational wealth or other forms of privilege? And if we keep importing the talking points of toxic far right American think tanks, how quickly will we defund culture in the UK?

If you've not seen it, this Private School Mafia website is worth a look:

New Track Of The Week

One of my favourite discoveries in recent months was at the MaMA conference in Paris. Nina Versyp (Instagram | YouTube) quietly walked on stage, strummed a discordant klang, looped it, put her guitar down and so began what was one of the most arresting sets I’ve seen in years.

I got really lost in her songs. Tracks that seemed small began to soar in majestic ways that had me thinking of Angel Olsen but with her own gravity and grooves. Yes, little sad-folk grooves. Her songs like ‘Moved Around’ had me scribbling down notes about 'a warm swarm of ghosts to entering my mind.'

Can confirm I wasn't just caught up in the magic of seeing a show in a little Parisian theatre or a fug of booze, because having listened to lots of her songs since, I'll be surprised if she's not a name you'll be hearing more of in the months to come. Definitely an artist fans of Scout Niblett and Laura Marling will want to investigate.

All of which is to say that Nina’s just released a charming new track entitled ‘Hazy’ and it’s a little pocket of sunshine in these dark times.

Video Of The Week

Following the announcement that he'll play the 6 Music festival, Perfume Genius is back and Aldous Harding joined him on a track that shifts from his early early sensual-sadfolk into something with a bit more bombast. Can't wait to hear the new album.

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