Middle Class Mick ... Mark Steyn

Steyn Online ^ | 1 May 2012 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Midway through a Julie Burchill column in the Guardian bemoaning the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, I was startled to learn the following: Although fewer than 10 percent of British children attend private schools, their alumni make up over 60 percent of the acts on the U.K. pop charts. Twenty years ago, it was 1 percent.

There's always been a bit of this, of course: Mick Jagger went to the London School of Economics and made more money singing the songs of hardscrabble Mississippi bluesmen than the gnarled old-timers who'd lived those lyrics could ever dream of. But he was "middle class" in what your average exquisitely attuned snob would regard as a very drearily provincial sense: Mick's dad was a teacher in Kent and his mum was an Aussie hairdresser and he went to the local grammar school. The new pop stars attended some of the most exclusive and expensive academies in the land: Chris Martin (of Coldplay and Gwyneth Paltrow) went to Sherborne, and Lily Allen to Bedales, and James Blunt to Harrow. The five lads from Radiohead got together at Abingdon, founded by Richard the Pedagogue in 1100 and where annual boarding fees are now just shy of $50,000.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Mick made more on rare art, than he did singing : )

[Lurker]

Mr. Steyn should have mentioned the degrees collectively held by the band Queen. Freddie had a degree in Art, Brian May has a degree in Astrophysics and is now the Chancellor of a British University.

[Tijeras_Slim]

And Keith Richards has an honorary Doctorate in pharmacology.

[Lurker]

+1

[Albion Wilde]

I knew I liked Brit pop better than any other kind; now I know why. The melodies, instrumentation and lyrics are complex and rich. I love Coldplay, Adele, Annie Lenox, Peter Gabriel, etc.