The Logic Off Topic list

John Matthews wrote:

>I saw an excellent band in my local live music pub last Friday- called the
>Electric Experience (yes, very Hendrix influenced)- they finished their set
>with "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" and thats about all we as musicians
>can do.
http://www.maryport-blues.com/electric.htm
http://www.electricexp.co.uk/

>I agree about the poor state of the live music scene here in
>Britain.
Quite.


>Tony Thompson also quite rightly ridiculed the class idea- which is mostly
>irrelevant now.
Sigh.

You can ridicule it as much as you like, but one only has to go through an 
exercise of counting. I.e. actually count the number of rock bands over the 
ages, and actually count the amount of money their parents earned and then 
actually document the tax codes occupied by both themselves and their 
parents at the start of their careers. Both the BPI (British Phonographic 
Institute) and numerous studies have actually done this. The BPI was 
particularly concerned about the issue when they opened up the Brit School:
http://www.brit.croydon.sch.uk/
They particularly wanted to break away from certain perceived images and to 
make it very clear that a career in 'the music business' whether in front 
of or behind the mike, was a viable and valid career that should be 
considered by all sectors of British life.

Sociology is a science in the sense that before drawing any conclusions, a 
sociologist (including an economist) actually counts things and takes 
measurements as scientifically and accurately as possible. So ... when a 
sociologist (including an economist) says something he or she tries to do 
so based on the evidence collected from the real world and not just by 
vaguely extrapolating in an armchair kind of way from wishy-washy notions 
such as 'elasticity' and 'strong economy' or anything else. Some evidence 
is required or the conclusion isn't worth anything.

And ... when one actually does some counting then the members of rock bands 
of the 60's, 70's and early 80's were disproportionately selected from 
certain given classes and sectors of British society and not from others. 
By the same process of counting, however, it began to change quite markedly 
beginning in the late 70's and early 80's to the extent that, these days, 
it is not nearly so noticeable as it was meaning that it is probably no 
longer a factor in anybody's thinking any more, explicitly or implicitly, 
when they're making a serious career choice. You are therefore correct that 
it is mostly (although not entirely) irrelevant today. But ... if you want 
to insist that it was not relevant earlier then it would be good to come up 
both with some evidence and with some alternative theory that explains the 
evidence which is that the members of rock bands and the like were 
disproportionately constituted of people whose origins were in homes where 
the median income was not only considerably less than the national average, 
but whose parents belonged to very particular given social strata as can be 
selected from the well-known collection of A1, A2, ... C1, C2 and the like.

In the end, one accepts that the data must be interpreted. And ... 
interpretation is the key.
OK.
But then ... by the principle of Occam's razor the most reasonable 
conclusion to draw is the simplest ... and this is that members of the 
lower social strata entered the music business disproportionately. But to a 
sociologist the question of WHY immediately comes to mind. Again by Occam's 
razor, a surely entirely reasonable suggestion is that they entered the 
music business disproportionately because, in general, there were less in 
the way of alternatives available as compared to those who came from homes 
where the net domestic income was higher. Do you have some other proposal?

The data exists and can be found in any library. Just look at a few tax 
tables. If you have some other explanation for these facts then please 
offer it. Just saying that the proposition is ludicrous does not explain 
the hard data which has been gathered simply by a process of counting.

>The beatles, stones and Led Zep, Clapton, etc were all from mostly " lower
>middle class" or "Skilled working class" backgrounds.
So ... what do we have here? Let me see .... "skilled working class" ... 
"lower middle class"? And then a list of some of the most famous musos in 
British music? So ... exactly how is "class" being shown to be irrelevant 
by this listing? Please notice that the people on that list you gave are 
not "upper class", "upper middle class" and the like. So ... is it or is 
not a reasonable assertion that entry into the music business was (notice 
the past tense) disproportionately (again notice the explicit reference to 
a percentage) favoured by the members of certain specific social classes?

>Peace to everyone, and "Keep on Rocking in the Free World"
Totally agreed with that. And I for one am very happy indeed that the music 
business has opened up considerably as those totally ridiculous class 
divisions are concerned ... although I really wish that something would 
happen to transform the live music scene in the UK ... and I also wish that 
the charts and radio stations would liven up a bit to reflect and celebrate 
what is in many ways an increasingly diverse UK music scene.

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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