Notes on Pop Music

“I haven't heard a good new opera or a good new symphony for—eighteen months.” Thus Kit Lambert the pop impresario in Tony Palmer's television film All my Loving, making, one would think, no outrageous claim, that is if one allows that he has not heard of Harrison Birtwistle and Cornelius Cardew. But one must realise that Lambert's view is the basis of a total dismissal of modern ‘classical’ music; for him pop is new heir to the classical tradition. A like view is held by Mr. Palmer, who on the strength of a moderately successful film (success of course was inherent in its subject-matter) and of some pretentious writing in the Observer, has been endowed with a certain ‘authority’. For him, the Pink Floyd outdo Cardew and Stockhausen in ‘modernity’, and even the Who's ‘Magic Bus’ (an inferior reworking of their brilliant ‘Talking about my generation’) puts Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements in the shade. I shall not waste space on these comparisons, but mention them as an illustration of how the pop world can be blinded to what lies outside it. Lambert and Palmer are the victims of their own high-power distribution techniques whereby nothing gets through without a hard sell. The commercial basis of pop has two important consequences in this context. First, the common ground which exists between genuine musicians in the pop and ‘straight’ fields is being obscured to the detriment of every one by promotional smokescreens.