It is a truth universally acknowleged that the British music industry grew Jessie J in a lab for several years by feeding her ground-up Rihanna albums, and beating her unfashionable lesbianism into marketable bisexuality with a sexual-repression rod.
She went on to greatness by cornering the market in music for seven-year-old girls to do saucy dance routines to. Her songs themselves were composed in flotation tanks full of focus groups feeding their opinions about E4 and yoghurt-flavoured drinks into a banality supercomputer. And as such, JJ is the best person to represent modern Britain.Jessie is the ambassador of something called "Music Is GREAT Week", a media campaign designed to "promote British music". From 14 May to 19 May, the music industry has decreed, we will all learn to celebrate, and definitely to buy more of, our homegrown sound. There will be "talks, great live events, and discussions", and a live DVD featuring landmark British music moments.
A DVD! A DVD featuring landmark moments like: Queen doing "Radio Gaga" at Wembley, Robbie Williams doing "Let Me Entertain You" at Knebworth, and Adele doing "Someone Like You" at the Brit Awards. The real heritage stuff. Truly, music from Britain is GREAT.
“I’m so proud of being British,” JJ robotically intones in the PR puff. “My accent says it all. I think it’s very important to be proud of where you’re from, and I don’t think anywhere is like the UK. I think music is a perfect way to celebrate and we make it very well.”
Four sentences that define the way British sensibility has devolved into slurry over the past 50 years. If you went back in time and showed that quote to Clement Attlee, he'd think it was written in Czech. He'd probably have some allergic reaction to it, start frothing at the mouth and biting his own clothes off, so alien are the values it embodies to anything he would recognise as British. In fact, it highlights everything that's gone wrong with Britishness so effectively that the Scottish National Party could put it on a big piece of card and tour it round the country as the ultimate argument against the Union.
That the Britain is GREAT DVD takes us on a musical journey that starts with David Bowie doing Ziggy at the Hammersmith Appollo in 1972 and ends with Take That doing "The Flood" in Manchester 2011 only proves how culturally destitute we are. And from the 14th to the 19th we will be proudly flying the flag of destitution.
You think Take That work better with or without Robbie? Were The Spice Girls about feminism, or were they a reaction to feminism? Who's your favourite gay: Elton John or George Michael? The big questions will go out, from Johnny Vaughan to Dr Fox to Chris Evans, as we all get a bit philosophical about why we're so groovy. Why we're so GREAT.
Look. Since the dawn of time, if there's one thing that has made Britain "GREAT" it is the fact that the largest of the isles which collectively make up the British Isles is known as "great", meaning "large", for ease of cartological reference. It is not God's own thumbs up. To be a Briton is not to have won first prize in the lottery of cultural life; it is to have been awarded 65 quid a week in JSA entitlements and £140 in state pension. Then you can sit back, tune into commercial radio and enjoy Jessie J as you wait for your heart to stop moving.Follow Gavin on Twitter: @hurtgavinhaynes
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