Working Class Irish musicians

Week 2:

Although I missed the class through illness, we have been asked to give examples of working class Irish musicians. The first working class musicians I can remember were the Dubliners. Although technically a folk band, they have had numerous singles break into the UK charts from 1967 through to their collaboration with the Pogues in 1987. Their appeal was always aimed at the working class through their association with drinking songs and older rebel songs.

Another working class musician would be Christy Moore. Christy has always supported the cause of the working class and the down trodden, culminating in his involvement in the Self-Aid concert in Dublin in 1986, a concert to highlight the huge unemployment crisis in Ireland at the time. Christy has always been popular with the working classes and unlike The Dubliners, was never afraid to dip his toe into the murky world of sectarianism in Ireland during the 70s and 80s.

A more recent example of a working class musician is Damien Dempsey. Singing in a thick Dublin accent, with themes of unemployment, drug abuse and societal injustice prevalent throughout his repertoire. Dempsey probably has more authenticity to his working class status due to his upbringing in a northside Dublin corporation housing estate.

The second item for this blog post is whether there is evidence of class in popular music. There is certainly evidence of musicians from middle class backgrounds purporting to be working class in a kind of cultural appropriation in order to appeal to a wider audience. A lot of the punk bands that emerged in the late 70s were from middle class backgrounds but appealed to the working classes because of their anti-establishment viewpoints.
The biggest example of class in modern music would be the hip hop and rap genres that emerged in the late 80s and 90s in America. Most, if not all notable artists from these genres came from working class backgrounds and is evidenced by the lack of musical ability necessary to perform and the unimaginative misogynistic lyrical content, which is probably due to low education standards among the main artists and their fan base.

Having said all that, I would have to say that class plays a fairly small role in modern popular music, the overriding consideration being whether the music is actually any good, aesthetically speaking. If its good than the class background of the artists will have little bearing on its popularity, if its bad then it will quickly fade into obscurity, no matter which class its practitioners come from.