Pop music was a great leveller. Now it’s a bespoke plaything for the rich

John Harris

Buying albums and watching bands were egalitarian pursuits. Now both reflect society’s wealth divide

Illustration by Sébastien Thibault

here’s a new Pink Floyd record out, as they used to say in the 1970s. Only it’s not a record, a CD, or anything resembling the modest recorded artefacts with which that group made their name, but rather a 27-disc cornucopia, containing more than 26 hours of music, 42 “items of memorabilia”, five reproduction vinyl singles and three feature films. It is titled The Early Years 1965-72, so prepare for a sequel, and its outward appearance suggests an item of colour-coded furniture. Obviously, any devout fan of the group, me included, will love it. And the price? £375.99.

Welcome to the 21st-century music business, or what remains of it. As everyone knows, downloads and streaming have just about killed off all the industry’s orthodox business models. So now, via endless reissues and “luxury” packages, it is squeezing every last drop from its assets while ensuring that the “pop” in pop culture – that is, everything about it that was democratic and accessible – fades away.

Other examples abound, equally luxurious and lovingly done, though that is not exactly the point. For the first 35 years of its life the Who’s first album, My Generation, was a primary-coloured example of everything great about the peak of the teenage epoch, and priced accordingly. Now, having already been packaged in a “deluxe edition”, it has been reinvented as a “spectacular 79-track, five-disc super-deluxe” version (with, inevitably “period memorabilia”), which will retail for just shy of £90. With Christmas approaching, much the same applies to an array of classic works, from Metal Box by that proud punk John Lydon’s band Public Image Limited (£165.99 in its “super deluxe quadruple vinyl” edition), to a six-album selection by Elton John currently being sold through Burberry shops for a thoroughly reasonable £225.

‘A six-album selection by Elton John is currently being sold through Burberry shops for a thoroughly reasonable £225.’ Photograph: David M Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images

At the same time the modern musical aristocracy has another way to exploit the cycle. The money- counters do not even have to wait to find out if an album turns out to be a “classic”. As evidenced by albums such as Muse’s Drones and Bastille’s Wild World, the standard-issue version of any hit is quickly accompanied by a “deluxe” or “collector’s” version, in the apparent hope that lots of people will pay over the odds for another incarnation of a record they already own. There is great cynicism at work, and it’s pretty unedifying – not least because, to my mind, these hyper-differentiated, pocket-draining creations offend against the very aesthetics of pop itself. That may make me sound like a romantic throwback; if it does, so be it. If I’m still deluded enough to believe that pop music ought to be about more than cash, it’s because of a life spent reading the world into the plastic circles I still habitually buy from my local record store.

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