Good Times, Bad Times

Good times, bad times, you know the music industry has seen its share. And, thanks to the wonders of artistic license, we’re able to appreciate the peaks and troughs of a lifetime in music, from a campus-based perspective. In honour of the Boar‘s 40th Anniversary celebrations, crank up the nostalgic playlists as we present an exploration into the past, present, and future decades of sound.

The Booming 1970s (Robin James Kerrison)

Oh, how I wish I had lived my Fresher days in the 1970s! The long hair of my teenage years would only have been welcome, although my beard might have been more frowned upon, being some 30 years before the release of Iron Man (I’m alluding to RDJ here, as opposed to the Black Sabbath song).

I imagine rolling up to campus with Rumours in the collective consciousness even more so than it is today, while the music-based evenings would surely have been dominated by psychedelia and blues rock. As The Clash so boldly claimed on the title track of London Calling, phony Beatlemania had bitten the dust, and the resultant power struggle in the British music scene spawned a decade flooded with albums, ballads, rock symphonies and anthems which remain among the greatest of all time.

By the time the Boar arrived in 1973, T-Rex’s ‘Get it On’ and Elton John’s ‘Crocodile Rock’ were already classics, and the albums of the summer included Aladdin Sane and Dark Side of the Moon. The ancients of the time – those bands you thought had gone, but kept coming back for more – why, they must have been The Who and Led Zeppelin! Both titans had established their respective sounds during the reign of John, Paul, George and Ringo, and were now branching out into more artistic directions.

However, the boom of great music always has its plagues, and we admittedly did see the dawn of the one-hit wonder, alongside the horrible influence of the Eurovision Song Contest: arguably the X Factor of the day.

The Body-Popping 1980s (Nicole Davis)

Rather predictably, Starter for Ten comes to mind when you think of university in the 80s, replete with political protests, perms and ‘Pictures of You’. But with or without James McAvoy, it would still sound awesome. After all, the ’80s did spawn The Cure, The Smiths, The Jam, Joy Division, and Echo & The Bunnymen. It basically reads like a list of my favourite artists, and personally, it feels like the most appropriate era to soundtrack the university experience. Here’s why…

’80s music became distinctly political. Songs voiced opinions on unemployment, war, the environment and gave a platform for the disenfranchised youth to channel their anger. Similarly, university is a time when most of us engage with politics for the first time, and come into contact with that scary thing called the “real world”, perhaps best epitomised by The Replacements’ hauntingly true lyric: “dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled”. (Not to put a dampener on things.)

Moreover, sex became a big theme of ’80s music; far more explicit than the times when Elvis Presley just had to gyrate to make everybody melt. Madonna oozed sultriness when singing about being touched for the very first time and George Michael just came right out and said he wanted our sex. And let’s face it, who doesn’t wanna be shook all night long a la AC/DC?

Lest we forget, the ’80s also saw the release of The Breakfast Club and Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, epitomising the whole “identity crisis” shebang that many of us undoubtedly suffer during our three years of negotiating romantic dilemmas, essay crises and what the hell we’re actually going to do with our lives…

Whatever each of us end up doing, there’s nothing like shimmering synth lines, angst-fuelled lyrics and effervescent dance-floor fillers to see you through the transition. After all, what better way to sum up a night out at one of Leamington’s fine establishments than hearing the Pixies muse about having “your feet in the air and your head on the ground”?

The Flag-Bearing 1990s (Flora Havelock)

The year 1999 is drawing to a close, and brings with it the dawn of a new millennium. However, within the last decade, the musical world has provided students across campus with enough discussion to last a lifetime, thanks to the likes of Nirvana, Blur, Pixies, Pavement, and even at times, the Spice Girls. It therefore feels right to revel in the moments which defined the musical life of Warwick University in the ’90s.

Nirvana emerged at the turn of the decade, and since the release of Nevermind in 1991, they have been the stock feature of every student’s music collection. No other album from the following eight years quite caught the angst which goes hand-in-hand with student life.

There can, however, be too much of a good thing: a sentiment vehemently voiced by Damon Albarn in reference to the sea of grunge flowing out of the USA. What followed was the uniquely British phenomenon of the decade, known as Britpop. The movement gripped Warwick students, as almost overnight, campus appeared to swarm with oversized Doc Martens, excessive utilisation of plaid, and hair transforming into colours more commonly noticed in rainbows. Fandom reached boiling point when 1995’s “battle of the bands” between Blur and Oasis resulted in a public brawl amongst impassioned and devoted students outside the SU.

Despite its success and popularity, the Union Jack-clad musical movement wore thin fairly quickly among students. The phenomenon eventually gave way to more guitar-driven (and arguably, more mature) music, thanks to the likes of Radiohead, Pavement and the Pixies. Even Blur dramatically changed their style with the releases of Blur and 13, which provided some of the most powerful music to ever have come from these isles.

The Confused 2000s (Christopher Sharpe)

Whilst the Millennium bug might well have been a myth, undoubtedly, some dark lurgy was contracted by the music world when the fireworks went off… and it didn’t visit the GUM clinic in time.

In the year of our lord 2000, A1 were at the top of the charts whilst Radiohead released Kid A. Then things just got weirder. The internet happened; attention-spans and music scenes contracted; Craig David had a career. It was impossible to fully process such madness as everything began to give way beneath us all at once.

Warwick couldn’t escape, of course, so it spent the decade tossing wildly between the sublime (Squarepusher ’03, Tinariwen ’05, Amerie ’07, The National ’10) and the ridiculous (The Hoosiers. Pendulum. Headlining the 2008 Freshers’ Ball. Dear God). With bookings increasingly restricted by music promoter chains, each new SU ENTs digivolution was forced to get creative for their music fix, throwing an extra shade of bizarre onto the canvas (e.g. the “new rave” era of 2009; Eliza Doolittle and the robo-gorilla in 2010), in a vain attempt to hide past traumas and make their mark. All we could do was watch (and listen) as this splatter of colour hit the walls; sometimes bemusing, sometimes beautiful, always fascinating, in its own unique way.

So we beat on, kissed goodbye to Final Fling and said hello to Warwick Summer Party. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The music was bloody awful. The music was wonderful.

The Hashtagging 2010s (Sam Carter)

It’s hard not to be envious of music fans from the past sometimes. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen… I’m reminded of a question I often hear at Pop!, as yelled over a frenzied rendition of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’: “why don’t they make music like this anymore?”

In fairness, the contemporary music industry does seem to be producing new phenomenons, almost on a daily basis. So far in the decade of hashtags and YOLO, students around campus have brushed up on their Korean to learn the words to ‘Gangnam Style’, while asking two vital questions: “what rhymes with ‘hug me’?” and “what does the fox say?”

From Wiley‘s SU no-show – his sudden onset of jetlag so short-lived that he managed to muster the fortitude to play London’s Ministry of Sound the very same night – to in-flat arguments on the merits of twerking and the best time to finally stop playing ‘Get Lucky’, the twenty-tens (or is that “teens”?) has had its fair share of talking points.

In more optimistic news, stellar releases such as Channel Orange and AM continue to adorn the airwaves of Radio Warwick, while Bombay Bicycle Club, Feeder, Noah and the Whale, and – latterly – Katy B have all helped to brighten up the (typically British) weather at Warwick’s Summer Party over the last few years.

Coupled with recent acoustic gigs and on-campus shows from the likes of Wild Beasts and Nicolas Jaar, there’s certainly no shortage of new talent at a time when artists seem to have more avenues than ever with which to make a name for themselves. Here’s hoping the next few years prove just as fruitful.

The Prospective 2020s (Michael Perry)

Change is a strange mistress to go courting. Whenever we attempt to track certain progressions or achievements across a particular timespan, rather contrarily, we are always made more aware of what has remained constant, rather than the advancements made.

The U1 still clatters and exhales noisily as we hop aboard, to depart campus in the winter of 2023. The guy I end up sitting behind is skimming through the latest edition of The Boar (still just about clinging onto its status as a printed publication, even in the wake of its 50th birthday). I catch a glimpse of the Music section before it’s flicked aside: there’s a heated debate feature regarding Oasis’ reunion tour.

There are a couple of big albums out this month. Arctic Monkeys are on the cusp of releasing their twelfth studio record: a funktronica effort featuring guest spots from Joshua Homme and Breakbot. (Naturally, NME has already given it 10/10.) Also, David Bowie is finally ready to release his follow-up to The Next Day, just in time to qualify for this year’s (Barclaycard KPMG Ginsters) Mercury Music Prize.

But in spite of such veterans still thriving, the world of music has developed in its own way. The introductory question of “what kind of music do you like?” seems to be dying out. With the ever-increasing need for artists to appease their fans through the consolidation of various sounds, genres (or conventional ideas thereof) have become a thing of the past, as boundaries are blurred with almost every new release. It’s quite nice, albeit in a mind-bendingly chaotic fashion.

The U1 is finally pulling away. Looking out at the vast range of new accommodation blocks (and the 2017 goose sanctuary), I idly fish my headphones out of my bag, settle back into the dusty seat, and tune into the sound of the times on my iPhone 9. Things aren’t too bad.