Frank Turner - A Class Act?

One of my oldest friends a few weeks ago reccomended I listen to Frank Turner. He did this on the basis that, as a folk musician and singer-songwriter, I could be compared to FT, and that I might be interested in the sound he makes. The release of his latest album, 'England Keep my Bones' last week also heightened my interest - was there an artist here writing genuinely interesting commentary on the English, saying something worth hearing to an audience to whom lyrics are not always of the utmost importance? Those who bought the album in great number and who put it at number 12 in the UK album chart are presumably also those who bought the albums around it - those by Lady Gaga, Take That, and The Cast of 'Glee'.

The review here certainly seems to think so, with the verdict that: England Keep My Bones 'oozes more heartfelt English charm and vehement, click-your-heels buoyancy than a Julie Andrews film.'

From the opening track 'Eulogy', through to 'Glory Hallelujah', it truly failed to engage with me at all. The themes - Englishness, Atheism, Work, Compatriotism, normally make me tick. These are new music search terms for me. But I could not stop thinking ' What is this England he's singing about? I don't recognize it.' Then (and before I researched Turner's background) it immediately spoke to me of a different kind of England - one which I (and I am the first to display my middle class 'roots') have never seen, and which I believe most of us never will. It is the Englishness of the sweary, shouty upper class. It is the Englishness of Eton, of Bullingdon, of the Old Boys Network. Of Cameron, of Clegg. This is possibly an album about England, but it is their England, not ours.

I should say at this point that for those that know me, this is hardly a surprising opinion. I have been known to go overboard with the introduction of the class politic into art, and my opinion of it: I once got sent to the Head at school for making some quasi-Marxist complaint about the uniform. But it bothers me somewhat that someone such as Turner, making music such as this can be given the accreditation of defining our Englishness. Turner, who was born in Winchester, attended Eton and the London School of Economics. His father is a city banker, his grandfather on the board of BHS.

This shouldn't bother me. Plenty of musicians of all genres have had similar backgrounds - some of them producing fantastic work. However, they haven't attempted to comment on a subject as Turner has here. He is not singing love songs (not in the Lennon/McCartney, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin mould, anyway), and he is talking about society, culture, and a country. This opens up his references to investigation. When I have stood in front of audiences and sang songs about war, I have been explicit in my introduction to explain the reference point for the song - I haven't been involved in a conflict, so if I am singing a song with a reference to it, I must explain why, and how I wrote it. Here Turner must do the same. When he says “Well I haven’t done what Mum and Dad had dreamed/But on the day I die I’ll say ‘at least I fucking tried’/That’s the only eulogy I need”, he must qualify: what did his Mum and Dad dream for him? The dreams of a city banker for their child may be different from those of a postman, a doctor, or a taxi driver. If they're not, the reality of accomplishing that dream is very different. He uses the language of the down at heel, of the country and western song, of the blues. But I truly believe he lacks the validity to sing of this. I'd rather he sung of his background, of his life. I'd prefer honesty in this record. He almost approaches this when he writes of love, such as in Eva Mae - 'Now Eva Mae,

I won't ever judge your heart,
Just try to be a good girl and do the best with what you got' is nice writing, but doesn't stand out above a dozen other singer-songwriters in the same mould - and there are a lot better.

In this way, I feel the album stinks of a lack of authenticity, or is at least not being truthful about what it is. In a Q&A with the YuppiePunk website (here) Turner explicitly says explicitly: ' I think underground independent punk rock is a wonderful model of independent capitalists doing their thing in an excellent way. And I’m very pro-capitalism as a system.' It's not difficult to be pro-something when you've benefited hugely from it. It's pretty easy. Besides which most punk rock that is released from independent labels is done so because the big labels won't touch anything remotely challenging. Small, independent labels exist not because of capitalism but in spite of it, as the quickest and easiest way of distributing music. Certainly not to make huge profits:- find me an independent label making huge profits and I'll eat my polo stick.

That this is opinion is not challenged bothers me from the off. (Even more so because it sounds like the kind of thing that's said to deliberately infuriate people, and to sell more records). But to dress the album and the lyrics of the album up as something which expresses an experience that more than an elite have of this nation is wrong, and also don't hold true with the two most obvious influences to this record - Folk on one hand, and Punk on the other. Both are musical traditions with their roots very much in the validity of 'ordinariness'. The music of 'the people'. Sung by Ewan MacColl, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Martin Carthy, and a million more. To reference these, to stylistically locate your music in this area, and then to do something else with them is perfectly valid (and I'm all for challenging the status-quo), but please do something clever, and show us your hand. Frank, you owe a lot to these people - and I don't think you've done them any justice at all.

I should also admit my two other problems with this album: firstly, I don't think much of the writing, and secondly, don't think the music is up to much at all. His nearest cultural reference, Billy Bragg, excelled at being able to deliver an incisive, witty lyric with the most up-front, distinct, and opinion splitting voice known to music with some pretty average guitar playing because the writing was so good. FT surrounds himself with a rock/folk rock/punk band and then doesn't do much with it. It lacks the almost fall off the cliff edge of real punk music, and doesn't manage to have any sophistication either. It manages to sound both over and under produced. If Nick Clegg went into Abbey Road and produced an album, it would probably sound like this. I can hear the cries of 'let's make this one sound really cool, like we've listened to The Clash!' In the case of 'Wessex Boy' it's 'Let's put some foot stomps and hand claps on this one so it sounds like we're all having fun! Also, leave the tape rolling at the beginning so you can hear us laughing! Then we'll sound like a load of pals just having SUCH a laugh! And crack the Moet!'. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This truly isn't the ranting of a folk musician who dislikes anybody 'interfering'. I despise the idea of any music as a museum piece, and would most often prefer to be in a rock club than folk club. In my mind Folk music has become depoliticized to the point where its almost embarrassing. I remember a folk festival five years ago where it took a Quebecois musician to make any kind of political comment from the stage.

Moreover, if this album wasn't pretending to exhibit 'Englishness' it wouldn't bother me at all - I just wouldn't listen to it. But I truly feel that it has pretensions to be something that it is not. Has Frank ever been to the North of England? Or does his geographical basis for this music come from South of Cambridge? Doesn't sound like it. Sorry Frank, if your album is a manifesto for England of the next generation then I'd like to fight that tooth and nail. Whilst there are jobs being lost in huge quantities, families being given food handouts in Manchester, hospitals struggling and wars being fought, forgive me if I can't rejoice in this 'vision' of Englishness, seen through the eyes of someone who cares not at all.