Veteran BBC DJ Steve Lamacq has hit out at the London and US bias of the music industry, saying that exciting new British music is in danger of being ignored.
Speaking to The Independent, the BBC 6 Music presenter said:
You need the appetite to investigate what’s going on around the country. I’m not a man to make predictions, but I would say – just in the same way Britpop was quite underground during 1993 – there’s probably loads going on that we’re not really seeing.
He went on to accuse the music industry of caring too much about what US blogs thought, rather than searching out new trends for themselves – particularly in the North of the UK:
I think we’ve had a bit of a history in Britain of ignoring our own music at times. It happened during grunge and again now. There is a weird fascination among some parts of the media with who’s cool on the American blogs, at the expense of things on our own doorstep. I think around places like Hull, Sheffield, York and further north, through Manchester and up to Scotland – I’m sure there are things going on, but the spotlight’s not being shone there.
What do you think of Steve Lamacq’s argument? Is new British music being ignored? Join the discussion in the comments below…
