15 July

Tobacco plantation owners were some of the high status, wealthy people of their day. Every era has its high status positions, that generate wealth and power. The counterculture we’ve all lived since the 1960s is the same. For the first time in history it made popular musicians rich and powerful. That’s what ‘gig culture’ means, the counterculture that created a new status hierarchy, with an adolescent cultural form, the rock star, now a powerful and wealthy part of the adult world. That culture is now coming to an end, with the death of the generation that created it. As it ends that culture is launching a last-gasp gigathon, I see The Smiths are now back on the road too. This is a million miles away from rock being a way for teenagers to rebel against the adult world. It’s teenagers being the adult world.