The BRIT Awards again highlighted the incredible UK music industry with a star-studded ceremony at London’s O2 – but it also cast a light on a more concerning trend.
There were saucy performances from the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and that kiss between Bolton’s own Danny Jones and Maura Higgins. But behind the glitz and glamour, it was the dominance of privileged backgrounds among the winners and nominees that raised fresh questions about accessibility in the industry.
AG Cook, Producer of the Year, attended King Alfred School, where annual fees exceed £27,000. Charli XCX, who won multiple awards for her album BRAT, was educated at Bishop’s Stortford College, costing £38,319 a year.
Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party, a band praised for their post-punk revival, went to Bedales boarding school, with fees reaching £43,000 annually, reports The Tab. The band’s other members met at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and King’s College London.
Even the host, Jack Whitehall, attended Marlborough College, where fees top a whopping £52,000 a year – around 40% more than the average household income in Greater Manchester.
Sam Fender, the working-class troubadour from North Shields, recently criticised the industry’s growing elitism in an interview with The Sunday Times.
He argued that the music scene is increasingly dominated by privately educated artists who can afford to pursue their dreams, while working-class talent struggles to break through due to financial barriers.
“The music industry is 80 per cent, 90 per cent kids who are privately educated. A kid from where I’m from can’t afford to tour,” he said. “There are probably thousands writing songs that are ten times better than mine, but they will not be seen because it’s rigged.”
The theme even cropped up at the MAD//UpNorth marketing festival in Manchester last week, where music journalist John Robb and Happy Mondays’ Bez discussed the challenges facing young bands.
Bez noted that Manchester’s creative scene was more accessible in the past, fostering iconic working-class bands like Oasis and The Stone Roses. Today, however, the arts seem increasingly reserved for the privileged.
“I feel sorry for young bands now,” Robb said. “For more and more bands, it’s only those that can afford it that seem to cut through.”
Leeds-based band English Teacher were the first band outside London to win the Mercury Prize in a decade when they took home the prize last year. They highlighted the importance of grassroots support in their acceptance speech, crediting Music:Leeds, a youth music organisation, for helping them record and distribute their music before they were signed.
Ahead of this year’s BRITs, where they were nominated for Best New Artist, they spoke to Channel 4 about the funding crisis for organisations like Music:Leeds, which provide crucial support for working-class artists.
While the BRIT awards evidence of a class – and geographical – divide in British music might seem anecdotal, the Sound of the Next Generation (SONG) Report, published last year, revealed statistical evidence of such a divide. It found that only 52% of young people in northern England see themselves as musical, compared to 62% in the south. Additionally, just 2% of young people from the North have performed at local venues, the report found.
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Matt Griffiths, CEO of Youth Music, expressed concern over the lack of support for young musicians in the north.
And this issue extends beyond music. According to the Sutton Trust, 43% of Britain’s best-selling classical musicians and 34% of BAFTA-nominated actors attended private schools, despite less than 6% of the population being privately educated.
Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight told The Guardian that working-class people often view the arts as unattainable. “There is a perception across the board that there is something about the arts that is unattainable,” he said.
The decline in arts education further exacerbates the problem. The number of UK students taking arts subjects has plummeted in recent years, with only 24% of A-level students studying music, design, or media studies in 2021-22, down from 50% a decade ago.
Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright recalled her father’s belief that “people like us don’t become writers,” reflecting a broader perception that the arts are inaccessible to working-class individuals.
While the BRIT Awards celebrated the UK’s musical talent, they also inadvertently underscored a growing divide in the arts, where privilege increasingly dictates who succeeds.
