Britpop A Government Conspiracy?

Forget everything you’ve heard about one-world-government aspirations, space-alien cadavers kept on ice at Area 51, and decoding Di Vinci codes. The real conspiracy is how Britpop promoted by British Intelligence. Or so says My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields.

In an interview published by London newspaper The Guardian, Shields suggested that Britain’s oh-so-secret intelligence unit known as MI5 was responsible for the emergence and popularity of such bands as Oasis, Pulp, Blur and others.

“Britpop was massively pushed by the government,” Shields told The Guardian. “Someday it would be interesting to read all the MI5 files on Britpop. The wool was pulled right over everyone’s eyes there.”

He may have a point. In a smaller article promoting the interview, The Guardian notes that Noel Gallagher from Oasis and Blur’s Damon Albarn supported the Labour government during the early years of Tony Blair’s run as prime minister and that the two were among the musicians who visited 10 Downing Street. So there was some contact between a few of the frontmen of Britpop and the leaders of the British Empire.

But did the British government push the music genre down people’s throats in one vast conspiracy? Perhaps not, but you’ ve got to admit that the concept of any government attempting to distractits citizens from the country’s problems via entertainment, whether it be TV, movies or music, does have its attraction. Especially when you consider that disco swept the U.S. during the Jimmy Carter administration, Bill Clinton’s dalliance with the intern happened while “Seinfeld,” a show about “nothing,” was dominating prime time, and that most of “Lost” aired while George W. Bush occupied the White House.

Just saying …