Accents of the Mind
New podcast Sound Barriers interviews Darren McGarvey on the effects of Scottish Accents in today’s music scene. They are “considering the world’s view of our accent by talking in-depth about reclaiming our identity and our thoughts against Americanisation of our accent, the Scottish cringe and the lack of Scottish music in the mainstream industry.”
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Thanks for this and for publicising Darren McGarvey over the years. I always find him very insightful and nuanced. He demonstrates that we can have such conversations in our own language.
Darren McGarvey may be right about Scottish accents’ relations to subordinate status in the UK, but his examples of English speakers (newsreaders, and especially politicians) are some the most distrusted groups. Perhaps he misunderstands that as a rapper, he is likely to be as distrusted as any poet (nothing to do with hoodies and Buckfast; to be fair, he does later touch on some concerns)? And the there are a lot more components to voice than just accent, that people react to. And why exactly should we respect BBC talent whether it speaks in a Scottish (or English regional) accent or not?
We should also think internationally, where Scottish accents have been used in English-language productions, representing dwarves, vikings and ogres (I would say, generally positively). Fashion plays a part too (in mainstream popularity peaks and troughs of Gaelic singing, I believe).
I’m not sure a fundfest would have been more kissy-kissy than this podcast. You legend! Mwah, mwah.
Are awards really a desirable metric? On a related topic, the Guardian’s slightly tongue-in-cheek best use of Scottish accent in a computer game goes to:
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/dec/11/the-pushing-buttons-alternative-game-of-the-year-awards
it’s a shame that everything is commodified and at least in communication land rendered middle class to the last, it is the coldplay effect, a dead culture which has been co opted by the suits for their own political agenda which largely involves keeping working people fearful broke and exhausted, not to mention silenced
This reminds of time back in 80’s when Proclaimers first came to fore. A women at my work exclaimed in a broad local (Scottish) accent how stupid they sounded and shouldn’t be singing like that.
After pointing out that they sang the way she talked and that the Beatles were told the same about singing in their local accent she said ‘well they’ll no sell any records like’.’
Craig & Charlie had the last laugh but this attitude was not isolated to this woman at time and just proved how entrenched the cultural cringe was at that time.
well said, it is surprising how much re-education is required to undo damage done by earlier so called education, I suppose it might be beneficial to have a thorough working knowledge of the enemy’s invidious methods of indoctrination also for one’s great revenge later on doon the road