February 5th, 2005 by 
Pete
Lyrics by Oasis, Blur, Pulp and other Britpop artists are to appear on the GCSE music syllabus as of this September.
The move, which has been introduced by examiners to make the subject more engaging for pupils, has already drawn criticism from ‘traditional’ music lovers.
Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber commented: “Pupils are exposed to this music already, so wouldn’t it be more constructive to expose them to something they don’t know.”
“Children are missing out on a classical music education.”
The changes will see pupils listen to excerpts of Britpop’s greatest hits on headsets and answer exam questions on song structure, musical style, rhythm and instrumentation.
Although 50% of GCSE exam will still be awarded for classical music (between 1600 to 1899) the rest will reward knowledge of 20th century classical music, African and Asian music and an existing “contemporary music” section which will include the new Britpop module.
However, even Britpop expert and author John Harris has questioned whether the music would be testing enough for 16-year-old pupils.
Harris, who wrote “The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock”, said: “The problem that they may have is that from 1996 Britpop wasn’t very interesting.
“It went back to the three chord trick, endless copying of the Beatles and the Who. By 1996 it had got very uninspired.”
He added: “Oasis were gloriously basic and made a virtue of it but God help the students in the classroom taking apart the music of Kula Shaker and Northern Uproar. There’s nothing there.”
Harris also pointed out that pupils taking the exam would only have been six-years-old during the genre’s height in 1995.
He continued: “Britpop lost the lustre of cool three or four years ago. It’s practically the music of their parents.”
Teachers will begin training for the new Britpop module in April.
