The song designed to show just how much opposition to the royal coronation will be buried hits the top 20 and is, predictably, ignored.
The Krown Jewels’ bid for a coronation protest chart-topper has inevitably failed, though I doubt very much that reaching number one in the Top Forty was ever the real plan. As a protest against both the royal institution and the forelock-tugging of the mass media, the single Scrap the Monarchy has been a notable success. Just as the planned street protests against the state-mandated celebrations worked more effectively than could have been hoped as the police swept in and arrested everyone for the thought crime of planning an entirely legal protest, so the media treatment of the Krown Jewels’ single shows up the way any objection to this ghastly and costly spectacle has been silenced – and silenced without even the need for North Korean levels of state interference, but instead by a compliant media and heavy-handed police behaviour that will be criticised with the inevitable and pointless ‘lessons to be learned’ – but only long after the fact, once it has effectively silenced the small voice of opposition.
Scrap the Monarchy reached Number 17 in the UK charts, not bad for a tiny self-released song that had only been on sale for a couple of days. The song, from the usually shouty and sweary band usually known as The Kunts, had been deliberately sanitised – no rude words in the lyrics or title – which meant that even if the song itself might have been a bit much for daytime airplay with its lyrics about celebrity nonces and so on, there was no reason beyond the very obvious one not to at least acknowledge its existence. yet in the Top Forty rundown on Radio 1, only the band name was mentioned – even the title Scrap the Monarchy apparently being too dangerous an idea to share with the dwindling radio audience. This, I suspect, was the band’s end game all along – showing how even the mildest forms of protest will be silenced and buried in the rush to pretend that we are all joyful subjects eagerly pledging our subservient allegiance to our new Overlord who has been hand-picked by God.
Continuing the protest in a manner more fitting to the Kunts style, the band is playing a show in London at the New Cross Inn on Thursday, May 11th where K-Royale – the artist formerly known as Kunt – will debut his new art display, a hundred replica ten-pound notes that he has personally wiped his bottom on. Subtle? Perhaps not. But effectively cutting nevertheless and in the great tradition of scatological angry art.
NOTE: Kunt tells us that the song can be purchased until midnight on Thursday 11th and is currently in the Top Ten – so there is still hope for that Number One spot!
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