Brit Awards boss: The middle classes dominate the music world

'We all yearn for diversity in music. That doesn’t in any way make anything that’s successful less valid'

Noel Gallagher: 'The working classes have not got a voice any more. There doesn’t seem to be a noise coming from the council estates.' (Getty Images)

So Noel Gallagher was right after all. There is a shortage of working-class bands in an increasingly middle-class music world, the executive in charge of the Brit Awards has admitted.

The annual music industry showcase is set to celebrate the success of clean-cut stars including Sam Smith, helped to stardom with a payout awarded to his currency-broker mother, Ed Sheeran and the Cambridge-educated classical-dance group Clean Bandit, at the O2 Arena on Wednesday night.

Gallagher recently bemoaned the middle-class state of pop, saying: “The working classes have not got a voice any more. There doesn’t seem to be a noise coming from the council estates.”

Saying that rapper Plan B was the last artist to produce a “proper protest song”, Max Lousada, CEO of Warner Music, home to Sheeran and Clean Bandit, and the chair of the Brit Awards committee, said: “He was uncompromising in his artistic conviction and his anger at that division of wealth in society. I just don’t see that represented in young artists.” He added: “We all yearn for diversity in music. That doesn’t in any way make anything that’s successful less valid.”