Lad Culture In Noughties Britain
Looking back at the Cast of Characters, the list of sources is overwhelmingly male. Looking back at the music scene in Noughties Britain, it shouldn't be a shock.
Looking back at the British music scene during the time of the New Yorkshire Wave should bring back certain memories. Of Kaiser Chiefs breaking through with their single ‘Oh My God’, of Arctic Monkeys breaking album-record sales, and of the British guitar music scene enduring a renaissance. There are elements I struggle to forget which were far from harmonious, the treatment of women in bands being one.
Recently, there has been a cultural reckoning surrounding lad culture during the 2000s. Russel Brand and Harvey Weinstein’s predatory, proven criminal conduct being key examples of the ripe misogyny of the time. When lads mags ruled supreme, there were few women in the music industry, and women’s football was far from being taken seriously.
Loaded Magazine has been relaunched to exceedingly little fanfare as it now tries to make a mark in the post-#MeToo era. Its perceived readership is men in their 40s and 50s who bought the magazine in its Nineties heyday. It shouldn’t last long, as that perceived readership is ‘the original Loaded audience. Many of whom are now living happily at home with their wife and kids but still reminisce about their nights spent clubbing until 3am, drinking £1 shots, with a bedroom covered in posters of half-naked women’. That’s according to the magazine’s executive editor, Danni Levy. Do these men still exist? Do they still function in society?
One of the most striking anecdotes contained in the manuscript concerns Kate Jackson of The Long Blondes. I was there when her band finished their support slot early with Arctic Monkeys at The Leadmill in summer 2005, largely due to chants of ‘Puffs! Puffs! Puffs’. It was a prevailing symptom of the time, lad culture making itself heard loud and clear in Britain’s music venues to counter anything not overwhelmingly masculine. In this case, a band consisting of three females (including a frontwoman) and only two men. The audacity of that line-up. To many men, it was too much. So they shouted some peurile abuse while holding a plastic cup of lukewarm Carling and wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt. They likely still look the same 20 years on, though this time they’re seeing Liam Gallagher.
Misogyny was rife and featured in the lyrics of several successful bands of the time, including Arctic Monkeys. Take another listen to ‘Still Take You Home’. There’s a refrain which goes, ‘Under these lights you look beautiful. And I'm struggling. I can't see through your fake tan… But what do you know? Oh, you know nothing. Yeah, but I'll still take you home...’ Of course, I sung along though now I can read it differently as I should have done then. At least the band no longer play it live.
In an interview with The Independent (published 12th December 2021), Jackson recollected another support slot with another band from the New Yorkshire Wave. “This is not Kaiser Chiefs’ fault at all but their audience, in particular, was not willing to appreciate a band with women in it. A guy tried to get on stage and dry hump me, which was horrible. I pushed him off the stage. And then he put his hand on the stage, to try and get back up again. And I was wearing fierce stiletto heels. I just trod on him. I trod on him as hard as I could. And sang the rest of the song in his face, until he was bleeding. I felt pretty good about it.”
Perhaps the explanation for why there are few female-fronted bands in the New Yorkshire Wave was due to the misogynist treatment of women in bands. It’s not too far-fetched to expect women not to want to participate when faced with such disturbing treatment. The Long Blondes were booed on each occasion they supported Kaiser Chiefs during that 2007 tour. Having seen Oasis during the 2000s, I recall their shows would be halted for Liam Gallagher to demand that a girl lift her top up for the benefit of the audience watching the big screens. This practice was seemingly expected by various members of Kaiser Chiefs’ fanbase with shouts of ‘Get your tits out’, aimed at Jackson. She recalled how even sound engineers would believe that the female members of The Long Blondes would be denied entry to their own dressing room. They had to be girlfriends, so they thought, they couldn’t actually be members of the band.
It was not that surprising. Women were largely objectified and ignored for their musical talent. That’s largely why Kate Jackson stood out so firmly, not only was she a brilliant frontwoman and co-lyricist, she also designed the band’s cover art. Those women who did feature in bands had their contributions played down, their involvement reduced to that of eye candy.
Emily Ireland recalls her experience in the article she wrote for The New Feminist; ‘The 2000s were a Lad Culture Landfill’. She said, ‘I remember a band member joking that it was a shame I had a boyfriend because it meant he couldn’t get me to sleep with someone influential to gain some leverage in the music industry’. Indeed, some women weren’t seen as contributing members of a band, merely pawns in a mission to make it big. Such thinking is difficult to ignore, and Ireland goes on to say that ‘it is not difficult to see how this sort of atmosphere encouraged the acceptance of sexual harassment and assault.’
Women were vying to be seen and heard in an overwhelmingly male, toxic, and damaging environment. What also didn’t help was that it almost seemed like the remaining women in the music industry were forever pitted against each other, which didn’t happen with the men. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be the predominant case in the New Yorkshire Wave, but women were still outnumbered.
On the pages of NME’s ‘Gangs of New Yorkshire’ feature, men outnumber women by 12 to 3 on the Sheffield side, with those three all belonging to The Long Blondes. The numbers were a little more encouraging for Leeds with only 11 men to 7 women, ¡Forward, Russia! had Katie Nicholls on drums, The Research had a female bassist (Georgina Jakubiak) and a female drummer (Sarah Williams) while all four of The Ivories were female.
Thankfully, times have changed somewhat. While many festival line-ups are still dominated by male bands, the women are pushing back. At the time of the New Yorkshire Wave, Rebecca Lucy Taylor co-fronted Slow Club. In 2024, she is Self Esteem and keen to voice her fervent disapproval of the sexism she felt back then, alongside a brilliant repertoire and a stunning live show. Other female pop stars are topping the charts with sexually explicit, same-sex lyrics, led by Billie Eilish.
According to The Cast of Characters, I interviewed a total of 11 women for the book. Given how women fared during the early 2000s, I’m pleased to have gotten their side of the story. Some of these women featured in bands, others were gig promoters and record company bosses. Hopefully, future generations will appreciate what the likes of Kate Jackson and Rebecca Lucy Taylor went through when lad culture prevailed in the British music scene.
Someone I knew at that time would refuse to watch a band with a female lead singer because they were “all shit.” How he knew this without ever watching them is another question. Sadly I think this close minded approach was more the norm at the time.