Suzanne Harrington: Forget 'heritage acts' new music is where it's at

Those first two albums were belters. But it was 30 years ago. Oasis are reuniting for the (“astronomical”) cash, and have no new material. Picture: Joanne Nelson/PA Wire

There are broadly two cultural directions – the nostalgia highway, where we travel backwards over terrain flattened by comfortable familiarity, and the road forward, exciting and unknown, full of unexpected bumps and jolts, twists and turns.

This especially applies to music, now that we have a phenomenon known as ‘heritage’ acts – a term I’d thought applied to old buildings and tomatoes, but has been expanded to include octogenarian men: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The hope-I-die-before-I-get-old Who, etc, churning out the old faves like a jukebox in a care home. (Which, incidentally, would be a brilliant addition to any care home – music as medicine, therapy and joy all rolled into one).

Then there are the reformers who all still hate each other, but need the money: at least the Sex Pistols were honest enough to call their 1996 reunion The Filthy Lucre tour. And now Oasis. Funny how it’s always girls who are accused of hysteria, as news of this latest reunion wets the knickers of dad-lads everywhere, keen to recreate the beery anthems and pub coke vibe of the mid Nineties. Fair enough – it was a heady time, and those first two albums were belters. But it was 30 years ago. They’re reuniting for the (“astronomical”) cash, and have no new material – and it’s front page news. Frenzied media salivation, daft haircuts and bad parkas being dusted off. Mad for it.

I get it that slipping on your old musical identity and singing along to the old faves is comforting, the way lying in a warm bath is comforting; musical nostalgia and warm baths have a lot in common – it all goes a bit tepid and wrinkly after a while. But there’s something atrophying about always looking backwards, about constructing monuments in your head around a long-gone era. About using your present to fetishise the past.

Last week the Mods descended on Brighton for the Mod Weekender, where Mods and Rockers traditionally hurled deckchairs at each other. Now the Rockers don’t exist anymore and the Mods all have hip replacements and hearing aids, buzzing around on scooters that sound like farty hairdryers. Their outfits not so much easy style as rigid cosplay – get your shoelaces wrong and you’re not a proper Mod. More a nostalgia club than anything fresh or creative.

Which is why new music is so vital. Instead of the warm bath, it’s like being sprayed in the face with an icy power shower – it might knock you over, but it will definitely wake you up. This autumn my gig buddy (64) and myself (57) have tickets for Kneecap, Bob Vylan, Sprints – bands all young enough to be our kids, if not our actual grandkids. We will not be down the front getting elbowed in the face because we’re too old for that kind of carry on, but we will nevertheless be dazzled, deafened, energised, enlivened. New neural pathways will be burnt through our ageing brains. We will not be there for any nostalgic singalong, but for the rush of fresh blood to the head.