It was dubiously referred to as 'music from the streets' because its performers wore trainers and baseball caps, used amplification, electric guitars and synthesisers, and performed in non-classical venues. Just don't mention the public school education or the independent income. The fatal flaw of 'crossover' is that in spite of its popular cultural references, it presupposes the division of 'high' and 'low' culture that it tries to subvert. Everyone must wear black and smiling is illegal. These festivals are massive bureaucratic events paid for by large amounts of state and corporate sponsorship.
Festival music is full of modernist clich s without the radical edge of the music it emulates.
Such music forms the basis of a career structure so any rebellion, iconoclasm or critical thinking is removed. For example, the mass-marketing of 'classical music' is becoming indistinguishable from that of 'popular music'. I maintain that there is still the potential for new music to resist commodification and assert the possibility of difference. If music can resist categories on a structural level, so it can resist the labelling essential to its marketing. We would welcome any responses to the articles featured in new notes.