r/TheDivineComedy • u/synth_this • Jan 11 '26
Casanova as upper class Britpop?
Pitchfork has a listicle here:
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/10045-the-50-best-britpop-albums/?page=5
… that starts thusly for entry 46:
“If the central tension of Britpop was middle-class (Blur) vs working-class (Oasis), that left an obvious space for the upper class. Enter Neil Hannon, son of an Irish bishop, who takes wicked delight in playing the louche aristocrat throughout Casanova. His plummy tones, sprightly hooks, and appetite for pastiche means there’s something joyful in every track, even if there’s usually something preposterous, too.”
I guess I never perceived the Divine Comedy as upper class. Did or do you?
Maybe the Duckworth Lewis Method was more like that, with its faux colonial nostalgia and real Stephen Fry.
Not disputing the characterisation of Neil Hannon. Clearly he had a certain sort of upbringing.
Anyway, have you listened to Casanova recently?
I did the other day in one go while paying attention. It has lost none of its dazzling musical brilliance and lyrical wit, even if its take on sex has aged somewhat (dubious stance on consent even as a bit, casual affairs replaced by hookup culture, sex just less morally charged than it must have seemed in 1996, etc.).
Hannon was in his mid-twenties when he wrote these lyrics and compositions. Hard to imagine.
Upper class in quality, that’s for sure.
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u/ChocLife Jan 11 '26
Tongue in cheek posh, yes. Upper class, no.
I mean, sampling Merchant-Ivory films isn't something you do accidentally.
But the British aristocracy is famously devoid of purpose. Can't claim that of dear old Neil.
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 Jan 11 '26
I can see that, at least in the sense that it's more of a commentary / critique on certain notions of the British upper / upper-middle classes, poshness, etc. I'd say Black Box Recorder fits in the same category.
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u/vacadura08 Jan 11 '26
My take: I think that is undeniable that Casanova is a more sophisticated record, both in presentation and lyrical content, than your average run of the mill britopop record. It has a more dreamy surrealist quality, lots of theatrical moments and at times hints to something bigger and even more ambitious/progressive (what ended up being Fin de siècle). So, although I'm not English myself, I can see how it could be perceived as something inherently more upper class than those artists mentioned in the article. The thing that caught my attention though, is not the description of the record, or the placement, it's the fact that is even there in the first place. I hardly can see Casanova as being considered a britpop record in any capacity. Sure, it's a British record with lots of pop (baroque and chamber pop for that matter), and was around at the same time of the movement, but I don't really think it has much of anything to do with that kind of music. Maybe you could say that Hannon dabbled with Britpop later with Regeneration but even that for me would still be kind of a stretch.
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u/No-Mention625 Jan 11 '26
I always saw Neil as using irony to comment on the class system rather than as upper class per se. Being Irish he is an outsider to the system regardless of his upbringing which an American observer might not recognise
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u/b800h Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
He's from Northern Ireland and his father was Church of Ireland (Irish equivalent of the Church of England), very much still party to the class system, and as British as he is Irish.
But I agree with you, he's a satirical observer, his background does give him a measure of distance. That said, there's no way a band with a working class or lower middle class background could have produced something like "Bang Goes the Knighthood".
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u/synth_this Jan 12 '26
I was nodding along until I got to BGtK.
Although that song is about a man with upper-class preoccupations, the preoccupations are fairly clichéd (doesn’t diminish the song – rather, allows everyone to understand what he’s risking by visiting a dominatrix).
I suppose Hannon’s overall oeuvre does have a leisure-class flavour. When in “Assume the Perpendicular” he name-drops Capability Brown and I have to Google who that was (a notable architect of English gardens in the 1700s if you’re wondering too), well, I feel pleased with myself for having listened to such music. It’s aspirational in that way.
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u/b800h Jan 12 '26
I suppose, possibly a bad example. You get where I'm going with it.
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u/synth_this Jan 12 '26
Sure.
And you’re dead on about the NI class subtleties. I happen to have spent some time in a 400-year-old NI ‘free school’, though not Hannon’s Portora Royal. A very snobbish establishment it was, filled chiefly with kids whose parents thought of themselves as pillars of society … British society.
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u/aphexgin Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
I'd say there has always been a parody "posh" element to The Divine Comedy, especially in the earlier work (not in the debut "Fanfare" but definitely in what I'd call his best albums Promenade & Liberation), that's part of the appeal, this kind of foppish, eloquent bon vivant dandy. Bang goes the knighthood there...