Marxism in Music
Constructing a Communist Contra-Culture with The Redskins, Rock’n’roll and Revolution
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:3rd Sep '26
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Examines the relationship between music, capitalism and communism with a view to building a counter-hegemony.
'80s British alternative band, The Redskins, are a case study for examining the relationship between music, politics and revolution and the development of a contra-culture.
In Marxism in Music: Constructing a Communist Contra-Culture with The Redskins, Rock’n’roll and Revolution, Gregor Gall examines how The Redskins, so-called for their skinhead aesthetics and commitment to a socialist ideal, were a deliberately political band and built a counter-hegemony through their music and activism.
At the height of Thatcherism in Britain, The Redskins were aligned with the politics of the Socialist Workers Party, though the party did not accept their idea of that a working-class culture could exist. Despite resistance and contradiction, The Redskins created stirring and danceable music that introduced young people to socialist politics, playing over 250 gigs between 1982 and 1986, of which one quarter were benefit gigs for, as an example, striking miners.
Featuring a foreword by Redskins bass player Martin Hewes this book analyses the band's political intentions, interpersonal and inter-party tensions and the outcomes of their ideological, political and creative choices by drawing upon interviews with Hewes, other musicians like Billy Bragg, and the band's followers.
The book uses as a comparison another left-wing band of the same period, Easterhouse, to tease out how and why The Redskins were and are influential amongst a certain milieux and how going against the grain, even among comrades, made for the group's particular contribution to music culture and politics.
The remarkable story of how the Redskins took revolutionary socialism into the pop charts gets the rigorous study it deserves * Keith Cameron, music journalist and author of 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers *
The Redskins put their music in the front line during a time of confrontation and class war. Gregor Gall explores the challenges they faced when mixing their revolutionary politics with shiny mid-80s pop. * Billy Bragg, singer, songwriter and activist *
What would a Communist contra-culture look like? Gregor Gall suggests that it might look a bit like The Redskins. This is a compelling study of a band from the past who were looking to the future. Essential reading for anyone interested in how music could support progressive politics * Martin Cloonan, Director of the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS), University of Turku, Finland *
Going beyond the simplistic characterization of The Redskins as the cultural wing of the SWP, Gall reinterprets the politics of the band, examines its internal dynamics and brings out its particularities by comparing it with The Housemartins and Easterhouse. As the only in-depth analysis of one of the most controversial 'political' bands of the 1980s, this book is a significant contribution to the understanding of the complex relationship between music and politics during the Thatcher years * Jeremy Tranmer, Senior Lecturer, University of Lorraine, France *
How does one write scholarship about a band that made the revolution seem possible? Many of have tried and fallen short. Gregor Gall's academically rigorous, insightful work offers the left a tool to better understand the cultural fronts of organising without diluting the danceable, visceral impact of the Redskins. This book will might have you dancing all the way to the Big Strike! * James Tracy, Chair, Labor and Community Studies Department, City College of San Francisco, USA *
ISBN: 9798765140888
Dimensions: 232mm x 158mm x 22mm
Weight: 580g
296 pages