George Michael Was Our Marvin
Despite pop cultural nostalgia for the protest songs of the ’60s, the march to war in Iraq seemed not to interest musicians — with one glorious exception.
5 Articles by: Fergal Kinney
Fergal Kinney is a freelance music and culture journalist based in Manchester.
Did Punk Start as a Situationist Stunt?
In Britain, punk is often seen as a reaction to national decline, coming up from the streets, while its roots in Situationist political pranking have been discredited. Maybe it’s time to look again at Malcolm McLaren and his ten-point plan.
The Hard Times Behind Philly Soul
Beneath the strings and sequins, the Sound of Philadelphia was the backing track to the economic crisis that hit black America in the 1970s.
The Beatles and the Revolutionaries
Peter Jackson’s Get Back, the latest revisionist Beatles product, has glimpses of the political moment that made the band possible — and how distant we are from it today.
Breaking up the Party
Britain is rightly known for its multicultural popular music — but these musical styles have frequently emerged in the face of legal attempts to suppress them.