The movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early UK punk scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic... and losing touch."[5] The movement was later associated with conservative ideologies.
During the late 1970s, oi! was originally referred to as "new punk",[6] the term was coined by Sounds magazine writer Garry Bushell who published the article "Cockney Rejects and the Rise of New Punk" on 4 August 1979.[7] The style would also be referred to as "real punk".[8][9] The movement emerged after the perceived commercialisation of punk rock and new wave,[9] along with the artistic intellectualization of "new musick" (also known as post-punk).[10][6] Oi! fused the sounds of first wave punk bands with influences from the 1960s British Invasion groups, the mod subculture, football chants, drinking songs, and English pub rock.[citation needed] Although Oi! has come to be considered mainly a conservative or skinhead-oriented genre, the movement initially emerged purely as a reaction to the splitting of the early UK punk scene and aimed to bring together disenfranchised working-class youth.[11][12][8]
First-generation Oi! bands such as Sham 69 and Cock Sparrer were around for years before the word Oi! was used retroactively to describe their style of music. In 1980, writing in Sounds magazine, rock journalist Garry Bushell labelled the movement Oi!, taking the name from the garbled "Oi!" that Stinky Turner of Cockney Rejects used to introduce the band's songs.[13][14] The word is a British expression meaning hey. In addition to Cockney Rejects, other bands to be explicitly labeled Oi! in the early days of the genre included Angelic Upstarts, the 4-Skins, the Business, Anti-Establishment, Blitz, the Blood and Combat 84.[15]
The prevalent ideology of the original Oi! movement was a rough brand of working-class rebellion. Lyrical topics included unemployment, workers' rights, harassment by police and other authorities, and oppression by the government.[5] Oi! songs also covered less-political topics such as street violence, football, sex, and alcohol.
Rock Against Communism (RAC) was a partial development from white power/white supremacist movements, which had musical and aesthetic similarities to Oi! Although due to Cold War fears the genre had appealed to some punk rock bands distinct from original Oi! in that they opposed all totalitarianism,[20] it was not connected to the Oi! scene. Timothy S. Brown writes:
[Oi!] played an important symbolic role in the politicization of the skinhead subculture. By providing, for the first time, a musical focus for skinhead identity that was "white"—that is, that had nothing to do with the West Indian immigrant presence and little obvious connection with black musical roots—Oi! provided a musical focus for new visions of skinhead identity [and] a point of entry for a new brand of right-wing rock music.[21]
Garry Bushell, the journalist who promoted the Oi! genre, argued that the white power music scene was "totally distinct from us. We had no overlap other than a mutual dislike of each other".[19]
The mainstream media increased its claims that Oi! was linked to far-right racist politics after an Oi! concert at the Hambrough Tavern in Southall on 4 July 1981 ended with five hours of rioting, 120 people being injured and the tavern being burnt down.[22][15][23][24] Before the concert, some audience members had written NF slogans around the area and bullied Asian residents of the neighbourhood.[5][22]
In response, local Asian youths threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at the tavern, mistakenly believing that the concert—featuring the Business, the 4-Skins and the Last Resort—was a neo-Nazi event. Although some of the concert-goers were National Front or British Movement supporters, none of the performers were white power music bands, and the audience of approximately 500 people included skinheads, black skinheads, punk rockers, rockabillies, and non-affiliated youths.[25]
In the aftermath of that riot, many Oi! bands condemned racism and fascism. These denials were met with cynicism from some quarters [who?] because of the Strength Thru Oi! compilation album, released in May 1981. Not only was its title a play on a Nazi slogan "Strength Through Joy", but the cover featured Nicky Crane, a skinhead BM activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence. Crane later disavowed his alignment with the far right after revealing he was gay.[26]
Bushell, who compiled the album, stated its title was a pun on the Skids' album Strength Through Joy, and that he had been unaware of the Nazi connotations.[17] He denied knowing the identity of the skinhead on the album's cover until it was exposed by the Daily Mail two months after the release.[17] Bushell, a socialist at the time, noted the irony of being branded a far-right activist by a newspaper that "had once supported Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia, and appeasement with Hitler right up to the outbreak of World War Two."[17]
After the Oi! movement lost momentum in the United Kingdom, Oi! scenes formed in continental Europe, North America, and Asia. Soon, especially in the United States, the Oi! phenomenon mirrored the hardcore punk scene of the late 1970s, with American Oi!-originating bands such as the Radicals, U.S. Chaos, Iron Cross, Agnostic Front, and Anti Heros. Later American punk bands such as Rancid and Dropkick Murphys have credited Oi! as a source of inspiration.[19]
In the mid-1990s, there was a revival of interest in Oi! music, leading to older Oi! bands receiving more recognition in the UK[citation needed] and bands such as The Business being discovered by young, multiracial skinheads in the US.[27] In the 2000s, many of the original UK Oi! bands reunited to perform and/or record.
↑ Travis, Tiffini; Hardy, Perry (13 April 2012). Skinheads: A Guide to an American Subculture (Guides to Subcultures and Countercultures). Greenwood. pp.28–29. The style known as NYHC started in the early 1980s and was characterized by "driving machine gun drum beats, fast heavy guitar riffs, and simple repetitive bass lines." Also included in most NYHC was what is now known as "the breakdown" - a quintessential break in the song that would send the listeners into a full-blown frenzy. The vocals were shouted, and many bands had sing-along choruses to encourage audience participation. Lyrics of songs reflected themes of unity, brotherhood, and social justice... It is important to keep in mind that Oi! music originated in England and that American skinheads listened to those bands. As Harley Flanagan recalls, "We were aware of what was going on over there and it was influencing bands... with sing-along anthems."
↑ Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike (26 July 2005). Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the Twentieth Century. Continuum International. p.175. ISBN978-0826458148.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
