Constructing Identity through Music

Date	Subculture	Class Position	Style	Music	Shifts in post-war hegemony
1953-54	teds	Unskilled working class	drapes	Rock and roll	The construction of consensus Macmillanism
1955-56	teds
1958-61	Beats/CND	Middle class	Duffle coats, beards	Jazz/folk
1963	mods	Semi-skilled	scooter	R’n’b/ Tamla	The construction of consensus Social Democracy
1964	rockers	unskilled	Motor-bike	Rock and roll
1967-72	hippies	Middle class/student	Long hair/ hallucinogenic drugs	Progressive rock	Dissensus Protest and Revolution
1967	rude boys	Black underclass	hustling	ska
1968-69	skinheads	unskilled	Boots ‘n’ Braces	ska
1970	glams	Working class	bisexuality	glam rock	The Law and Order Society Authoritarianism And working class resistance
1970	Rastas	Black underclass	dreadlocks	reggae
1976-8	punks	Working class?	absurdity	Punk rock
1978-81	Mod, Ted, Skinhead Revivals

Music and Identity

Thomas Rowsell

Chronology of Subcultures. Source: Middleton and Muncie (1981:90) Pop Culture, Pop Music and Post War Youth: countercultures. Unit 20, Popular Culture Milton Keynes: Open University Press

The table above illustrates how different cultures and social identities have been associated with different genres of music in Britain. The social and political landscape of an era create youth movements and counter cultures, each of which has its own particular style and music associated with it. The clothing and music of each subculture corresponds to the time of its conception and also to an extent the conventions of the subcultures which preceded it.

“Indeed, as much as the word ‘identification’ seems to imply a sense of belonging, perhaps more it describes a process of differentiation. As Laclau and Mouffe state, ‘all values are values of opposition and are defined only by their difference’.(1985,p.106) Senses of shared identity are alliances formed out of oppositional stances” Kruse (1993, page 34)

Rock and Roll comes from America, ska comes from Jamaica, but in the post war era, British youth identified heavily with each genre, and as subcultures emerged and associated themselves with the music, the music developed over time and became Anglicized. In this way the music assumes a new identity while still retaining recognisable elements of the genres original conventions.

“Reggae and ska had been popular with young white people in the late 1960s in Britain, and the more developed, politicized and Rasta-influenced reggae was popular in the late 1970s with the followers of punk. Early ska records were reinterpreted by the 2-tone bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a process which led to the blurring of the edges between punk and reggae.” Longhurst (page 143:1995)

Ska was reinterpreted with a far more British sound, through vocal style and lyrical content in the form of 2tone. The identity of ska fans therefore shifted from Black Jamaicans to British whites encouraging a revival of the 60’s skinhead movement, as skinheads were among the few white people who listened to Jamaican music in that time.

Other styles of music from foreign cultures have also been adapted in Britain so that they assume a new identity often in the form of cross-over genres. When this happens there is usually a new and separate image associated with the reinterpretation and also a unique variation of the original sound. This is the case in the 1980’s when 1950’s American Rockabilly was reinterpreted in Britain by being combined with punk and being renamed Psychobilly. Also more recently when the American hip-hop and rap movements have been reinterpreted in the forms of Grime and Garage, which feature variations in pace and style with the addition of a very English vocal style and lyrical subject matter.

“Laclau and Mouffe (1985) suggest that social identities are not fixed, but rather are articulated within a structure of social relations that causes every social agent to occupy multiple positions at once, through identifications of race, gender, class, ethnicity, occupation, educational level, tastes and so on.” Kruse (1993, page 34)

References:

Longhurst, B 1995 Popular Music and Society.Polity

Kruse, H 1993 ‘Subcultural Identity in alternative music culture’ Popular Music 12

Middleton and Muncie (1981:90) Pop Culture, Pop Music and Post War Youth: countercultures. Unit 20, Popular Culture Milton Keynes: Open University Press