Oi!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

During the late 1970s, oi! was originally referred to as “new punk”, 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. The style would also be referred to as “real punk”. The movement emerged after the perceived commercialisation of punk rock and new wave. Although Oi! has come to be considered mainly a conservative or skinhead-oriented genre, the movement initially emerged purely as a reaction to the fracturing of the early UK punk scene and aimed to bring together disenfranchised working-class youth. In 1978, Bushell argued “New Punk” artists such as the Angelic Upstarts had more relevance than “New Musick”. Bushell would be an early supporter of Oi! as a reaction to the artistic intellectualization of punk, with “new punk” followers expressing appreciation for his support of “real kids” bands and his refusal to be an “intellectual snob”. 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. 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. 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. ―and fans were involved in white nationalist organisations such as the National Front (NF) and the British Movement (BM), leading some critics to dismiss the Oi! subgenre as racist. 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, it was not connected to the Oi! scene. Timothy S. Brown writes: 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”. Before the concert, some audience members had written NF slogans around the area and bullied Asian residents of the neighbourhood. 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. In the aftermath of that riot, many Oi! bands condemned racism and fascism. These denials were met with cynicism from some quarters 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. 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. In the 2000s, many of the original UK Oi! bands reunited to perform and/or record.

OI on Music Theory Print

Oi!

History#