Skinhead Music

I have decided to research what kind of music the skinheads listened to because in the play we have decided to add some punk music into it. In order to understand why James listens to the music I want to research how the music that skinheads listened to changed through the years.

Skin heads originally listened to black popular music such as soul, rocksteady and early reggae. However later on reggae music started to feature themes of black nationalism in their lyrics. This caused tension between the black and white skinheads.

They then began to listen to punk rock and in the late seventies skinheads embraced Oi! Oi was working class music and was punk mixed with football chants, pub rock and glam rock. This music was very aggressive and had lots of political views in it.

I think that James listened to this type of music because it drowned out everything. Having this music on meant that he would not have to think about his past, his granddad or the bullying, the music was a way to escape from all of that. It meant he could listen to someone else's views and take them in as his own in order to leave the old James behind and become a different person. (Source 7)