Toby Manning “Mixing Pop & Politics: a Marxist History of Popular Music.”+DJs

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Mixing Pop and Politics is not a history of political music, but a political history of popular music.

Spanning the early 50s to the present, it shows how, from doo-wop to hip-hop, punk to crunk and grunge to grime, music has both reflected and resisted the political events of its era. Mixing Pop and Politics explores the connections between popular music and political ideology, whether that’s the liberation of rock’n’roll or the containment of girl groups, the refusal of glam or the resignation of soft rock, the solidarity of disco or the individualism of 80s pop.

At a time when reactionary forces are waging political war in the realm of culture, and we’re being told to keep politics out of music, Mixing Pop and Politics is a timely, original and joyful exploration of popular music’s role in our society.

Author Toby Manning is a writer on popular culture and popular music, and has written for Red Pepper, NME, The Big Issue, The Guardian, The Word, The Independent, Q, New Statesman and The Quietus. He is also the author of the Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (Penguin, 2006), and John le Carre and the Cold War (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Toby will be in conversation today with The Dublin Castle Rock And Roll Book Club’s very own Alison Beale. DJ Tony Bugbear supplies the soundtrack as prompted by the text.