Oi!
Oi! is the name for a musical style of the skinhead and punk scene.
Features and development
Oi! Originated in the UK in the early 1980s as a kind of punk rock for working class youth. They saw in the success of bands like the Sex Pistols or The Clash the sell-out of their movement, which "after 1977 had become too commercial, lax and middle-class".
The punk of the 1970s was a protest against the rock and pop superstar culture, which was perceived as inflated, and presented itself as the mouthpiece of the youth on the street. The young people, who only began to be interested in music from around 1978, and did not experience the first optimistic mood of 1976/77 punk, however, they quickly believed that only a few bands like Sham 69 , Menace , The Ruts or UK Subs would authentically reflect the lifestyle of the street, while bands like The Clash in their opinion, “street credibility” was missing.
Under the direct influence of bands like Sham 69, the young musicians in the bands Angelic Upstarts and Cockney Rejects came into the music scene. Since they sang in their songs exactly what their listeners experienced every day - namely problems, fun, football, unemployment, crime, violence - they soon built up a large following. They brought their version of punk rock, which at that time was still called " street punk" or "real punk", into skinhead culture. The Cockney Rejects were decisive for the term “Oi!”. The Sounds journalist Garry Bushell took on the matter, provided the compilations Oi! The Album (1980), Strength Thru Oi! and Carry on Oi !! (both 1981) together and helped the music to become popular.
Completely different styles of music came together under the catchphrase “Oi!” - punk , ska / reggae and pub rock . There was also an Oi! Division that had a lot to do with comedy - called "punk pathetique" by Garry Bushell - consisting of the bands Splodgenessabounds (probably one of the most commercially successful Oi! Bands, their hit 2 Pints of Lager rose to number 7 in the UK charts in 1980), Toy Dolls , Peter & The Test Tube Babies and Barney Rubble .
Oi! also attracted some of the traditional skinheads who previously preferred reggae , ska and soul / northern soul . Some skins that lived the spirit of '69 did not see the new Oi! Skins as real skins, as they now preferred Oi! Punk and some with a bald head (the ones among traditional skinheads is frowned upon) and 14-hole boots added elements to the style that were not previously part of the outfit of a skin. “And the far too few skins that had survived the dry years of glam , rock and disco wanted nothing to do with such skins.” In his break with the “dead” punk lie u. a. the parallels of the Oi! to hardcore .
Oi! Music (Oi! Punk) is closely linked to a certain attitude that emphasizes "proletarian" values and identity and includes a rebellious attitude towards authorities:
“Oi! Bands like to portray themselves as fighters for the lower class who - often very vaguely worded - compete against the powerful. With the Nazi skinheads, the "powerful" are capitalism infiltrated by Jews, with the radical left skinheads generally capitalism, with the mostly apolitical bands the whole thing remains very vague. On purpose, of course. "
Musically, Oi! -Punk is characterized by a simple song structure, medium tempo, hard guitar riffs and choruses to sing along to. Metal instrumental solos are frowned upon. However, the genre is difficult to narrow down:
"Ever since a certain Mr. Bushell invented the term" Oi! "For the somewhat blunted version of English punk rock, Oi! all sorts of colorful style flowers driven. [...] Bands like Cockney Rejects or Last Resort with their age-old louting punk, Vanilla Muffins or Red London with pop-punk , disruptive power and bald heads with Nazi rock or Agnostic Front and Discipline with New York Hardcore - all these bands were called himself as Oi! and invoked a tradition that was becoming more and more blurred from year to year. The Troopers from Berlin understand Oi! rather metallic punk rock of the slow pace with coarse lyrics to which the corresponding singing fits. "
The best-known British Oi! Bands include The Business , Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer and Sham 69 , some of which have their roots in the early 1970s. Many of the early Oi! Bands, which had often split up in the 1980s, re-formed during the Oi! Revival in the mid-1990s.
Origin of the term
The exclamation “Oi!” Is an English slang expression for “Hey”, “Hello, you there”. But it is also associated with the English word Joy , among other things because of the Oi! Compilation Strength Thru Oi! , a reference to Strength through Joy, the English translation of Kraft durch Freude , the name of a Nazi leisure organization. The compilation caused a scandal at the time; the responsible music journalist Garry Bushell later stated that he did not consciously refer to this slogan, that he was not aware of it at the time; He based the name on an EP by the band The Skids , whose singer Richard Jobson again stated that he took it from the autobiography of the actor Dirk Bogarde . Bushell decided against the alternative title The Oi of Sex because it seemed too frivolous to him. Because of this compilation, the genre name is often traced back to the slogan “Strength through Joy”, although the first Oi! Compilation Oi! The album released. In addition, this “argumentation” is also criticized because joy in English means “joy” and not “oi!” , So with a clear reference to the slogan the genre should have been “joy music”.
The exclamation “Oi!” Or “oy” is first recorded for the 20th century, but probably older, and goes back to the much older “hoy!”. On the one hand, the H is typically not pronounced in the Cockney dialect ("slovening of the (?) Much older 'hoy!'"), On the other hand, the expression is possibly from the Yiddish of the Jews who immigrated from Poland and Russia in the 19th century, who as a result of the pogroms in their countries of origin in the East End of London influenced: “The influence of these immigrants on London slang was so great that over 100 years ago a certain H. Baumann wrote a chapter in his book about Jewish-English (Yiddish) Londinisms (slang and cant). Dictionary of the London vernacular (Berlin 1902). ”In Yiddish, where the exclamation “ Oi! ”Is considered“ one of the most characteristic ”, he expresses“ u. a. Disgust, pain, astonishment or rapture ”(“ Yiddish exclamation to denote disgust, pain, astonishment or rapture ”).
"Critic of the theory, the 'Cockney-Oi!' derive in some form from the Yiddish exclamation of the same name, interject that the Yiddish expert Leo Rosten in his book The Joys of Yiddish has 29 different uses for the Yiddish exclamation 'oi!' listed, none of which, however , corresponds exactly to a 'call for attention' . Against this it could be objected that Leo Rosten has probably still not covered all possible meanings with his 29 examples and that it is probably in the nature of an expression like 'oi!' lies in its meaning not being too fixed. "
The exclamation was used as early as the 1930s by British working class comedians such as the duo Flanagan & Allen ; the duo is described by both Bushell and Beale as “the first demonstrable example of the use of Oi! quoted as a (Cockney) exclamation ”, Bud Flanagan was the son of Jewish refugees from Poland. The title of an Oi! Compilation Oi! Oi! That's Yer Lot! was actually the signature slogan of comedian Jimmy Wheeler .
One of the first recordings of a punk band with the exclamation "Oi!" Is the original version of Tomorrow's World by Menace , recorded in 1977 ; the band, however, did not refer to their own style as Oi !, but as punk rock. The band Cockney Rejects was largely responsible for spreading the exclamation within the punk scene. They were the first to produce a piece called Oi! Oi! Oi! wrote and whose singer "Stinky" Turner intoned songs in this way instead of "1, 2, 3, 4".
Oi! in Germany
- see also skinheads in Germany
The lyrics of German Oi! Bands, like the lyrics of foreign bands, are mostly about alcohol consumption (especially beer ), sex , football, being a skinhead or the music itself. The often aestheticization of aggressive behavior and the exaggeration of Traditional skinheads often ridicule heavy alcohol consumption as a way of life.
Well-known German Oi! Bands were or are the early Böhse Onkelz , Split Image , Herbärds , Die Alliierten , Vortex , Body Checks , Pöbel & Gesocks , Bierpatrioten , SpringtOifel , and The Voice. Since the mid and late 1990s bands such as Berliner Weisse , 4 Promille , Rabauken , Volxsturm , KrawallBrüder , Loikaemie and Broilers have become popular.
In addition to politically neutral and right-wing bands, there are also left-wing or explicitly anti-fascist Oi! Bands, such as the Stage Bottles , Loikaemie or Oidorno. In Germany too, Oi! by no means a phenomenon that is restricted to skinhead circles. Numerous Oi! Bands consist of punks and skins, which usually also applies to the respective audience.
Oi! in the USA
In the early 1980s, the British Oi! Sound made its way to the US, where it was recorded by local bands such as US Chaos , The Press , The Bruisers , Anti-Heroes , Warzone and Iron Cross . In many cases, Oi! and street punk musically also many hardcore punk groups such as Youth Brigade , Youth of Today , SSD , Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front . In connection with the mixture of Oi! / Streetpunk and Hardcore, the term “Streetcore” is sometimes used today. Also Hatecore groups such as SFA are audibly influenced by Oi!.
politics
After an Oi! Concert in Southall , London , riots broke out between the concert-goers and the Asian residents in 1981 at the latest , Oi! often associated with neo-Nazism in public and in the mass media . But this is just as inaccurate as the blanket equation of skinheads (whether traditional or Oi! -Skin) with right-wing extremists or neo-Nazis.
In fact, the Oi! Scene (like the skinhead scene, for example) has a similarly broad spectrum of political opinions as can be found in any social group whose main field of activity is not politics.
From the beginning of the Oi! Movement, there have always been moderate leftists ( Mensi from the Angelic Upstarts , an ardent supporter of the British Labor Party at the beginning of the 80s ) as well as right- wing and militant apolitical people.
Some Oi! Bands made clear statements about unemployment / labor market policy in their songs , in which they pointed out problems and thus of course became politically active, but without letting themselves be pushed into a political corner. In the song National Employer's Blacklist by The Business (1981), some employers accuse the practice of listing names of vehement workers' rights advocates and thus preventing their employment, and Jobs Not Jails by The Gonads (1980) states: “ What we want's the right to work / Give us jobs not jails / Don't throw us on the scrapheap because your system fails. ”(What we want is the right to work / Give us jobs and not prisons / Don't throw us on the Pile of garbage because your system is failing.) Some bands also took anarchist positions, among them Oi Polloi or Blaggers ITA .
Another interesting example is the London band Combat 84. As became clear in a documentary about the band shown on British television, singers (moderate right) and drummers (apolitical to moderate left) rarely shared a political opinion. In their songs they presented the political positions of the singer Chubby Chris: In Rapist he advocates the death penalty for sex offenders ("Bring back capital punishment") and in The Right to Choose for the stationing of cruise missiles in Europe ("The right to choose - we want the cruise!") (Both 1983).
The political discussion and the associated tensions led to the Oi! Scene remaining very lively from the mid-80s, but also limited. The path to the great mass movement was finally blocked by the media reports, but it remained all the more intense in the core of the scene. In addition, other scenes formed - under the banner of “ Rock Against Communism ” a right-wing extremist / neo-Nazi scene, a left-wing extremist in the wake of the Northern soul band The Redskins and, in the wake of the upcoming Ska revival, a skinhead reggae scene that many Oi! - offered supporters development opportunities and welcomed them as well as new interested parties into their ranks.
In 1988 the first major Oi! Concert since the Southhall incident was to take place in London: “Oi! - The Main Event ". The venue "Victoria" in the middle of London's city center held around 2,000 visitors (which had to be reduced to 1,500 at the main event due to official regulations), earlier concerts had mostly had to take place in pubs that were already overcrowded with several hundred visitors. In the lineup were u. a. Section 5 , Vicious Rumors , The Business, Judge Dread , Angelic Upstarts and a group consisting of secret scene personalities who came together for this gig called Oi! Allstars. For the time, extremely meticulous safety precautions could not prevent a debacle: Although the evening went on with almost no incidents, the all-stars never performed. Obviously, the organizer could not correctly assess that the Angelic Upstarts had lost the sympathy of part of the scene by a shift to the left in their attitude (which they also conveyed on their then current album Blood on the Terraces from 1987) - the stage was stormed, chased away the musicians and destroyed some of the equipment. Only after the concert was canceled and the concert hall cleared, worse could be prevented. For Great Britain, this interruption of the concert, caused by political tensions in the scene, meant that to this day there are no large event halls available for Oi! Bands and the movement no longer reaches anywhere near large audiences and listeners.
Most Oi! Bands in Germany as well as internationally have oriented their opinion towards the political center , and in some cases also explicitly set themselves apart from the neo-Nazi part of the skinhead scene. However, the boundaries are sometimes blurred, as right-wing extremist or neo-Nazi bands often only add openly propagated racism to the spectrum of topics more or less clearly.
Occasionally right-wing and neo-Nazi “skinhead” bands also refer to their own music as Oi! Music or listen to this type of music. In addition, the term RAC (= "Rock Against Communism", a reaction to " Rock Against Racism ") has established itself in the scene as a name for neo-Nazi "skinhead" rock (also known as white noise).
literature
- Garry Johnson: Oi! A View from the Dead End of the Street . 1981.
- Garry Bushell : For the Record . In Sounds (UK magazine) July 25, 1981.
- Alan Mead: Skinhead Girl . 1988.
- Matthias Mader: Oi! The Book Vol. 1 . Berlin 1996. ISBN 3-931624-02-1 .
- Craig O'Hara: The Philosophy Of Punk . 1999.
- Klaus Farin : Skinheads . 2002.
- Alan Götz: Un me sainen ale brider, oi, oi,… . In: Alf Garnett, No. 8, approx. 2004.
- George Marshall: Spirit of 69 . A Skinhead Bible, ISBN 0-9518497-8-6 .
- George Marshall: Skinhead Nation, ISBN 1-898927-70-7 .
Movies
- 1972: Cabaret (theater adaptation)
- 1982: Made in Britain (feature film)
- 1989: Skinheads (Thriller)
- 1992: traffic jam - here we go (feature film)
- 1993: Profession of neo-Nazi (documentation)
- 1995: American History X (feature film)
- 2000: Oi! Warning (feature film)
- 2003: Skinhead Attitude (Documentation)
- 2004: Skinheads (Documentation)
- 2006: This Is England (feature film)
- 2006: The Kick (theater adaptation)
- 2007: Leroy-is Afro (comedy)
- 2008: Skin – hatred was his way out (feature film)
- 2010: Skinhead – a Crossculture (Documentation)
- 2011: Warrior (feature film)
Web links
- Oi! - The History, Master's thesis by Ole Meiners (German, as PDF)
- Oi! Vision webzine for punk & Oi! music
- Extensive list of bands ( Memento of October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ); in the Internet Archive
- Oi! the Web Site ( Memento of October 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - lists, poems, interviews; in the Internet Archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Alf Garnett ', No. 8, p. 15.
- ↑ George Marshall: Spirit of '69 - A Skinhead Bible .
- ↑ a b Enpunkt, Edition 33, p. 51.
- ↑ Garry Bushell : Oi! - The Truth. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009 ; accessed on October 16, 2015 .
- ^ A b Paul Beale (editor), Eric Partridge: A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th edition (London 1984). Quoted from: Alf Garnett, No. 8, p. 17.
- ↑ a b Alf Garnett, No. 8, p. 17.
- ↑ a b c Alf Garnett, No. 8, p. 18.
- ↑ Fred Kogos: The Dictionary of Popular Yiddish Words, Phrases, and Proverbs (Seaucus, NJ 1997). Quoted from: Alf Garnett, No. 8, p. 18.
- ↑ Skin Up , No. 51, Summer '99. Quoted from: Alf Garnett, No. 8, p. 16.
- ↑ cf. Matthias Mader: New York City Hardcore. The Way it was… IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931624-10-2 .