Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music

From rock’n’roll to contemporary pop, Mixing Pop and Politics is a provocative and entertaining mash-up of music and Marxist theory.

A radical history of the political and social upheavals of the last 70 years, told through the period’s most popular music.

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.

Toby Manning is the author of The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (2006) and John le Carré and the Cold War (2018). His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, Sight and Sound, Arena, The Face, NME, Select, Q and The Word. He has taught at the University of Birmingham, Brunel and Queen Mary universities, and City Lit College, London. Having grown up in North Wales and lived all over the UK, he now lives in London.