Oi Skinhead

Oi originated from punk and skinheads. It was a movement of punks, skinheads and rebels, kids who didn't obey.

Oh Skinheads: The Skinhead Rebirth 1976

The skinhead style never died, but between 1972 and 1976 very few skinheads were seen. But in 1976, a new and unusual youth culture arose: the punks. But the punks had trouble dealing with their rival Teddy Boy youth culture, the punks needed support in their battles with the Teds, as wearing their bondage gear, the punks were no match for the Teddy Boys. Surprisingly, each of the opposing groups had their own skinhead supporters, traditional skinheads leaned towards the Teds, and a new breed of skinheads supported the punks. The new skinheads revived only the most extreme elements of the old skinhead style.

Punk was supposed to be street music, but it became full of show-offs, plastics and fakers commercialized by the industry and exploited by pioneers. On the contrary, Oi has always been working class through and through.

These new skinheads were attracted to groups such as Skrewdriver, Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts, Cocksparrer and Bad Manners.

Gary Bushell of the music newspaper Sounds was constantly reviewing bands like Sham 69. This hard, fast and unmelodic punk music was called the new skinhead music. It was called Oh-music. The revival meant not only new music and a new style, not only a change in clothes, but also new behavior, attitudes and some political role that was completely absent from the original skinheads.

Oi skinhead: Oi music genre

Ouch! became an established genre in the second half of the 1970s. Rock journalist Harry Bushell called the movement Oi!, taking the name from the garbled "Oi!" which Stinky Turner of Cockney Rejects used to introduce the band's songs. This is an old cockney expression meaning "hello" or "hello". In addition to the Cockney Rejects, other bands will be directly labeled Oi! at the dawn of the genre were Angelic Upstarts, The 4-Skins, The Business, Blitz, The Blood and Combat 84.

The prevailing ideology of the original Oi! the movement was a crude form of socialist labor populism. Lyrical themes included unemployment, workers' rights, harassment by the police and other authorities, and harassment by the government. Ouch! the songs also dealt with less political topics such as street violence, football, sex, and alcohol.

Oh skinhead: political controversy

Some Oi skinheads were involved in white nationalist organizations such as the National Front (NF) and the British Movement (BM), leading some critics to identify Oi! the scene is generally racist. However, none of the groups associated with the original Oi! the scene promoted racism in its lyrics. Some Oh! bands such as Angelic Upstarts, The Burial and The Oppressed have been associated with left-wing politics and anti-racism. The white skinhead movement developed its own musical genre called Rock Against Communism, which had musical similarities to Oi! but was not related to Oi! scene.

The Oi skinhead movement has been attacked from the left, the right and the center of public opinion, rightly, wrongly, and sometimes just for the sake of it. People were afraid of skinheads, people are afraid of something new and something they don't understand. But the Oi skinhead movement was never the politics of any party, it was anti-political, it was the rhythm of the street, it was the entertainment of city children.

Ouch! group list