Meet the Mekons: Popular Music, Art, and Cultural Critique

Abstract

The article offers an overview and analysis of the work of the Mekons; however, instead of relating the history of the band, I explicate specific texts: the 1993 song “Too Personal” and the artwork for the album on which it appears, I ♥ Mekons. My “readings” lead to explorations of the group’s critique of late modernity, and I examine the Mekons’ views of history, their criticisms of consumerism, their use of intertextuality, and their blending of art and popular culture. I argue that the band’s public speech provides piercing commentaries on various aspects of life in the contemporary West.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Sue Laver and Bart Vautour who read drafts of this article. I’d also like to thank the anonymous readers at Popular Music and Society as well as my colleagues at Mount Allison University who have listened to my oral presentations on the Mekons.

Notes

1 Lyrics from the Mekons’ songs, published by Low Noise Music, are reproduced with the kind permission of the Mekons.

2 For some discussion of Dan Dare, see Tatarsky. The Leeds scene is discussed by Frith and Horne, ch. 4, and by Reynolds, ch. 4. See also Atkinson; Nehring “The Mekons.” The Gang of Four is the most famous group to emerge from Leeds; see Hoover and Stokes; Lester. For punk, see Hebdige; Heylin; Laing; Marcus, Lipstick; Marcus, Ranters; Nehring, Flowers; Nehring, Popular; Rombes; Sabin; Savage; Spicer; Stacy Thompson.

3 See Marcus, “Mekons”; Marcus, “Return.” Franzen commented on the band in an interview with the BBC; this can be read at “BBC.” The other authors are listed in the bibliography. The rock critics I’ve named belong to the generation who came of age in the 1960s. The Mekons have been praised by younger critics including writers for AllMusic.com and Pitchfork Media.

4 United is, in part, a catalogue but also contains selections from “Living in Sin,” the Mekons’ “novel in progress,” as well as essays, letters, and excerpts from the band’s lyrics.

5 For comments on rock and art, see Frith and Horne; Nehring, Flowers; Nehring, “Situationist.” Marcus, in Lipstick, considers punk’s debts to Situationism.

6 Other interpretations are possible. Perhaps the speaker is stressing the privacy of his disclosures; i.e. he is being extremely personal. It is also possible that the group is addressing record listeners and acknowledging the limits of musical communication.

7 The song invites a psychoanalytic reading, since the lyrics refer to “a mast of pain.” The Mekons allude to Freud elsewhere; see, for example, their song “Dora” (1988) and the textual apparatus that accompanies “Living in Sin.”

8 Hayden White is, perhaps, the most influential theorist to have argued that the writing of history often relies on other kinds of narratives that circulate within a culture. For a succinct statement of his views, see “Value.”

9 In their “notes” to the lyrics on the insert of The Mekons Honky Tonkin’, the band mistakenly claims that the number of victims was 300. They also covered the song on their second LP, Devils, Rats and Piggies: A Special Message from Godzilla.

10 The title “Empire of the Senseless” is shared with a 1988 novel by Kathy Acker. The Mekons made an album with Acker in 1996: Pussy, King of the Pirates.

11 The Mekons “signed” with Quarterstick after their troubled involvement with Loud Records, a short-lived subsidiary of industry giant Warner Bros. For a history of the band’s adventures in the music industry, see Christgau; Friskics-Warren, ch. 7; Nickson.

12 The distinction between functional and textual commodities is from Gendron, “Theodor.” It is slippery, since many functional commodities are or can be treated as textual commodities.

13 Of course, the rebus can be used to communicate other sentiments; in the weeks and months after the attacks on the World Trade Center, people wore such shirts to express solidarity with the citizens of New York City.

14 It is possible that the Mekons were reading Baudrillard’s Simulations at the time; the speaker of “Authority” describes himself as a “simulacrum,” and in “100% Song,” the last song on the same record, Jon Langford sings, “This is a simulation of a song.”

15 Many punk, post-punk, and new wave groups drew attention to the marketing of popular music. One of the most cogent examples can be found on the cover of the 1978 XTC record Go 2, which consists of printed text that begins, “This is a RECORD COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the record cover.”

16 The name Sophie Bourbon recalls the European royal house of Bourbon. Liner notes credited to Sophie appear on the Mekons’ LPs released on Sin Records. She is also a character in “Living in Sin.” As well, she is the speaker’s lover in “Only Darkness has the Power” (1989), and the subject of “Sophie” (1987). Finally, United contains a series of letters between Sophie and her daughter, Anne Bourbon-Levinsky.

17 Individual members of the group, Jon Langford and Rico Bell (Eric Bellis), have established themselves as artists and exhibit under their own names.

18 Of course, others are involved in the production of recorded popular music, including producers, engineers, and, in some cases, record company representatives, A&R executives, for example.

19 Here, I am drawing on both de Certeau and Bakhtin.

20 For a detailed and sophisticated discussion of this theme in both the avant-garde and punk, see Nehring, Flowers.

21 For discussions of punk and Situationism, see Marcus, Lipstick; Nehring, Flowers; Nehring, “Situationist.” Gendron discusses the avant-garde and New York popular music in Between.

22 This is true of other groups that came out Leeds University, Delta 5 and the much more famous Gang of Four. See Frith and Horne; Reynolds. For the Gang of Four, see Lester.

23 For further discussion on the Mekons at art school, see Atkinson; Nehring’s interview with John Langford in “The Mekons.”

24 We can find such a view in the foreword to the Mekons’ Hello Cruel World. The foreword is credited to Colin Stewart, a figure who wrote liner notes for the band and contributed to United. Apparently, “Colin Stewart” is an alias of Jon Langford.

25 As will become clear, my discussion here draws on Michael Warner. See also Habermas, Structural; the essays in Calhoun.

26 Excellent websites on the Mekons are http://www.mekons-blog.de/ and http://www.mekons.de/mekonhom.htm. The latter has an incredible amount of material.