Daniel Rachel – This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich

In this meticulously researched and sensitively told history, with an Introduction by Billy Bragg, Daniel Rachel examines pop music’s enduring and problematic fascination with the swastika – and Nazism itself. Over the last seven decades, some of rock ’n’ roll’s most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the imagery and theatre of the Third Reich. From Keith Moon and Vivian Stanshall kitting themselves out in Nazi uniforms and terrorizing Jewish neighborhoods to Siouxsie Sioux and Sid Vicious brandishing swastikas in the pomp of punk, generations of performers have associated themselves in troubling ways with the aesthetics, mass hysteria and even ideology of Nazism. Whether shock factor, stupidity, or crass attempt at subversion, rock ‘n’ roll has indulged these associations – whimsically, carelessly, occasionally malevolently – in a way not accepted by any other art form. But how accountable should fans, the media, and the music industry be for what has often seemed a sleazy fascination with the eroticized perversions of a fascist regime? In This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll, award-winning music historian Daniel Rachel navigates these turbulent waters with extraordinary delicacy and care, asking us to look anew at the artists that have defined us, inspired us and given us joy – and consider why so many have been drawn to the imagery of a movement responsible for the twentieth century’s worst atrocities. Alongside a sensitive history of the Holocaust and an examination of the place it holds in our cultural consciousness, Rachel asks essential questions of actions often overlooked or underplayed, whilst neither casting sweeping judgement nor offering easy answers. In doing so, he asks us to reassess the history of rock ’n’ roll and sheds new light on the grim echoes of the Third Reich in popular culture and the legacy of twentieth (and twenty-first)-century history as it defines us today.

Daniel Rachel is a former musician turned award-winning and bestselling author. His previous books include Too Much Too Young: Rude Boys, Racism and the Soundtrack of a Generation (a Sunday Times, Uncut, Rough Trade US and Resident Music book of the year) and Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters (a Guardian and NME book of the year). He lives in London.