Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

In response to the death of the Ozzy Osborne this week, we've unlocked this patrons episode from last year about heavy metal, Black Sabbath and the Prince of Darkness himself. If you like this you can hear a lot more like it by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this episode Jeremy raises a devil’s horn salute to the gods and demons of heavy metal. He explores the etymology of the genre term, excavating its shared roots with acid rock, and explaining how heavy metal compliments our story here on LITM. With reference to Easy Rider and the misconceived ‘end of the ‘60s’, we hear about how biker culture, the legacy of the blues and changing regimes of accumulation contributed to the anguished intensity expressed in the music of Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Iron Butterfly. 

Jeremy also explores noise, feedback and distortion as the new aesthetic tools of metal, questions why people in the late 60s would want to explore occult and black magic ideas, and finishes with a deep dive on Black Sabbath, asking: was heavy metal an expression of the blues for white guys who’s dad’s worked in the car factories of Birmingham?

Books and Films:

Easy Rider
Robert Walser - Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music

Tracklist:

Steppenwolf - Born to be Wild 

Blue Cheer - Summertime Blues 

The Who - My Generation (Live 1968) 

Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused 

Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love 

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man 

Iron Butterfly - Easy Rider (Let the Wind Pay the Way) 

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath 

Black Sabbath - Paranoid 

Black Sabbath - War Pigs 

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing, and dozens more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod and become a patron from £3 a month.

In this patrons episode we wanted to spend some time talking about the band on everyone’s lips: Kneecap. The Belfast three-piece have been in the headlines of all the papers in recent weeks for their vocal support of Palestine, trouble with the law, and Transatlantic festival shutdowns. Tim and Jeremy provide a healthy dollop of context to the group, including a potted history of Irish independence, the post-Good Friday Northern Irish settlement, working class culture and the changing status of the Irish language at home and abroad. In addition to this they discuss rave rap, drug humour, Welsh, McCarthyism, Kneecap’s eponymous 2024 film, their Glastonbury appearance, the BBC, and the British state response to their music and performances.
Jeremy is going to follow up this show with a supplementary episode on some of the musical antecedents to what Kneecap are up to, so hold tight for that in the coming few weeks.

Tracklist:
Kneecap - C.E.A.R.T.A

Kneecap - Amach Anocht
Kneecap x DYRT - Mam
Kneecap - Parful
Kneecap - Guilty Conscience
Kneecap ft Money - The Recap

We’re almost at the end of our 1977 series, but in true LITM fashion why have just one show on a topic when you could have two? Across this and the next episode we’ll be filling in a few gaps we haven’t touched on so far, and providing some broad economic and political scene-setting for this seminal year in both Britain and the States.
In this episode we hear about the emergent neoliberal order, the oil crisis, austerity then and now, and OPEC. Jeremy and Tim consider escapism in music and film, Punk, Mods, the Silver Jubilee and the decline of the British Empire. They discuss the mighty Paul Weller, the Sex Pistols, Alice in Wonderland, and dig deep into the crates for the James Bond theme as you’ve never heard it before...

Next time we’ll be looking to America for our final show of this run.
Do check out the podcasts Jem shouts out in end notes of this show. We're listing them here, you can find them wherever you find this:
Pro Revolution Soccer
Red Medicine
Politics Theory Other
Produced by Matt Huxley.

Become a patron for as little as £3 per month by visiting Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

We are now on Youtube! Find series 6 here: https://www.youtube.com/@LITMPodcast

Remember, we have a rolling playlist of all the tracks discussed over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs

Tracklist:
Biddu Orchestra - James Bond Disco Theme (Journey into Fantasy)
The Jam - In The City
The Jam - Eton Rifles
Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
Talking Heads - Don’t Worry About the Government 

This is an excerpt from a patrons episode. to hear the full thing and dozens more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod and become a patron from £3 per month.

In this patrons-only episode we welcome writer and anti-fascist activist Joe Mulhall to the show to discuss his fantastic book Rebel Sounds: Music as Resistance, a survey across time and place of groups and cultures using musics as part of their resistance to forms of racism and imperialism. We hear about Irish rebel songs, Kneecap and an impromptu Irish history quiz in the toilets of a Wolftones gig; the role of Jazz, Blues and Soul in the Civil Rights Struggle; revisit Tropicalia with fresh eyes and ears; and fly to Nigeria to visit the Felabration in Lagos. Alongside these topics we consider how our personal tastes can divert from a music’s political power, US cultural hegemony, music in the USSR, 'bone records’, Two Tone, and bring things up to date with a trip to the trenches of Ukraine.
We won’t provide an order link here, but you can get the hardback of Rebel Sounds in your local bookshop, and the paperback is forthcoming in the Autumn. Thanks to Joe for joining us.

In this episode, Tim and Jeremy complete our mini-series on Saturday Night Fever by looking at the film in its cinematographic context alongside two other huge movies of the late1970s. With reference to Rocky and Taxi Driver, the guys unearth the shared visions of class and race politics in the USA of the period. They discuss the particular place of Italian Americans in the culture more broadly, discuss particular forms of American-ness, and spend some time on the real life events that inspired the character of Rocky Balboa.
After that, attention returns to Travlota to wrap up SNF with a look at how the film was received at the time and since, and reflect on how their own attitudes to the movie have changed down the years. Plus the Trammps, Jem’s Grandma, and the answer to the question of whether David Mancuso ever saw Tony Manero up on the big screen…

Produced by Matt Huxley.

We are now on Youtube! Find series 6 here: https://www.youtube.com/@LITMPodcast

Remember, we have a rolling playlist of all the tracks discussed over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs

Tracklist:

Bernard Herrmann - Taxi Driver (Theme)

Bill Conti - Gonna Fly Now 

Bee Gees - Night Fever

The Trammps - Disco Inferno 

This is am excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing along with dozen more, visit Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod and sign up for as little as £3 a month.

In this patrons-only episode we welcome writer Toby Manning to the show to discuss his recent book Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music. Toby's book offers a political reading of popular music, taking as its methodological starting point the songs found in the charts from the 1950s to the present day, to explore how the music people listen to reflects and resists the politics of their time in fascinating ways.

In this show Jeremy, Tim and Toby discuss the charts themselves, how we think of 'popular music', and discuss lyrics as a tool for analysis. This being LITM, we of course spend some time on the hits of the 1970s, but we hear also about '80s synth pop and yacht rock, Annie Lennox, MJ, and contemporary artists like FKA Twigs and Little Sims. Also found inside: the GLC, the High Sixties and Kneecap.

Thanks to Toby for coming on the show. If you'd like to order his book, you can do so from Repeater Books: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/mixing-pop-and-politics-a-marxist-history-of-popular-music/. Enter the code 'popdiscount' for some money off.

In this episode, Tim and Jeremy pull on their white suits for a full run-down rewatch of Saturday Night Fever. Starting with the iconic 'Stayin' Alive' opening sequence, they draw out the class, race and gender politics of the film, including Italian American stereotypes, consumer culture, Bruce Lee, meritocracy and male grooming. On the music side, they talk blue-eyed Soul, falsetto, an early drum loop, Bee Gees, Kool and the Gang, MFSB and more.
Produced by Matt Huxley.

We are now on Youtube! Find series 6 here: https://www.youtube.com/@LITMPodcast

Remember, we have a rolling playlist of all the tracks discussed over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs

Tracklist:

Bee Gees - Stayin’ Alive
MFSB - K-Jee
Bee Gees - More Than a Woman
Kool & the Gang - Open Sesame
Yvonne Elliman - If I Can’t Have You

The day has finally come: after 79 episodes of Love is the Message, it’s time to talk Travolta. Saturday Night Fever was always coming down the pipe for us, and now we’re giving it the LITM treatment.

In this episode, Tim and Jeremy establish some of the pre-history to the seminal 1977 film. With musical examples drawn from Vince Aletti’s Disco Files playlists, we hear about the rise of the suburbs in the USA, the dynamics between the different boroughs of mid-70s NYC, and consider the suburban disco scene. We ask again what makes disco disco, revisit the Hustle, tune up the Salsoul Orchestra and take a trip to a disco conference.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Saturday Night Fever without the Bee Gees: often-derided and much-mocked but one of the highest selling bands of all time, it was their music which provided the soundtrack to the film. Are they a guilty pleasure? Listen along to find out.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

We are now on Youtube! Find series 6 here: https://www.youtube.com/@LITMPodcast

Remember, we have a rolling playlist of all the tracks discussed over on Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs⁠

Tracklist:Carl Douglas - Blue Eyed Soul Gloria Scott - Just as Long as We’re Together Babe Ruth - Elusive

Tina Charles - Disco Fever 

Joe Bataan - The Bottle Van McCoy - The Hustle Salsoul Orchestra - The Salsoul Hustle Bee Gees - Spicks and Specks Bee Gees - Massachusetts Bee Gees - Jive Talkin’ Bee Gees - You Should be Dancing

This is an excerpt from a patrons-only episode. To hear the full thing and dozens more episodes on topics ranging from Walter Gibbons to Glam Rock, visit patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

In this patrons episode we conclude our two-parter on Bob Dylan, dragging him from where we left off last time in 1966 all the way up to the freewheeling year of 1977. Through a glut of albums we hear about John Hammond, spirituality, gnosis, religious iconography, St Augustine, Joe Hill and The Band. Dylan meets the Panthers, who don’t think much of him, he gets married and divorced, sets out on the road with the Rolling Thunder Review, and lights up the silver screen. Tim and Jeremy consider the Grain of his voice, the reception history of his mid-70s output, and leave him smiling as the happy hippy uncle we wish he’d became.

Tracklist:
Bob Dylan - As I Went Out One Morning
Bob Dylan - Lay, Lady, Lay
Bob Dylan - George Jackson
Bob Dylan - Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Bob Dylan - Meet Me in the Morning
Bob Dylan - Tangled Up in Blue
Bob Dylan, The Band - This Wheel’s on Fire
Bob Dylan - Isis 

Tim and Jeremy conclude our look at Eurodisco with a series of cuts from the mighty Giorgio Moroder. We hear the silky vocals of Donna Summer, the relentlessness of the 4-to-the-floor, the aesthetics of whiteness and what can only be called Prog Disco.

Also in the episode Tim recounts a recent visit to the Philharmonie de Paris, Jeremy revels in a Star Wars rework, and we board the Trans Europe Express once again to spend some time with Kraftwerk.

Remember, we have a rolling playlist of all the tracks discussed over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZpKyqhvhOXfTuPMHCBkFs

And you can hear plenty of bonus episodes by becoming a patron at patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

Tracklist:

Giorgio - From Here to Eternity 

Munich Machine - Get on the Funk Train

Donna Summer - Once Upon a Time 

Donna Summer - Back in Love Again
Meco - Star Wars Theme
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express