I’m not sure whether I’ll make a habit of writing posts like this. But after importing Megan Carnes’s discography into Apple Music and seeing who came next in alphabetical order in my music collection, I got the urge to once again listen to one of the most important groups of the 1980s post-punk British music scene, Mekons.
Mekons have at least two essential records. In the first, Fear and Whiskey (released in 1985), they had the brilliant idea of combining country music with 1980s leftist post-punk. Along with Meat Puppets II (released the previous year), it’s often credited with creating the genre of alt-country.
But Mekons were (and are) much more than an alt-country band. Their genius was taking the Christian idea behind much country music, that we are all sinners living in a fallen world, and recasting it in a Marxist context, in which the original sin was the creation of capitalism. Fear and Whiskey is haunted by the failure of the 1984 coal miners’ strike (see, for example, “Darkness and Doubt”), while The Mekons Rock ’n Roll (released in 1989, and more rock than country, as the name implies) looks upon Thatcherism and Reaganism triumphant. (“Empire of the Senseless” in particular namechecks Iran-Contra and Section 28—and takes its title from Kathy Acker’s 1988 experimental novel.)
Mekons are still going strong, almost 40 years later, and have lots of albums on Bandcamp. Give one or both of these a listen, and let me know what you think!