What was the relationship between working-class youths and popular music between the years 1955-1976? Drawing on archival sources and oral testimony, Keith Gildart examines the ways in which popular music played an important role in reflecting and shaping social identities and working-class cultures and - through a focus on rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, punk, the mod subculture, and the many worlds of glam rock - created a sense of crisis in English society.

Complemented by a critical reading of the songs, performances and impact of influential and emblematic musicians including Georgie Fame, The Beatles, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols, Gildart brings together an investigation of particular localities, scenes, genres and individual and collective experiences and forms a critique of recent revisionist histories of popular music and youth culture.

Keith Gildart is Reader in Labour and Social History at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He has published widely in the field of labour and working-class history. He is the author of North Wales Miners: A Fragile Unity, 1945-1996 (2001) and an editor of the Dictionary of Labour Biography.

Introduction
PART 1: THE 1960S - OPTIMISM AND MODERNITY
A Lancashire Lad in London - Georgie Fame and English Pop
England with The Beatles
Roast Beef on Sunday - The Kinks and the English Working Class
My Generation - Pete Townshend and the Mods
PART 2: BEST AND WORST OF TIMES
All the Young Dudes - Aliens in England
Darkness Over England - Sex Pistols Anarchy Tour 1976
Up the Junction - The End of Consensus?
PART 3: THE 1980S - THE LADY IS NOT FOR TURNING
England as a Ghost Town - The Specials and Two Tone Records
Don't Stand Me Down - Fear and Loathing in Thatcher's England
Future War and Channel Four - Morrissey's England
Conclusion: The 1990s - New Labour, New Brit-Pop
Bibliography
Discography
Filmography
Index