BOXSET REVIEW: Oi! The Singles (Captain Oi!/Cherry Red Records)
More than any other musical genre, Oi! has been unfairly maligned over the years, and has had to reinvent itself in a bid to rid itself of unwanted connotations.
Punk’s younger brother – snottier, grittier and born in council estates and tower blocks rather than art schools – emerged, briefly flourished and then scurried back under its rock amid a storm of negative press.
It’s worked hard to rid itself of right-wing associations over the years, and, largely thanks to the scene in the US, has successfully re-branded itself as street-punk, and amassed a healthy following worldwide.
But the pioneers who made the music in the first place and brought its boisterous sound to us are the subjects of this 101-track boxset, spread over four CDs.
It’s accompanied, as ever, by the usual in-depth Captain Oi! booklet, full of info and pictures of what are now fairly scarce and pricey records (I still wince when I recall how little I sold some of my originals for…)
The set included the A and B-sides of 37 Oi!-related singles released between 1977 (before Oi! was even a thing) and 1985 (when it had largely disappeared in the wake of the infamous Hamborough Tavern riot which marked the beginning of the scene’s tabloid-driven demise).
It kicks off with Runnin’ Riot, the first single by Cock Sparrer, who are now rightly regarded as godfathers of the whole street-punk movement (and recently had their 50th anniversary marked by their label Pirates Press records with a special tribute album, reviewed here).
There’s more oi! royalty here, in the shape of Cockney Rejects, The Business, The 4-Skins, and The Last Resort.
Just in case you’re thinking Oi! was a strictly London thing, there’s strong representation here from ‘up north’ too, with some stonewall classics from Derbyshire’s Blitz, who did more than most to bring punks and skins together.
From even further north we’ve got the first two Angelic Upstarts singles (Liddle Towers and I’m An Upstart) and a strong contribution from their North East neighbours Red Alert (In Britain).
Oi! The Singles is something of a companion set to Oi! The Albums (reviewed here), and Oi! The Albums Vol 2 (reviewed here), and like those collections, some of the bands labelled as Oi! leave me mystified.
Menace, Crux, The Crack, Antisocial and Case were all surely punk bands, rather than Oi!, and there’s no sign of Sham 69, who can be considered as much of an early influence as Cock Sparrer and Slaughter & The Dogs, who are both included.
About a third of the tracks here were included on The Oi Singles Collection, which Cherry Red released over four volumes between 1996-1997, but there’s lots of material which wasn’t.
Classics include Harry May, the first single by The Business, The 4 Skins‘ immaculate One Law For Them and all sides of the Cockney Rejects‘ first two singles, the Flares ‘N’ Slippers EP and the still-blistering I’m Not A Fool.
Other standouts include the A and B sides of Cambridge oi! band Subculture‘s only 7in, all three tracks from The Last Resort‘s cassette debut Violence In Our Minds, and Work Together by Cardiff’s staunch antifascists The Oppressed.
There’s also the original version of Voice Of A Generation by Blitz from the Total Noise #1 EP, and another of The Business‘s best songs, Loud Proud & Punk, from the same release. Shame they had to spoil the good work by including no fewer than TEN tracks by The Gonads, which, for me, is 10 more than any Oi! compilation needs. Still a worthwhile set though. 7/10.
