This paper is a psychogeographic study on the influence of home location on the work of three literarily fuelled working-class icons of the post-punk music scene in Manchester, England. Following an exploration on the ever-evolving meaning of psychogeography, I investigate how a past Manchester is revealed within the early works of Ian Curtis, Mark E. Smith and Morrissey, both through insights attained from contemporary writings and also by necessarily short analyses of output from the artists themselves. All three possess peculiarly Mancunian artistic and behavioural traits that emerged from a literate working-class artistic sensibility, one that has faded and arguably disappeared from the British working classes today but which possessed clearly defined links to established artistic traditions. This weakening of working-class based output in ‘rock and pop’ is perhaps a late-capitalist Internet–fuelled symptom of Guy Debord’s spectacle deepening its impact on local art scenes and might help us understand why the financially privileged appear to dominate pop culture in the UK today.
Peculiarly Mancunian? : Visions of a Past Manchester through Three Post-Punk Literary Frontmen
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148-172 Richard John Walker
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