''Strength Thru Oi!'' is a 1981 Oi! compilation album, featuring various artists and released by

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. ...

, released in collaboration with '' Sounds'' magazine. The album was the sequel to ''

Oi! The Album Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was ...

'' (1980), and itself was followed by '' Carry On Oi!'' (''Oi 3!'', 1981) and ''

Oi! Oi! That's Yer Lot! ''Oi! Oi! That's Yer Lot!'' is a 1982 Oi! compilation album, featuring various artists and released by Secret Records. It is also known as ''Oi/4''. Compiled by Garry Bushell, the album was the sequel to ''Oi! The Album'' (1980), ''Strength Thr ...

'' (''Oi/4'', 1982).

Track listing

# "National Service" - Garry Johnson # "1984" - 4 Skins # "Gang Warfare" - The Strike # "Riot Riot" - Infa-Riot # "Dead End Yobs" - Garry Johnson # "Working Class Kids" - The Last Resort # "Blood on the Streets" - Criminal Class # "She Goes to Fino's" - The Toy Dolls # "Best Years of Our Lives" - Barney Rubble # "Taken for a Ride" -

Cock Sparrer Cock Sparrer () is an English punk rock band formed in 1972 in the East End of London. Although they have never enjoyed commercial success, they helped pave the way for the early '80s punk scene and the Oi! subgenre., Their songs have been c ...

# "We Outnumber You" - Infa-Riot # "The New Face of Rock'n'Roll" - Garry Johnson # "Beans" - Barney Rubble # "We're Pathetique" - Splodge # "Sorry" - 4 Skins # "Running Riot" - Cock Sparrer # "Johnny Barden" - The Last Resort # "Isubaleene (Part 2)" - Splodge # "Running Away" - Criminal Class # "Skinhead" - The Strike # "Deidre's a Slag" - The Toy Dolls # "Harbour Mafia Mantra" - The Shaven Heads

Controversy

When ''Strength Thru Oi!'' was released, it was controversial because its title was alleged to be a play on a Nazi slogan ("

Strength Through Joy NC Gemeinschaft (KdF; ) was a German state-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany. Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p. 197, It was part of the German Labour Front (german: link=no, Deutsche Arbeitsfront), the national labour or ...

"), and the cover featured

Nicky Crane Nicola Vincenzo "Nicky" Crane (21 May 1958 – 7 December 1993) was an English neo-Nazi activist. He came out as gay before dying from an AIDS-related illness in 1993. Neo-Nazism Nicky Crane joined the British Movement (BM) in the late 1970 ...

, a

British Movement The British Movement (BM), later called the British National Socialist Movement (BNSM), is a British neo-Nazi organisation founded by Colin Jordan in 1968. It grew out of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), which was founded in 1962. Frequen ...

activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence. Rock critic

Garry Bushell Garry Bushell (born 13 May 1955) is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author, musician and political activist. Bushell also sings in the Cockney Oi! bands GBX and the Gonads. He managed the New York C ...

, who was responsible for compiling the album, said its title was a pun on

The Skids Skids are a Scottish punk rock and new wave band, formed in Dunfermline in 1977 by Stuart Adamson (guitar, keyboards, percussion and backing vocals), William Simpson (bass guitar and backing vocals), Thomas Kellichan (drums) and Richard J ...

' EP ''Strength Through Joy'' and that, as an active anti-fascist in the 1970s, he had been unaware of the Nazi connotations. He also denied knowing the identity of the skinhead on the album's cover until it was exposed by the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' two months later. The intended cover model was bodybuilder Carlton Leach but the pictures, taken at the Bridge House pub in Canning Town, East London, weren't good enough. A cover drawn up by the record label showing a young skinhead from above with the title on his head was rejected. The Crane image was taken from a Christmas card pinned to a wall in the Sounds office. It was not so easy to deny the album cover's glorification of violence and the sinister tone of its sleeve notes: "A mass of boots, straights, and combat jackets, skins and boot boys, grins and hoots and oy-oy's, young blood on the prowl.... Getting nicked for wearing steel caps, a flick blade flashing in the moonlight." However, this was meant to reflect the reality of the lives of the British working class, as opposed to glorifying the violence faced by them.Jones, Peter. "Do Music Acts Incite U.K. Violence?" ''Billboard''. July 25, 1981. p. 63.

References

Oi! albums Decca Records compilation albums Race-related controversies in music 1981 compilation albums Punk rock compilation albums {{1980s-punk-album-stub

Track listing

Controversy

See also

References