Elvis Costello and Thatcherism

David Pilgrim has a mixed academic background in clinical psychology and medical sociology and has a particular interest in linking biographies and social contexts, using interdisciplinary resources in social science. He is widely published, with over 60 journal articles to his name. His recent books include Key Concepts in Mental Health, Second Edition (2009) and, with Anne Rogers, A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness, Fourth Edition (2009). The third edition of the latter won the BMA's Medical Book of the Year for 2006. He is Professor of Health and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool. Richard Ormrod is a musician, educator, composer and writer. He performs on several instruments in a wide variety of styles and enjoys devising new performance/recording projects, such as Home of the Brave and A Dread Supreme, which investigate, respectively, the soundtrack to Western movies and influences on Jamaican popular music. As an educator he directs several community orchestras, with particular emphasis on aural learning and improvisation. In 2012 he was awarded Jazz Yorkshire ’Musician of the Year’ and lives and works in Leeds.

• Contents: Introduction; Thatcher and Costello: setting the scene; Interpreting Costello’s early music; Nostalgia denied; Race and nation; The special relationship with the USA; The post-feminist context; The music industry; Costello and postmodernism; Macbeth at the foam party; References; Index.

’This is a book full of rich and original arguments ... and it provides insightful perspectives on popular culture’s relationship to Thatcherism in the 1980s as well as its continuing legacy.’ Popular Music