Productive Boredom and Unproductive Labour: Cabaret Voltaire in the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire

The focus of this paper is twofold but in each case involves us returning to the 1970s. First, I propose to revisit some theoretical debates that were being conducted then from within British Marxism, in relation to certain concepts concerning labour and industry. Second, I wish to articulate these conceptions with the early work of Sheffield post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire, in terms of both the band and of economic and political histories of their home city. Sheffield is synonymous in the popular imagination with the (de)industrialized North, notably for its steel and cutlery industries, something that Sheffield bands often draw on in their iconography and sometimes themes. Further, in the late seventies and early eighties, its reputation as the People’s or Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire was a contemporary manifestation both of Sheffield’s radical tradition going back centuries and more generally its reputation for bloodyminded independence. Therefore I will argue that the link between certain debates within radical politics and popular music is far from accidental.