Background:

Beginning in the 1960s, Marxist intellectuals in Britain began to study the reception of popular music by the social elites. These studies led to a distinctly British tradition of music analysis that has been referred to as Anglo Marxism.

Compared with Socialist Realists and Critical Theorists, Anglo Marxists have followed a more orthodox interpretation of Karl Marx. Their principal concerns have been understanding how the social elites raise their own musical tastes to the status of "high culture" while denigrating the artistic expressions of the dispossessed as "low culture."

Another interest for Anglo Marxists is how capitalist business transform and repackage the authentic musical expressions of local, indigenous and marginalized cultures into commercial products. This repackaged music then becomes a source of profit for the social elites. Working-class popular music is simultaneously denigrated by the social elites, and is also valued as a way to make money.

Analytic Approach:

An Anglo-Marxist might approach the analysis of a musical work as follows:

1. Whose music is this? Is this the music predominantly of the working class? Or is the music predominantly of the bourgeois elite? (CLASS)
   
   
2. If the music originates predominantly in the working class, how has capitalism subverted or appropriated the music to serve the elites? (APPROPRIATION)
   
   
3. If the music originates predominantly with the bourgeois elite, how have the elites fostered the belief that the music is culturally superior? (SUPERIORITY)

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