Rock Military Style: Motivations Behind the Military Look of 1960s Rock Musicians

From Peter McNeil's 'Introduction', to the volume, pp. xxiii-xxiv: "Michael A. Langkjaer pursues a different style politics, that of "Rock Military Style": Motivations Behind the Military Look of 1960's Rock Musicians, with some Remarks Concerning the Ethical Dimension." Through a careful study of the wardrobe of Jimi Hendrix, Langkjaer unpacks the motives and meanings that lay behind the star's use of second-hand uniforms. What did it mean for young men opposed to war to wear such loaded symbols of militarism? "Assumptions about the motivations behind the donning of uniforms among rock-musicians, as well as among contemporary youth, must be re-examined," he argues, "and the field of inquiry widened." Langkjaer indicates his vexation with a certain type of cultural studies method that uses terms such as "transgressive" without paying any attention to the specifics of the modes or garments discussed there-under. His is an important methodological paper in which written visual sources are combined with a keen understanding of the spirit of the times, one suspects that Langkjaer enjoys very much."