Filed under: Sweden
The Rude Kids - Raggare Is A Bunch Of Motherfuckers (polydor records) ‘78
Raggare (from the word “ragga” wich means roughly “to seek sexual contact with someone”) is a subculture found mostly in Sweden and parts of Norway and Finland, mostly in rural environments and smaller villages.
Raggare have existed since the 1950s and haven’t changed much since then. Their culture is based on American popular culture of the 1950s, and typically centers around a “rebel” image. James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause is a popular source of influence.
Very important to raggare are their cars, they are large US cars from the 1950s and beyond, 50s cars are prefered but any large american V8-powerd car will do. If one is not available some substitutes are used, for instance Volvo Amazon, fintail Mercedes or some other car with US styling (but never a Japanese car). If that too fails an older Volvo may be used, usually in the 200-series.
The music of choice is rockabilly. The clothes and hairstyle are that of 1950s rockabilly. Blue jeans, cowboy boots, white t-shirts, sometimes with print (also used to store your pack of cigarettes by folding the sleeve), leather or jeans jacket. The hair is styled using Brylcreem or some other pomade.
One of the most popular artists among raggare is Eddie Meduza.
Raggare now
No longer considered a menace to society, the raggar-culture very much lives on in Sweden but in many ways it is still viewed in a negative light. Because of its mostly rural roots, Retro-esthetics, and unusual (for Swedes) pro-American stance, Raggare are often (in urban areas and in pop-culture) seen as uneducated white trash with poor taste and a low-brow attitude towards sex. This is how they are normally depicted on film and television with the most famous modern example being the cult-characters “Ronny & Ragge”, a pair of complete idiots who cruise around in their beat-up Ford Taunus.
There are several meetings for raggare around Sweden. The Power Big Meet is the most famous one, and is also the biggest car show in the world.
Tracklisting
Raggare Is A Bunch Of Motherfuckers
Charlie
First heard these songs many, many years ago on maximumrocknroll radio. Funny how after havin this on a crappy old cassette(from MRR)for all that time, I’ve never heard this digitally. Years after I first heard this, I finally saw the sleeve and had good laugh @ the photos. Such geeky lookin’ fellas for making such tough songs.
Nice history lesson! I always wondered what/who ‘raggare’ were, & now I know! Turbonegro did a pretty cool cover of this track on their ‘Ass cobra’ LP (i think…)
… excellent… Bloodstains across fuckin Sweeden… tak tak tak!!!
Legendary track! I can strongly recommend their CD-collection “Worst of… a Pardonless Collection”, great stuff all the way! Includes among other great tracks the fantastic “Next Time I’ll Beat Björn Borg”.
“Raggare”,once a corny but intimidating bunch of…,now in these times when every youngster stay indors with internet,computergames and sports you almost miss them.
Once you saw Bikers,”Raggare” and later also punks and metalheads in the streets now you mostly see jocks and yuppies line up for some club of choice .
Whatever,now I´m rambling…
The photo on the band on the frontsleeve was taken on Kungsgatan in Stockholm whis was a meetingpoint for “raggare” back in those days when they were up to drinkin´and cruisin´.
I liked their debut-lp “Safe society” as a teen but listening to it today it sounds a bit tacky by todays standards though but it guess it should be a bit odd otherwise.
At the moment I regard their b-side on “the Stranglers” single a.k.a. “punk will never die” one of their best songs.
Hey Frunk, good points, i totally agree. Rude Kids did pretty well in UK. On that tour they managed to offend the british skins. One of the members weared a anti-nazi shirt and the skins went berserk on the stage equipment. What they didn’t know was that it was Madness stage gear ). Also pretty funny there recently was a punk tribute to Eddie Meduza. Lots of his swedish lyrics was very punk.
By the way who made this posting, anonymous?
the admin made this post and any other post that has no name…thank you
If you were a Punk in the late 70´s and early 80´s you had to watch your back, cos the Raggare never missed a chance to try and beat the shit out of you. If someone looked alien in any way, he was a target.
i prefer the 2nd single..still good though
it’s pretty good information, the sad is that someone must have got the “raggare” word a whole lot wrong! “raggare” has nothing at all to do with “ragga” but the only translation to english is ROCKER!