

Perhaps it’s a sort of touchstone of working class British culture, and a recognizable one at that, given the show’s popularity. I’m not sure what this tells us about how people in the United Kingdom and beyond have adopted the historic Peaky Blinders as part of popular culture today. John Shelby (Joe Cole), Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and Arthur Shelby (Paul Anderson) are the Peaky Blinders triumvirate (Polly Gray, not pictured, is their Queen). The organizers even hired hundreds of actors to start brawls onsite amidst the live performances of musicians who had one thing in common – being on Peaky Blinders.
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If you’d told me that a television series had enough weight behind it to justify an immersive music festival, I’d never have believed it – but it really did happen, with cast members present. They have resisted the tyranny of the mainstream, shall we say?” Cillian Murphy Fans dressed up in their best tweeds and three-piecers to attend the festival in none other than Birmingham, the home of the historic gang both in real life and in the series.

A lineup of artists whose music was played in the television series was (flat)capped off with secret special guest Liam Gallagher of Oasis fame (or rather, notoriety). Warning: scene contains profanity and violence.Īs if that weren’t enough, this past September saw a music festival crop up as another means of hyping the new season: The Legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival. Watford-based Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes pound out the showdown between Arthur Shelby and Luca Changretta’s men. Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes’ “Devil Inside of Me” is overpoweringly apt, but we also know Arthur isn’t unilaterally bad – his internal struggles are laid bare with the help of the soundtrack. The tracks are well-selected as tools of characterization, such as in Arthur Shelby’s attack on Luca Changretta’s men in Season 4. It’s often used to drown out the rest of the sound, building suspense and capturing the tone of any given scene. In many instances, the music drives the action forward in Peaky Blinders. It would be difficult to imagine most of the pivotal moments without the soundtrack.” Steven Knight, Creator “The Peaky Blinders story and the music we use are twins, born at the same time. The series balances edgy hard rock with softer, more languid choices to illustrate vulnerability the result is endearingly human. Musicians such as Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Royal Blood, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, The White Stripes, David Bowie, Radiohead, Anna Calvi, and Black Sabbath have been featured on the show and likewise on the soundtrack. Today, an official Peaky Blinders soundtrack is being released, with music spanning the series’ five-season run so far. It’s almost like someone plugged my Spotify into the show, as so many scenes feature my favourite bands and artists! Take this scene, for example, in which Tommy Shelby (played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy) attempts to carry out a murder, set to “Bad Habits” by The Last Shadow Puppets. Tracks are hard-hitting when they need to be in order to illustrate the gritty underbelly of Birmingham in the 1910s, 20s, and now 30s. I’m sure I’m biased because my music taste consists primarily of modern alternative rock, but I’ve always felt that Peaky Blinders nails it on the music front.
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Through music we receive guidance on how to feel when watching: the selected songs convey emotion, which in turn sets the tone for a scene. The curation of a soundtrack, especially during montages and in the opening and closing credits of a television show, can drastically transform how a story comes across. It’s become so strongly associated with the show that it feels disorienting not to hear it at the start of each episode, which is a testament to one aspect of Peaky Blinders I can never stop thinking about: the music. And now in Season 5, we’ve lost the Red Right Hand altogether. By Season 3, however, we started getting covers of the song instead of the original. In Season 1, I could always depend on the track’s clipped tones to signal my absorption back into early 20 th century Birmingham.

It seems my indignation is here to stay, as the show producers appear to have abandoned the use of “Red Right Hand” altogether in the later seasons. An example of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” in the opening sequence of Peaky Blinders.
