Ben Watson

Who is Ben Watson?

Ben Watson is a British writer on music and culture of Marxist views, known especially for his books on Frank Zappa.

Watson is well known for his writing in The Wire, as well as the author of numerous books, often entailing studies of popular culture from a Marxist perspective. Watson was a member of the British Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party for thirty years; his writing combines this background together with influences from Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School, the Situationists and wider cultural interests including the writings of James Joyce and J.H. Prynne. Excerpts from his first full-length book, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play were read to Zappa shortly before his death. Watson calls his own field of study in this area Zappology. He is also an experimental poet and novelist; his first novel Shit-Kicks and Dough-Balls was published in 2003. In November 2010, he and Andy Wilson founded the Association of Musical Marxists.

Watson's partner is the Marxist philosopher Esther Leslie with whom he has collaborated on various works.