Ben Watson (born 1956) is a British writer on music and culture of Marxist views, known especially for his writings on Frank Zappa.
Watson is well known as a regular contributor to The Wire, as well as the author of numerous books, often entailing studies of popular culture from the perspective of Marxist aesthetics.
Watson's partner is the Marxist philosopher (and scholar of Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukács) Esther Leslie[citation needed] with whom he has collaborated on various works.
Watson has written of going 'mad' in 1984 and being 'sectioned' under the Mental Health Act, later finding inspiration in the Mad Pride movement which he likened to the earlier work 'Psycho-Politics' by the Marxist Peter Sedgwick.
[3] In 2010, he and Andy Wilson founded the Association of Musical Marxists; together with Keith Fisher the AMM started up the Unkant imprint.