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Despite the hypervisibility of a constellation of female pop stars, the music business is structured around gender inequality. As a result, women in the music industry often seize on self-branding opportunities in fashion, cosmetics, food, and technology for the purposes of professional longevity. Extending Play examines the ubiquity of brand partnerships in the contemporary music industry through the lens of feminized labor, to demonstrate how female artists use them as a resource for artistic expression and to articulate forms of popular feminism through self-commodification. In this book, author Alyxandra Vesey examines this type of promotional work and examines its proliferation in the early 21st century. Though brand partnerships exist across all media industries, they are a distinct phenomenon for the music business because of their associations with fan club merchandise, concert merchandise, and lifestyle branding, often foregrounding women's participation in shaping these economies through fan labor and image management. Through textual and discourse analysis of artists'songs, music videos, interviews, social media usage, promotional campaigns, marketing strategies, and business decisions, Extending Play investigates how female musicians co-create branded feminine-coded products like perfume, clothes, makeup, and cookbooks and masculine-coded products like music equipment as resources to work through their own ideas about gender and femininity as workers in industries that often use sexism and ageism to diminish women's creative authority and diminish the value of the recording in order to incentivize musicians to internalize the demands of industrial convergence. By merging star studies, popular music studies, and media industry studies, Extending Play proposes an integrated methodology for approaching contemporary cultural history that demonstrates how female-identified musicians have operated as both a hub for industrial convergence and as music industry professionals who use their extramusical skills to reassert their creative acumen.

The diva – a central figure in the landscape of contemporary popular culture: gossip-generating, scandal-courting, paparazzi-stalked. And yet the diva is at the epicentre of creative endeavours that resonate with contemporary feminist ideas, kick back against diminished social expectations, boldly call-out casual sexism and industry misogyny and, in terms of hip-hop, explores intersectional oppressions and unapologetically celebrates non-white cultural heritages. Diva beats and grooves echo across culture and politics in the West: from the borough to the White House, from arena concerts to nightclubs, from social media to social activism, from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter.Diva: Feminism and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop addresses the diva phenomenon and its origins: its identity politics and LGBTQ+ components; its creativity and interventions in areas of popular culture (music, and beyond); its saints and sinners and controversies old and new; and its oppositions to, and recuperations by, the establishment; and its shifts from third to fourth waves of feminism. This co-edited collection brings together an international array of writers – from new voices to established names. The collection scopes the rise to power of the diva (looking to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Grace Jones, and Aaliyah), then turns to contemporary diva figures and their work (with Beyoncé, Amuro Namie, Janelle Monáe, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and Nicki Minaj), and concludes by considering the presence of the diva in wider cultures, in terms of gallery curation, theatre productions, and stand-up comedy.

Feminism has always been a complex and controversial topic, as female rock musicians know especially well. When they've stayed true to their own vision, these artists have alternately been adored as role models or denounced as bad influences. Either way, they're asked to cope with certain pressures that their male counterparts haven't faced. With each successive feminism movement since the 1960s, women in rock have been prominent proponents of progress as they've increasingly taken control of their own music, message, and image. This, in its way, is just as revolutionary as any protest demonstration.In She's a Badass, music journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor interviews twenty significant women in rock, devoting an entire chapter to each one, taking an in-depth look at the incredible talent, determination—and, often, humor—they needed to succeed in their careers (and life). Interviewees range from legendary artists through notable up-and-comers, including Ann Wilson (Heart), Gina Schock (The Go-Go's), Suzanne Vega, Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Orianthi, Amanda Palmer, and more. Their experiences reveal the varied and unique challenges these women have faced, how they overcame them, and what they think still needs to be done to continue making progress on the equality front. Their stories prove that promoting feminism—either through activism or by living example—is undeniably badass.The women interviewed for the 20 chapters are: Suzi Quatro, Ann Wilson (Heart), Exene Cervenka (X), Gina Schock (the Go-Go's), Lydia Lunch, Suzanne Vega, Cherie Currie (the Runaways), Joan Osborne, Donita Sparks (L7), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, the Breeders, Belly), Paula Cole, Tobi Vail (Bikini Kill), Laura Veirs, Catherine Popper, Amanda Palmer, Bonnie Bloomgarden (Death Valley Girls), Orianthi, Fefe Dobson, and Sade Sanchez (L.A. Witch).

This book examines three years of Beyoncé's career as a pop mega star using critical race, feminist and performance studies methodologies.The book explores how the careful choreography of Beyoncé's image, voice and public persona, coupled with her intelligent use of audio and visual mediums, makes her one of the most influential entertainers of the 21st century. Keleta-Mae proposes that 2013 to 2016 was a pivotal period in Beyoncé's career and looks at three artistic projects that she created during that time: her self-titled debut visual album Beyoncé, her video and live performance of'Formation,'and her second visual album Lemonade. By examining the progression of Beyoncé's career during this period, and the impact it had culturally and socially, the author demonstrates how Beyoncé brought 21st century feminism into the mainstream through layered explorations of female blackness.Ideal for scholars and students of performance in the social and political spheres, and of course fans of Beyoncé herself, this book examines the mega superstar's transition into a creator of art that engages with Black culture and Black life with increased thoughtfulness.

What does it mean, in a polarized political climate, that feminism was popular in mainstream popular music of the 2010s? Engaging with feminist theory and previous research about gender and music, this book investigates the meaning of current trends relating to gender, feminism and woman-identified artists in mediated popular music. The examples discussed throughout the book include Netflix documentaries by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, the Swedish music industry #MeToo petition #närmusikentystnar, music streaming services'gender equality work and the project Keychange striving to bring underrepresented genders to the stage. The volume discusses the media specificity of the different examples, introduces and explains feminist theories and concepts and analyzes the position of women, gender politics and feminisms in popular music.

This book presents accounts of creative processes and contextual issues of current-day and early-twentieth century women composers. This collection of essays balances narratives of struggle, artistic prowess, and of'breaking through'the obstacles in the profession. Part I: Creative Work – Then and Now illuminates historical and present-day women's composition and various iterations and conceptions of the “feminine voice”; Part II: The State of the Industry in the Present Day provides solutions from the frontline to sector inequities; and Part III: Creating; Collaborating: Composer and Performer Reflections offers personal stories of current creation in music. A Century of Composition by Women: Music Against the Odds draws together topical issues in feminist musicology over the past century. This volume provides insight into the professional and compositional procedures of creative women in music and stands to be relevant for composers, performers, industry professionals, students, and feminist and musicological scholars for many years to come.

If pictures can be sexist, can analyzing sound reveal sexism, too? Where is the language to discuss sexism in music? LJ Müller tackles these important questions in their 2018 German book titled Sound und Sexismus, which was awarded the IASPM 2019 book prize. Analyzing the voices of Kurt Cobain, Kate Bush, Björk and others, Müller demonstrates how gender is performed vocally and interacts with gendered aspects of embodiment and affect. The book is written from a strongly positioned and personal feminist perspective and is appealing to readers from various backgrounds - singers, producers, music lovers, as well as academics and anyone with an interest in feminist takes on pop culture.

Edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson, this powerful collection of award-winning female creators shares their writing about the female artists that matter most to them. This book is for and about the women who kicked in doors, as pioneers of their craft or making politics central to their sound: those who offer a new way of thinking about the vast spectrum of women in music.This Woman's Work: Essays on Music is edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson and features an array of talented contributors, including: Anne Enright, Fatima Bhutto, Jenn Pelly, Rachel Kushner, Juliana Huxtable, Leslie Jamison, Liz Pelly, Maggie Nelson, Margo Jefferson, Megan Jasper, Ottessa Moshfegh, Simone White, Yiyun Li, and Zakia Sewell.In this radical departure from the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman's Work challenges the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature, and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space. Women have to speak up, to shout louder to tell their story—like the auteurs and ground-breakers featured in this collection, including: Anne Enright on Laurie Anderson; Megan Jasper on her ground-breaking work with Sub Pop; Margo Jefferson on Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald; and Fatima Bhutto on music and dictatorship.This Woman's Work also features writing on the experimentalists, women who blended music and activism, the genre-breakers, the vocal auteurs; stories of lost homelands and friends; of propaganda and dictatorships, the women of folk and country, the racialized tropes of jazz, the music of Trap and Carriacou; of mixtapes and violin lessons.

The Routledge Handbook of Women's Work in Music presents a unique collection of core research by academics and music practitioners from around the world, engaging with an extraordinarily wide range of topics on women's contributions to Western and Eastern art music, popular music, world music, music education, ethnomusicology as well as in the music industries.The handbook falls into six parts. Part I serves as an introduction to the rich variety of subject matter the reader can expect to encounter in the handbook as a whole. Part II focuses on what might be termed the more traditional strand of feminist musicology – research which highlights the work of historical and/or neglected composers. Part III explores topics concerned with feminist aesthetics and music creation and Part IV focuses on questions addressing the performance and reception of music and musicians. The narrative of the handbook shifts in Part V to focus on opportunities and leadership in the music professions from a Western perspective. The final section of the handbook (Part VI) provides new frames of context for women's positions as workers, educators, patrons, activists and promoters of music.This is a key reference work for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in music and gender.

By integrating theoretical approaches to the female voice with the musicological investigation of female singers'practices, the contributors to this volume offer fresh viewpoints on the material, symbolic and cultural aspects of the female voice in the twentieth century. Various styles and genres are covered, including Western art music, experimental composition, popular music, urban folk and jazz. The volume offers a substantial and innovative appraisal of the role of the female voice from the perspective of twentieth-century performance practices, the centrality of female singers'experimentations and extended vocal techniques along with the process of the ‘subjectivisation'of the voice.

Women, Music, Culture: An Introduction, Third Edition is the first undergraduate textbook on the history and contributions of women in a variety of musical genres and professions, ideal for students in Music and Gender Studies courses. A compelling narrative, accompanied by 112 guided listening experiences, brings the world of women in music to life. The author employs a wide array of pedagogical aides, including a running glossary and a comprehensive companion website with links to Spotify playlists and supplementary videos for each chapter. The musical work of women throughout history—including that of composers, performers, conductors, technicians, and music industry personnel—is presented using both art music and popular music examples.New to this edition: An expansion from 57 to 112 listening examples conveniently available on Spotify. Additional focus on intersectionality in art and popular music. A new segment on Music and #MeToo and increased coverage of protest music. Additional coverage of global music. Substantial updates in popular music. Updated companion website materials designed to engage all learners. Visit the author's website at www.womenmusicculture.com

Raucous, sensual and sublime: how twelve pioneering female artists rewrote the rules of pop.From Kate Bush to Nicki Minaj, from Janet Jackson to TLC and Taylor Swift, pop's greatest female pioneers are simply strange: smashing notions of taste and decorum, and replacing them with new ideals of pleasure. Instead of rehashing biographies, Lesley Chow dives deep into the music of these groundbreaking performers, identifying the ecstatic moments in their songs and finding out what makes them unique. You're History is a love letter to pop's most singular achievements, celebrating the innovations of women who are still critically underrated. It's a ride that includes tributes to Chaka Khan, Rihanna, Neneh Cherry, Sade, Shakespears Sister, Azealia Banks, and many more... “The slim, sharp book considers a range of female artists from Janet Jackson and Taylor Swift to TLC and Nicki Minaj, a group that the Australian cultural critic Chow views as ‘outliers, marking moments where the culture might have swerved to incorporate their influence, but somehow contrived not to.'” — New York Times summer reads

Growing up immersed in the feminist, DIY values of punk, Riot Grrrl, and zine culture of the 1990s and early 2000s gave Eleanor Whitney, like so many other young people who gravitate towards activism and musical subcultures, a sense of power, confidence, community, and social responsibility. As she grew into adulthood she struggled to stay true to those values, and with the gaps left by her punk rock education. This insightful, deeply personal history of early-2000s subcultures lovingly explores the difficulty of applying feminist values to real-life dilemmas, and embrace an evolving political and personal consciousness. Whitney traces the sometimes painful clash between her feminist values and everyday, adult realities — and anyone who has worked to integrate their political ideals into their daily life will resonate with the histories and analysis on these pages, such as engaging in anti-domestic violence advocacy while feeling trapped in an unhealthy relationship, envisioning a unified'girl utopia'while lacking racial consciousness, or espousing body positivity while feeling ambivalent towards one's own body. Throughout the book, the words and power of Bikini Kill and other Riot Grrrl bands ground the story and analysis, bringing it back to the raw emotions and experiences that gave this movement its lasting power while offering a complex, contemporary look at the promises and pitfalls of Riot Grrrl-informed feminism.

Winner of the 2022 Open Publication Prize by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-ANZ)A Women's History of the Beatles is the first book to offer a detailed presentation of the band's social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women. Drawing on a mix of interviews, archival research, textual analysis, and autoethnography, this scholarly work depicts how the Beatles have profoundly shaped and enriched the lives of women, while also reexamining key, influential female figures within the group's history. Organized topically based on key themes important to the Beatles story, each chapter uncovers the varied and multifaceted relationships women have had with the band, whether face-to-face and intimately or parasocially through mediated, popular culture. Set within a socio-historical context that charts changing gender norms since the early 1960s, these narratives consider how the Beatles have affected women's lives across three generations. Providing a fresh perspective of a well-known tale, this is a cultural history that moves far beyond the screams of Beatlemania to offer a more comprehensive understanding of what the now iconic band has meant to women over the course of six decades.

The question of control for Black women is a costly one. From 1986 onwards, the trajectory of Janet Jackson's career can be summed up in her desire for control. Control for Janet was never simply just about her desire for economic and creative control over her career but was, rather, an existential question about the desire to control and be in control over her bodily integrity as a Black woman. This book examines Janet's continuation of her quest for control as heard in her sixth album, The Velvet Rope. Engaging with the album, the promotion, the tour, and its accompanying music videos, this study unpacks how Janet uses Black cultural production as an emancipatory act of self-creation that allows her to reconcile with and, potentially, heal from trauma, pain, and feelings of alienation. The Velvet Rope's arc moves audiences to imagine the possibility of what emancipation from oppression--from sexual, to internal, to societal--could look like for the singer and for others. The sexually charged content and themes of abuse, including self-harm and domestic violence, were dismissed as “selling points” for Janet at the time of its release. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release.

Gender inequality is universally understood to be a continued problem in the music industry. This volume presents research that uses an industry-based approach to examine why this gender imbalance has proven so hard to shift, and explores strategies that are being adopted to try and bring about meaningful change in terms of women and gender diverse people establishing ongoing careers in music. The book focuses on three key areas: music education; case studies that explore practices in the music industry; and activist spaces. Sitting at the intersection between musical production, the creative industries and gender politics, this volume brings together research that considers the gender politics of the music industry itself. It takes a global approach to these issues, and incorporates a range of genres and theoretical approaches. At a time when more attention than ever is being paid to gender and music, this volume presents cutting edge research that contributes to current debates and offers insights into possible solutions for the future.

As an industry insider and pioneering post-punk musician, Vivien Goldman's perspective on music journalism is unusually well-rounded. In Revenge of the She-Punks, she probes four themes—identity, money, love, and protest—to explore what makes punk such a liberating art form for women. With her visceral style, Goldman blends interviews, history, and her personal experience as one of Britain's first female music writers in a book that reads like a vivid documentary of a genre defined by dismantling boundaries. A discussion of the Patti Smith song “Free Money,” for example, opens with Goldman on a shopping spree with Smith. Tamar-Kali, whose name pays homage to a Hindu goddess, describes the influence of her Gullah ancestors on her music, while the late Poly Styrene's daughter reflects on why her Somali-Scots-Irish mother wrote the 1978 punk anthem “Identity,” with the refrain “Identity is the crisis you can't see.” Other strands feature artists from farther afield (including in Colombia and Indonesia) and genre-busting revolutionaries such as Grace Jones, who wasn't exclusively punk but clearly influenced the movement while absorbing its liberating audacity. From punk's Euro origins to its international reach, this is an exhilarating world tour.

In today's culture, popular music is a vital site where ideas about gender and sexuality are imagined and disseminated. Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions explores what that means with a wide-ranging collection of chapters that consider the many ways in which contemporary pop music performances of gender and sexuality are politically engaged and even radical. With analyses rooted in feminist and queer thought, contributors explore music from different genres and locations, including Beyoncé's Lemonade, A Tribe Called Red's We Are the Halluci Nation, and celebrations of Vera Lynn's 100th Birthday.At a bleak moment in global politics, this collection focuses on the concept of critical hope: the chapters consider making and consuming popular music as activities that encourage individuals to imagine and work toward a better, more just world. Addressing race, class, aging, disability, and colonialism along with gender and sexuality, the authors articulate the diverse ways popular music can contribute to the collective political projects of queerness and feminism. With voices from senior and emerging scholars, this volume offers a snapshot of today's queer and feminist scholarship on popular music that is an essential read for students and scholars of music and cultural studies.

“[Allred] interrogates Beyoncé's music and videos to explore the complicated spaces where racism, sexism, and capitalism collide.” —Kirkus Reviews In 2010, Professor Kevin Allred created the university course “Politicizing Beyoncé” to both wide acclaim and controversy. He outlines his pedagogical philosophy in Ain't I a Diva?, exploring what it means to build a syllabus around a celebrity. Topics range from a capitalist critique of “Run the World (Girls)” to the politics of self-care found in “Flawless”; Beyoncé's art is read alongside black feminist thinkers including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Octavia Butler, and Sojourner Truth. Combining analysis with classroom anecdotes, Allred attests that pop culture is so much more than a guilty pleasure, it's an access point—for education, entertainment, critical inquiry, and politics.“Proving himself a worthy member of the BeyHive, Kevin Allred takes us on a journey through Beyoncé's greatest hits and expansive career—peeling back their multiple layers to explore gender, race, sexuality, and power in today's modern world. A fun, engaging, and important read for long-time Beyoncé fans and newcomers alike.” —Franchesca Ramsey, author of Well, That Escalated Quickly“Ain't I a Diva? explores the phenomenon of Beyoncé while explicitly championing not only her immense talent and grace but what we can learn from it. In this celebration of Beyoncé, and through her, other Black women, Allred is giving us room to be exactly who we are so that maybe we, too, can stop the world then carry on!” —Keah Brown, author of The Pretty One“A must-read for any fan of Beyoncé and of fascinating feminist discourse.” —Zeba Blay, senior culture writer, HuffPost

The Lemonade Reader is an interdisciplinary collection that explores the nuances of Beyoncé's 2016 visual album, Lemonade. The essays and editorials present fresh, cutting-edge scholarship fueled by contemporary thoughts on film, material culture, religion, and black feminism.Envisioned as an educational tool to support and guide discussions of the visual album at postgraduate and undergraduate levels, The Lemonade Reader critiques Lemonade's multiple Afrodiasporic influences, visual aesthetics, narrative arc of grief and healing, and ethnomusicological reach. The essays, written by both scholars and popular bloggers, reflects a broad yet uniquely specific black feminist investigation into constructions of race, gender, spirituality, and southern identity. The Lemonade Reader gathers a newer generation of black feminist scholars to engage in intellectual discourse and confront the emotional labor around the Lemonade phenomena. It is the premiere source for examining Lemonade, a text that will continue to have a lasting impact on black women's studies and popular culture.

Making headlines when it was launched in 2015, Omise'eke Tinsley's undergraduate course “Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism” has inspired students from all walks of life. In Beyoncé in Formation, Tinsley now takes her rich observations beyond the classroom, using the blockbuster album and video Lemonade as a soundtrack for vital new-millennium narratives.Woven with candid observations about her life as a feminist scholar of African studies and a cisgender femme married to a trans spouse, Tinsley's “Femme-onade” mixtape explores myriad facets of black women's sexuality and gender. Turning to Beyoncé's “Don't Hurt Yourself,” Tinsley assesses black feminist critiques of marriage and then considers the models of motherhood offered in “Daddy Lessons,” interspersing these passages with memories from Tinsley's multiracial family history. Her chapters on nontraditional bonds culminate in a discussion of contemporary LGBT politics through the lens of the internet-breaking video “Formation,” underscoring why Beyoncé's black femme-inism isn't only for ciswomen. From pleasure politics and the struggle for black women's reproductive justice to the subtext of blues and country music traditions, the landscape in this tour is populated by activists and artists (including Loretta Lynn) and infused with vibrant interpretations of Queen Bey's provocative, peerless imagery and lyrics.In the tradition of Roxanne Gay's Bad Feminist and Jill Lepore's best-selling cultural histories, Beyoncé in Formation is the work of a daring intellectual who is poised to spark a new conversation about freedom and identity in America.

Since her late-1990s debut as a member of the R&B trio Destiny's Child, Beyonce Knowles has garnered both praise and criticism. While some consider her an icon of female empowerment, others see her as detrimental to feminism and representing a negative image of women of color. Her music has a decidedly pop aesthetic, yet her power-house vocals and lyrics focused on issues like feminine independence, healthy sexuality and post-partum depression give her songs dimension and substance beyond typical pop fare. This collection of new essays presents a detailed study of the music and persona of Beyonce--arguably the world's biggest pop star. Topics include the body politics of respectability; feminism, empowerment and gender in Beyonce's lyrics; black female pleasure; and the changing face of celebrity motherhood. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Women, Music, Culture: An Introduction, Second Edition is the first undergraduate textbook on the history and contribution of women in a variety of musical genres and professions, ideal for students in courses in both music and women's studies. A compelling narrative, accompanied by over 50 guided listening examples, brings the world of women in music to life, examining a community of female musicians, including composers, producers, consumers, performers, technicians, mothers, and educators in art music and popular music. The book features a wide array of pedagogical aids, including a running glossary and a comprehensive companion website with streamed audio tracks, that help to reinforce key figures and terms. This new edition includes a major revision of the Women in World Music chapter, a new chapter in Western Classical'Work'in the Enlightenment, and a revised chapter on 19th Century Romanticism: Parlor Songs to Opera. 20th Century Art Music.

When most people think that “little girls should be seen and not heard,” a noisy, riotous scream can be revolutionary. But that's not the case anymore. (Cis/Het/White) Girls aren't supposed to be virginal, passive objects, but Poly-Styrene-like sirens who scream back in spectacularly noisy and transgressive ways as they “Lean In.” Resilience is the new, neoliberal feminine ideal: real women overcome all the objectification and silencing that impeded their foremothers. Resilience discourse incites noisy damage, like screams, so that it can be recycled for a profit. It turns the crises posed by avant-garde noise, feminist critique, and black aesthetics into opportunities for strengthening the vitality of multi-racial white supremacist patriarchy (MRWaSP). Reading contemporary pop music – Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Calvin Harris – with and against political philosophers like Michel Foucault, feminists like Patricia Hill Collins, and media theorists like Steven Shaviro, /Resilience & Melancholy/ shows how resilience discourse manifests in both pop music and in feminist politics. In particular, it argues that resilient femininity is a post-feminist strategy for producing post-race white supremacy. Resilience discourse allows women to “Lean In” to MRWaSP privilege because their overcoming and leaning-in actively produce blackness as exception, as pathology, as death. The book also considers alternatives to resilience found in the work of Beyonce, Rihanna, and Atari Teenage Riot. Updating Freud, James calls these pathological, diseased iterations of resilience “melancholy.” Melancholy makes resilience unprofitable, that is, incapable of generating enough surplus value to keep MRWaSP capitalism healthy. Investing in the things that resilience discourse renders exceptional, melancholic siren songs like Rihanna's “Diamonds” steer us off course, away from resilient “life” and into the death.

One of the pioneers of gender studies in music, Ellen Koskoff edited the foundational text Women and Music in Cross Cultural Perspective, and her career evolved in tandem with the emergence and development of the field. In this intellectual memoir, Koskoff describes her journey through the maze of social history and scholarship related to her work examining the intersection of music and gender. Koskoff collects new, revised, and hard-to-find published material from mid-1970s through 2010 to trace the evolution of ethnomusicological thinking about women, gender, and music, offering a perspective of how questions emerged and changed in those years, as well as Koskoff's reassessment of the early years and development of the field. Her goal: a personal map of the different paths to understanding she took over the decades, and how each inspired, informed, and clarified her scholarship. For example, Koskoff shows how a preference for face-to-face interactions with living people served her best in her research, and how her now-classic work within Brooklyn's Hasidic community inflamed her feminist consciousness while leading her into ethnomusicological studies. An uncommon merging of retrospective and rumination, A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender offers a witty and disarmingly frank tour through the formative decades of the field and will be of interest to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, scholars of the history and development of feminist thought, and those engaged in fieldwork. Includes a foreword by Suzanne Cusick framing Koskoff's career and an extensive bibliography provided by the author.

Sing Us a Song, Piano Woman: Female Fans and the Music of Tori Amos explores the many-layered relationships female fans build with feminist musicians in general and with Tori Amos, in particular. Using original interview research with more than forty fans of Tori Amos, multiple observer-participant experiences at Amos's concerts, and critical content analysis of Amos's lyrics and larger body of work, Adrienne Trier-Bieniek utilizes a combination of gender, emotions, music, and activism to unravel the typecasts plaguing female fans. Trier-Bieniek aggressively challenges the popular culture stereotypes that have painted all female fans as screaming, crying teenage girls who are unable to control themselves when a favorite (generally male) performer occupies the stage. In stunning contrast, admirers of Tori Amos comprise a more introspective category of fan. Sing Us a Son, Piano Woman examines the wide range of stories from these listeners, exploring how Amos's female fans are unique because Amos places the experiences of women at the center of her music. Tori Amos's fan base is considered devoted because of the deeply emotional, often healing, connection they have to her music, an aspect that has been overlooked, particularly in sociological and cultural research on gender, emotions and music.Tori Amos's female fans as a social phenomenon are vital for understanding the multi-layered relationships women can have with female singer/songwriters. At a time when superficial women dominate public media presentations, from the Kardashians to the “Real Housewives,” the relationship between Tori Amos and her fans illustrates the continuous search by women for female performers who challenge patriarchal standards in popular culture. Trier-Bieniek's research serves as a springboard for further study of women in pop culture whose purpose is empower and provoke their fans, as well as change society.

Gender, Branding, and The Modern Music Industry combines interview data with music industry professionals with theoretical frameworks from sociology, mass communication, and marketing to explain and explore the gender differences female artists experience. This book provides a rare lens on the rigid packaging process that transforms female artists of various genres into female pop stars. Stars -- and the industry power brokers who make their fortunes -- have learned to prioritize sexual attractiveness over talent as they fight a crowded field for movie deals, magazine covers, and fashion lines, let alone record deals. This focus on the female pop star's body as her core asset has resigned many women to being'short term brands,'positioned to earn as much money as possible before burning out or aging ungracefully. This book, which includes interview data from music industry insiders, explores the sociological forces that drive women into these tired representations, and the ramifications on the greater social world. This book is for Sociology of Media and Sociology of Popular Culture courses.

Women, Music, Culture is an undergraduate textbook on the history and contribution of women in a variety of musical genres and professions. Clear writing, compelling narrative, and more than fifty guided listening examples bring the world of women in music to life. It includes a wide array of pedagogical aids, including an abundance of photographs, a comprehensive companion website, critical thinking exercises, as well as a running glossary that reinforces key figures and terms. Covering important figures in art music and popular music, it examines a community of women involved in the world of.

How can we engage critically with music video and its role in popular culture? What do contemporary music videos have to tell us about patterns of cultural identity today? Based around an eclectic series of vivid case studies, this fresh and timely examination is an entertaining and enlightening analysis of the forms, pleasures, and politics that music videos offer. In rethinking some classic approaches from film studies and popular music studies and connecting them with new debates about the current'state'of feminism and feminist theory, Railton and Watson show why and how we should be studying music videos in the twenty-first century. Through its thorough overview of the music video as a visual medium, this is an ideal textbook for Media Studies students and all those with an interest in popular music and cultural studies. Key Features• Provides a framework for how to describe and analyse a music video.• Uses case studies from internationally well-know artists, such as Kylie, Shakira and Beyoncé to explore issues of representation of gender, sexuality and ethnicity.• Draws on classic and contemporary videos from a range of musical styles, from Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera to Gorillaz and Metallica.

Women have been important players in the recording industry from the very beginning, but not until 1996 did they out-chart their male competitors and pull ahead in the race for hits. Go, Girl, Go! provides a nearly 100-year history of women in music, beginning with Lil Hardin Armstrong and Billie Holiday, and continuing up to present-day artists such as Britney Spears and Norah Jones. The book features a thoughtful analysis of the 1996 revolution, along with interviews with artists such as Shania Twain, Pat Benatar, Brenda Lee, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Etheridge, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Tiffany, and Tammy Wynette, and executives such as Garth Brooks'ex-manager Pam Lewis, BMI head Frances Preston, Stax Records co-founder Estelle Axton, and Tracey Edmonds of Yab Yum Entertainment.The only definitive history of the women who have made popular music during the past 100 years, with details and stories from over 185 different women musicians and industry executives.

Singing for Themselves: Essays on Women in Popular Music is a fresh look at a topic that has attracted increasing interest in recent years. In this collection, scholars from a number of disciplines look at various artists and movements and come to some new conclusions about the ways in which female artists have contributed to the past four decades of pop, rock, blues and punk. From new looks at major artists Etta James, Laura Nyro and Patti Smith to later figures Ferron, Bjørk, and Melissa Etheridge, these chapters suggest new ways to view—and hear—music that is already part of our culture. Essays on the Indigo Girls, Dixie Chicks and Destiny's Child prove that the girl-groups tradition is alive and well, but with additional new dimensions, and a three-essay section on Joan Jett and the Riot Grrrls phenomenon sheds new light on their implications for feminist artistic expression. The final piece, an annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock, helps make this collection a useful addition to the library of students of popular music, while the solid research and accessibility of the text make this a good choice for the general reader as well as the seasoned scholar.'If you think that adoration of certain pop music is a guilty pleasure, not worthy of higher intellectual aspirations, then Singing For Themselves offers absolution. It's far from trivial to ponder the Tao of Canadian singer Ferron, the classical allusions of Laura Nyro's lyrics, the postfeminist booty-shaking of Destiny's Child, or the historical milieu that turned Jamesetta Hawkins into blues great Etta James. Reading these essays made me want to go right back to the music - feeling wiser, yes, but also validated in the desire to go as deep as any song or singer can take me.'Michele Kort, author of Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro, and senior editor at Ms. magazine'I've read Singing for Themselves: Essays on Women in Popular Music, and am happy to provide an endorsement. Singing for Themselves is a consistently interesting collection of new essays on women and popular music. The collection is all the more welcome for being so current. It mixes essays on recent phenomena (such as electronic/punk group Le Tigre and the Dixie Chicks'stirring of political controversy) with new perspectives on canonical figures like Patti Smith or Etta James. The essays gathered here are written with clear commitments, but all are marked by care and scholarly rigour. I found the interdisciplinary breadth of Singing for Themselves refreshing; new avenues for research are opened up here, and new theoretical paradigms are explored.'Will Straw, PhD, Acting Director, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada Associate Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies'Opening this book was like opening the door onto a surprise party. Everyone I've ever wanted to meet was in there, including myself!'Ferron

With a foreword by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy RichardsGirls Rock! explores the many ways women have defined themselves as rock musicians in an industry once dominated and controlled by men. Integrating history, feminist analysis, and developmental theory, the authors describe how and why women have become rock musicians—what inspires them to play and perform, how they write, what their music means to them, and what they hope their music means to listeners. As these musicians tell their stories, topics emerge that illuminate broader trends in rock's history. From Wanda Jackson's revolutionary act of picking up a guitar to the current success of independent artists such as Ani DiFranco, Girls Rock! examines the shared threads of these performers'lives and the evolution of women's roles in rock music since its beginnings in the 1950s. This provocative investigation of women in rock is based on numerous interviews with a broad spectrum of women performers—those who have achieved fame and those just starting bands, those playing at local coffeehouses and those selling out huge arenas. Girls Rock! celebrates what female musicians have to teach about their experiences as women, artists, and rock musicians.

Is there such a thing as women's music? Do women write and listen to music differently than men do? While recognizing that the differences among women are as distinct as the differences between genders, this bold new study examines gender's influence on music. The author's unique analytical strategy shows, in its application to actual musical compositions, that there is a fluid relationship between the music and the analyst, between the text and the context, and that 20th-century music is inextricably bound to notions of gender that transcend aesthetics.Much of the work on women's music to date has failed to deal critically with the actual compositions, settling instead for more biographical or sociological approaches. In this respect, this work fills an important void. Using many concrete examples and careful analyses of the work of such undervalued composers as Alma Mahler-Werfel, Anne Boyd, and Moya Henderson, it grounds the abstract firmly, and fascinatingly, in the practical.

Disruptive Divas focuses on four female musicians: Tori Amos, Courtney Love, Me'Shell Ndegéocello and P. J. Harvey who have marked contemporary popular culture in unexpected ways have impelled and disturbed the boundaries of'acceptable'female musicianship.

A groundbreaking collection of essays in feminist music criticism, this book addresses problems of gender and sexuality in repertoires ranging from the early seventeenth century to rock and performance art. “... this is a major book... [McClary's] achievement borders on the miraculous.” The Village Voice“No one will read these essays without thinking about and hearing music in new and interesting ways. Exciting reading for adventurous students and staid professionals.” Choice“Feminine Endings, a provocative ‘sexual politics'of Western classical or art music, rocks conservative musicology at its core. No review can do justice to the wealth of ideas and possibilities [McClary's] book presents. All music-lovers should read it, and cheer.” The Women's Review of Books'McClary writes with a racy, vigorous, and consistently entertaining style.... What she has to say specifically about the music and the text is sharp, accurate, and telling; she hears what takes place musically with unusual sensitivity.'-The New York Review of Books