Though I haven't read this book, I thought it was interesting that the
reviewer took the writer to task a bit for drawing conclusions and making
generalizations based on analyses of music that isn't really commercial
(or really even popular). We do that a lot here I think.
This review is copyrighted (c) 1998 by H-Net and the
Popular Culture and the American Culture Associations.
It may be reproduced electronically for educational or
scholarly use. The Associations reserve print rights
and permissions. (Contact: P.C.Rollins at the following
electronic address: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Sheila Whiteley, ed. _Sexing the Groove: Popular music and gender_.
New York: Routledge, 1997. $19.99 (paper). ISBN: 0415146712
_Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender_, edited by Shelia
Whiteley, offers multiple perspectives on popular music as a gendered
environment. Focusing primarily on rock and alternative music, the
essays include a range of contemporary musical artists from Mick Jaggar
to Bikini Kill. Together, the articles in this volume provide a
persuasive argument about a male-centeredness in popular music. As men
exercise control over the creation and distribution of music and related
ventures like music videos, women are relegated to the sidelines to
support men's musical careers or women become "the other" in a
masculine world. Indeed, the very discrepancy between the public's
general knowledge of Mick Jaggar versus the largely unknown female group
Bikini Kill reveals the gendered nature of the music industry. As a
whole, the contributors to this volume explore how the social production
of meaning is mediated by popular music, and how gender impacts this
mediation.
The book is divided into five sections. Part I, Rock music culture,
explores gender differences in four popular culture sites: recording
collecting, a Liverpool England recording studio, women guitar players,
and "women in rock." From Straw's "Sizing Up Record Collections" to
Bayton's "Women and the Electric Guitar", the systematic exclusion of
women from the masculinist culture of rock music is evident. Whether
women attempt to play music publicly or collect music privately, they
are disadvantaged in this male world. Even when women do succeed in
forming a band or becoming part of a musical group, as Coates discusses
in "(R)evolution Now: Rock and the political potential of gender," they
become not simply rock musicians but "women in rock." Women as other
permeates rock culture.
Part II, Masculinities and popular music, includes essays on Mick
Jaggar, Bruce Springsteen, and the Pet Shop Boys. What is intriguing in
this set of essays is that they simultaneous explore the idea of
"authentic maleness" in music culture while exposing the cracks in
performance: Jaggar's androgyny, Springsteen's identification with
working class powerlessness, and the Pet Shop Boys' ironic take on
masculinity and patriarchy.
Part III, A time of growth and change: Feminities and popular
music, moves chronologically. It begins with the essay "Can a Fujiyama
Mama be the Female Elvis: The wild, wild women of rockabilly," which
discusses women in the 1950s who challenged the male centered rockabilly
performance, and ends with two articles exploring the 1990s women
centered alternative of riot grrrl. Along the way essays touch on issues
of childbearing, motherhood, lesbianism, androgyny, sexuality,
feminism, zines, and how a female performer's identity is constructed.
Two articles in the section focus on particular artists. Negus' article
"Sinead O'Connor -- Musical Mother" and Bruzzi's article "Mannish Girl:
k.d. lang -- from Cowpunk to Androgyny" vividly capture the difficult
choices that a woman as mother or woman as lesbian faces as a
professional singer and songwriter. While exposing music as a gendered
activity, I found this set of essays to be empowering. To learn the
histories and hear the stories of women who, despite structural
inequalities, found ways to create music and to share that with others
give hope to a new generation of women musicians.
Part IV, Music, image, and identity, offers three approaches to
examining music videos. Whiteley's essay, "Seduced by the Sign: An
Analysis of the Textual Links between Sound and Image in Pop Videos,"
uses a case study of Madonna's video 'Justify My Love' to examine how
video image reinforces the meaning of the song. McDonald's chapter
"Feeling and Fun: Romance, Dance, and the Performing Male Body in the
'Take That' Videos" highlights the way male bodies serve as spectacle
for both a heterosexual and homosexual audience. In the final article in
the volume, "Rolling and Tumbling: Digital Erotics and the Culture of
Narcissism," Cubitt critiques classical film studies as a method for
analyzing music videos. Instead, Cubitt draws upon Freud and
psychoanalysis to examine the music video 'Vogue' by Madonna, an artists
known for constructing and reconstructing her image. This set of
articles raise questions about the impact of image on music. MTV as a
global corporation shapes youth culture. As more individuals are exposed
to music through videos a change is bound to occur. These three essay
contribute to our understanding of that impact.
Part V is an annotated bibliography that would be useful to
beginning researchers. Included are texts in cultural studies, culture:
policy and politics, popular culture, popular music, masculinity and
culture, feminism and culture, queer sexuality, fan culture, literary
theory, film and video, and postmodernity. A list of relevant journals
is also presented.
_Sexing the Groove_ convincingly identifies the masculine culture
of popular music, and it provides a glimmer of hope by presenting women
who have succeeded in the culture of popular music despite the
obstacles. The volume, however, would more accurately be subtitled
"alternative music and gender" for it is in the marginalized spaces that
the women musicians presented here flourished. We are presented with
analyses of women who understand and resist their marginalization within
the music industry. What is missing from this volume on gender and
popular music are the large numbers of women who rely upon stereotypes
about gendered behaviors to tell a story and to sell their music. As I
read this volume and reflected on the MTV's Total Request Top 100
Countdown of 1998, there was a discrepancy between the gender and
popular music presented here and the one MTV viewers request. There is
no Brandi and Monica in a video performance fighting over a man. No
Janet Jackson with abundant cleavage dancing for and drawing in the
presumable male viewers. Ironically, although this volume presents
evidence for a masculinist culture in popular music, the emphasis placed
on the relatively small number of white women who present a women
centered vision leaves the impression that women are significantly
changing and shaping popular music. However much I welcome these
feminist inroads into the masculine culture of popular music, this
volume does not accurately reflect gender in popular music. Despite this
flaw, I found the volume insightful and it would be a useful text to
include in courses in women's studies, popular music, or popular
culture.
Saint Mary's College Susan M. Alexander
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