Sex and Gender in Pop/Rock Music
Written by Walter Everett
273 pages, about 5 hours of reading
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- about 8 hours
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Walter Everett's "Sex and Gender in Pop/Rock Music" offers a crucial examination of how popular music, particularly post-1960s, serves as a dynamic cultural artifact reflecting and shaping societal understandings of sexuality, feminism, and gender. The book extends previous scholarship on early rock and roll by focusing on subsequent pop music's continuation of this tradition. Through in-depth case studies of artists like Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Etta James, and Frank Ocean, Everett dissects their gendered performances, biographical experiences, and invented personae. He analyzes their lyric structures and symbolic language, ultimately demonstrating how pop music, despite its commercial nature, provides a rich tapestry that mirrors the diverse spectrum of human sex and gender identities.
“Pop music, while a commodity art form, reflects the diversity of human sex and gender.”
Key themes
- Sexuality in Pop/Rock Music
- This is the central theme, exploring how popular music articulates, portrays, and shapes understandings of human sexuality. Everett examines the evolution of sexual expression from overt defiance in early rock to more nuanced and diverse representations in later pop, including queer identities and varied forms of desire. It covers how lyrics, performance, and artist persona contribute to these representations.
- Gender Performance and Identity
- This theme delves into how musicians construct and perform gender through their music, stage presence, and public image. It examines the concept of 'invented personae' and how artists either conform to, challenge, or transcend traditional gender roles, contributing to a broader understanding of gender as performative and fluid.
- Feminism and Music
- The book explores how pop/rock music has served as a platform for feminist ideas, addressing issues of female empowerment, autonomy, and challenging patriarchal structures within the music industry and society at large. It examines how female artists articulate their experiences and contribute to feminist discourse.
Worth discussing
How does Everett's analysis of post-1960s pop music challenge or extend previous scholarship on early rock and roll's engagement with sex and gender?
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