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She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul
by
Lucy O'Brien
Popular music grew out of ragtime, vaudeville and the blues to become global mass entertainment. Women like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were the original pop divas, yet eighty years after they blazed a trail, have their successors achieved the recognition and affirmation they deserve? Or has the only was to success been to slot into saleable images of the cute baby or sexy...more
Paperback, 530 pages
Published
April 1st 2004
by Continuum
(first published January 1st 1996)
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haven't finished this yet. it's OK. one thing I found a bit irritating was the author's speculation on why these women made certain choices in their careers and making it sound like its not speculation and ascribing all of their motivations to something having to do with being female. that's a pretty bad sentence, I know. but anyway, if you are a musician who happens to be a female, I guess you are always technically a "female musician," but maybe not everything you do as a musician is a direct...more
For me, this book can be summed up in one song: Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog." The Elvis version never made sense to me (why is he calling someone a hound dog?), but when I heard Big Mama's huge, deep voice bellow out this insult, it all made sense. This is a woman's song.
It's so great to see a history of women in popular music. It's an impossible task in many ways, but the author does a nice job of covering some of the most important pioneers. As with any book that covers popular music, I'm...more
It's so great to see a history of women in popular music. It's an impossible task in many ways, but the author does a nice job of covering some of the most important pioneers. As with any book that covers popular music, I'm...more
Great history of women in music. I used this as a research paper source in college more times than I can count (I was a music business major).
I bought this for a friend a few years ago, and ended up reading it before I sent it to her. It's a really good overview of the history of women in popular music. It examines many of the big issues women have to face in the music industry (sexism, racism, promotion, etc.) Some names you will recognize, others you will likely not. I think this is a great book about women in music, and great book about music in general.
This is a great overview of women in pop music, but sometimes you get a bit too much of the author seeming like a fan reliving a star-sighting. She obviously displays excitement and gratitude for her experiences in meeting some of the ladies in question, and this isn't a problem, but it makes some sections drag a little.
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“A myth is 'a narrative involving supernatural or fancied persons embodying popular ideas or social phenomena.' Women love telling stories . . . the girl-group is a gigantic narrative full of morality tales locked up like charms in a crystallized sound.”
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2 people liked it
“Young men list music as their focus and means of identity -- before sport, before TV, before cinema -- while women cite fashion as most important, with music an ambivalent second.”
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1 person liked it
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May 17, 2013 02:17am