Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music by Marisa Meltzer

Jan 13, 2012 Laura Stone rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Sweet mother of everything I really tried to like this book. I picked it up from the library on a whim because I'm interested in feminism and music and playing guitar. But seriously? This book had so many weak points I don't even know where to begin.

I'll try to say the nice things first: the author really tried to find the positive in all aspects of music culture. She also included a section on Camp Trans when talking about the Michigan Womyn's Festival, which is great because it calls attention...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Mandy Jo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nineties-nostalgia

This week’s headline? Girls banding together

Why this book? Nineties underground nostalgia

Which book format? Nice and new

Primary reading environment? Day of rest

Any preconceived notions? Cooler than thou

Identify most with? Still Courtney Love

Three little words? "Elitist value judgments"

Goes well with? Tamari, Tabasco, yeast

I used to hate Britney Spears, mainly because we are the same age and she dated Justin Timberlake while I was still in love with him.

In my first semester of college, I clipped...more

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Jun 24, 2010 jess rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, ladyish, zines

I read about this book because one of my favorite bloggers, Tavi, wrote about it.. And Tobi Vail blogged about it a few times. And then Carrie Brownstein blogged about Tavi blogging about the book, and then Kathleen Hanna blogged about Tavi, and how she is "a fucking artist and these fools just don’t fucking get it" and a "talented, highly intelligent kid is willing to share her inner light with the world," which I also agree with. So, basically, I am drawing the conclusion that this book result...more I read about this book because one of my favorite bloggers, Tavi, wrote about it.. And Tobi Vail blogged about it a few times. And then Carrie Brownstein blogged about Tavi blogging about the book, and then Kathleen Hanna blogged about Tavi, and how she is "a fucking artist and these fools just don’t fucking get it" and a "talented, highly intelligent kid is willing to share her inner light with the world," which I also agree with. So, basically, I am drawing the conclusion that this book resulted in an intense(ly amusing) clusterfuck of feminists blogging about feminists and a mutual admiration society between 40 year olds and 13 year olds. At the end of the day, there's nothing awful about all that.

In case you ever forgot that I keep my book reviews with such detailed notes for my own bad-memory purposes, there's your reminder.

I expected that this book would be awful, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was not. It is closely related to that book about sassy I read, since they share an author. the writing/story telling styles are similar, the subject matter is not completely unrelated. It's enjoyable to read this book. Is it 100% totally factually accurate with the truest most informative everything you could expect from a book? Well, no. It's about riot grrrl in this "big picture" kind of way, and where that historic moment is situated in this larger movement of Women in Rock in the 1990s. From that perspective, this book is good enough. It's short, quick to read, and makes for good dinner table conversations comparing/contrasting the concept of courtney love. Also, it is really weird to read about Olympia in a book!!!

Personal Note: it is weird to read about Camp Trans in Books From Actual Bookstores and Publishers. I spent five years camping at Camp Trans, and it is an issue I wish saw so much more light of day. At the same time it is super weird to read about it. While this version of Camp Trans is better than the picture Teresa Wiltz painted in the Washington Post in 2001, it still seemed unbalanced and off the mark. In no way did the beautiful wonder and amazement of Camp Trans make it onto these pages. I'm not sure that the struggle for trans inclusion in women's spaces was served well by this representation, but I guess it's better than ignoring it entirely? Or maybe Marissa is just name-dropping the issue? It was hard to tell. In the same way that the Sassy book mentions the shortcomings of the magazine without lambasting, the issue of including trans women in "women's music" scenes is glossed over. It looks neat, not messy, and the account is mostly about the author's personal anxieties about Camp Trans, not much of the division at hand. She missed a great opportunity, too, since she also interviewed Amy Ray for other parts of the book. Amy did a lot of footwork and personal interviews about the subject of trans inclusion at michfest, and she could have helped to flesh out the controversy and dialog of the community. It was a missed opportunity to make feminism look like a living, breathing reality instead of a series of events in a book.

The thing that I want to carry with me, after I forget everything that Marissa wrote about the spice girls and fiona apple, is that this book isn't really for anyone who experienced riot grrrl or "women in rock" in the 1990s. this book belongs to ladies, women and girls who are underage right now, e.g. girls like Tavi. if they read this book, and something/anything happens, like they start a band over the summer or they start a feminist club at their school or whatever they come up with -- at that point, this book is awesome. Everyone sitting around going, "well, actually, riot grrrl was like THIS and I was there," or "Actually, Lilith Fair was like blah blah blah" (etc) that is just false pretense that totally misses the point. it happened, it was a revelatory moment that fizzled out, it was a good time, i hope. BUT - what can the new kids do with this information? For the same reason, i don't give a shit (for example) what any critics say about Lilith Fair coming back in 2010 or a riot grrrl nostalgia revival. I just want to see if girls show up, if they still need and want to hear women make music, and what they are going to do about it. (less)

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Apr 25, 2010 Ciara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminist-y-books, read-in-2010, weirdo-music-books

honestly? i expected this to be a lot worse than it was, judging from some of the scathing & disappointed reviews my friends have written. people were going on & on about how shallow it was, how badly it misrepresented the riot grrrl movement, how historically inaccurate it was, how upset they were that a chunk of their personal histories that mattered to them so much was being mangled in such an amateur manner. i was prepared for the worst. & what i got was an admittedly imperfect b...more honestly? i expected this to be a lot worse than it was, judging from some of the scathing & disappointed reviews my friends have written. people were going on & on about how shallow it was, how badly it misrepresented the riot grrrl movement, how historically inaccurate it was, how upset they were that a chunk of their personal histories that mattered to them so much was being mangled in such an amateur manner. i was prepared for the worst. & what i got was an admittedly imperfect but pleasantly enjoyable book about women in rock in the 1990s. to be clear, this is NOT a book about riot grrrl. although i think the chapter on riot grrrl summed up a lot of my own feelings about the disappointments & misrepresentations that happened, & although there was an effort in every subsequent chapter to compare various other eras/styles of lady music against riot grrrl, this is actually just a women in rock book, & as such, it's probably one of the better ones. as a women in rock book, i'd give it four stars. as a riot grrrl book, i'd give it two.

i read one review that was angry that the book seemed to represent "foxcore" (ie, punk-inspired but mainstream lady rock bands like hole, L7, babes in toyland, etc) as a descendant of riot grrrl. so i was preparing myself for factual inaccuracies like that (many of those bands actually pre-dated riot grrrl & wanted absolutely nothing to do with the movement). but...the book is pretty clear about "foxcore" being something different, & addresses the way it was lumped in with riot grrrl by music journalists who couldn't wrap their heads around all the different roads women may take to playing music.

i also read reviews that shrieked in despair over marisa metlzer's spice girls apologism. while i may not agree that having hordes of nine-year-olds buying spice girls pencils & furry notebooks that say "girl power" is compelling evidence of feminism, maltzer does make a compelling argument & i have to respect that. i think it's a bit unfortunate that meltzer's own personal history with/interest in riot grrrl music steals focus a little bit from what could have been one of the better books interrogating the intersections of pop music & feminism, but...it's still not a bad book. meltzer's descriptions of the MWMF controversy & her experience at camp trans are well worth the cost of admission, if only because this is a topic that has been pretty thoroughly annoyed by mainstream writers/publishers. it was nice to see topics that i am actually very personally invested in, that i have only seen addressed heretofore in zines or obscure blogs, in a book.

i may be biased because i was able to buy this book with a store discount at my local indie bookshop (thanks to having spent over $100 there already), so i got to enjoy this book for about the same cost as a chocolate malt. could it have been better? more sophisticated, more scholarly, perhaps with a more specific focus of interrogation? definitely. but did it suck? i don't think so. read it & decide for yourself.(less)

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Mar 09, 2010 Genevieve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: pop-culture, nonfiction, music, feminism

I wanted to like this book more than I did. As a member of the generation that was too young for riot grrrl or other 90s 'angry women' musicians at the time, but who listens to and appreciates them now, I was hoping to find some insight into the cultural context of this music, and perhaps some feminist analysis of the relationships between different models of girl-oriented music. But while Girl Power pieces together a decently complete sketch of the period, its analysis is pretty shallow, and no...more I wanted to like this book more than I did. As a member of the generation that was too young for riot grrrl or other 90s 'angry women' musicians at the time, but who listens to and appreciates them now, I was hoping to find some insight into the cultural context of this music, and perhaps some feminist analysis of the relationships between different models of girl-oriented music. But while Girl Power pieces together a decently complete sketch of the period, its analysis is pretty shallow, and not infrequently seems to contradict itself. I didn't get a whole lot out of reading this that I hadn't already considered or figured out on my own.

In Meltzer's defense, this is messy, shifting, baffling ground, hard to make coherent sense of. Ultimately her question seems to be, Did the riot grrrl movement succeed in pushing forward the space for women and feminism in rock/pop music, or is its legacy so diffuse, warped, or watered down that it makes no difference? Making a definitive argument for either option is difficult, both because it requires making a judgment about the current music scene and because the field of popular music is simply so much to process. Meltzer makes an effort to connect the issues and tactics of riot grrrl to other parts of pop music and culture, but when she steps outside of the part of the culture that she knows through having lived it, she seems to be replicating tired lists of talking points. Her description of the experience of riot grrrl itself is a lot more compelling than her rather thin exploration of wider cultural relationships, in which she name-checks a lot of major 90s female musicians without going in depth. When Meltzer ultimately comes down on the side of riot grrrl having had a pervasive, persistent influence despite, and in fact through, being co-opted for commercial purposes, I felt like she still hadn't really examined the linkages between pop and underground.

Maybe it's just because I am still a naive angry young person right now, but I found the measured optimism of Meltzer's conclusion, in which she comes around to seeing 'girl power' as positive, kind of unsatisfying. Sure, the Spice Girls and their version of 'girl power' weren't 100% bad for the girls who listened to them (I should know, I was one); and today's music scene may offer more room for women to make music without being solely focused on gender through some trickle-down-feminism effect. But I for one feel a decided lack of anger and grit and politics and loudness in contemporary female-created music, and I'm not sure that "girl power has planted the philosophical seeds" for today's girls to create real power and change, as Meltzer concludes. I have no desire to get nostalgic about an era I never lived, but it can be frustrating to belong to a generation whose manifesto is to have no manifesto. This may be more about me than about the book, though.(less)

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Feb 26, 2010 Elevate Difference rated it 3 of 5 stars

Having been born in the late '80s, I always felt I missed out on everything cool in music. I wasn’t there to see the birth of punk. I wasn’t there for New Wave. I was too young for grunge, and I was too far away from Olympia, WA for riot grrrl. In the 1990s, I bought Sublime’s self -titled album along with Alice Cooper’s School's Out, and that was the extent of my musical awareness. So I always enjoyed reading about riot grrrl, putting on my Heavens to Betsy CD, and pretending I was more involve...more Having been born in the late '80s, I always felt I missed out on everything cool in music. I wasn’t there to see the birth of punk. I wasn’t there for New Wave. I was too young for grunge, and I was too far away from Olympia, WA for riot grrrl. In the 1990s, I bought Sublime’s self -titled album along with Alice Cooper’s School's Out, and that was the extent of my musical awareness. So I always enjoyed reading about riot grrrl, putting on my Heavens to Betsy CD, and pretending I was more involved in it than I actually was.

Yes, I remember 1991. Sure, I was only five years old, but still, I was there. I expected Marisa Meltzer’s Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music to help me keep up my own personal time capsule, going on the title alone. While the first few chapters do go into depth about riot grrrl’s evolution, the rest of the book moves forward in time from where riot grrrl left off, and this is where Meltzer hypothesizes leaves off as well. Post-riot grrrl, Meltzer traces the evolution of a few obvious late-90s "angry" female artists, such as Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, and Paula Cole, along with all the women from Lilith Fair, but then veers into a weird direction with The Spice Girls.

A lot of this book, in fact, goes into detail about The Spice Girls, and Meltzer keeps attempting to drive home her point that this girl group was actually pretty feminist. Now, this is something I actually was there for (although I try not to think about those dark times). Being a young girl coming of age when The Spice Girls were popular, I never got the impression that they were feminists. Maybe I’m just biased here, but the constant mention of this group kind of rubbed me the wrong way. That being said, Meltzer has some interesting points about them. (The Spice Girls, in effect, got the term girl power out there, and started some little girls thinking about their potential, but calling them feminist still seems like a stretch to me. It was a good, long, head-beating attempt by Meltzer, but by the end of this book, I was not convinced.)

Meltzer also touches upon a few modern day female pop stars, like the young women from High School Musical and Taylor Swift, as she attempts to draw a line from riot grrrl to girl power. This book may be aimed at younger girls in the hopes that it will get them thinking about their own generation of musical trends, and inspire them to look more critically at the media. Girl Power shows a lot of promise for spurring conversations between feminists of different generations, but for anyone born past 1990, Meltzer could leave you feeling bitter and jaded. Then again, maybe it’s just me.

Review by Jen Klee(less)

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May 06, 2010 Elysabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Ahhhh the 90s -- I was WAY too young to appreciate Riot Grrrl in my time, and just a HAIR too young to go to Lilith Fair (my mom wanted me to go on a family vacation instead!), but I know that I appreciated it all from afar, and this book really allowed me to connect with the history and the legacy left behind by the women's revolution in 90s music. I think I've come to realize that current music (pop, rock or otherwise) has definitely lost its "edge" and its political bent, but reading this boo...more

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Feb 26, 2010 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was absolutely enthralled by Meltzer's account of the idea of feminism in music throughout the 90's, from queercore to riot grrrl (3 "r"s, of course) to femcore to the Spice Girls (my first concert ever, don't laugh) to the Pop Tarts (Spears, Simpson, Moore, Aguilera before she broke away and started working for the cause) and finally what we have today, the Gagas, the Newsoms, and the rest. It really made me wish I was born just 5-6 years earlier so I could experience the riot grrrl movement...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this a lot! Marisa Meltzer's book is a fairly light history of girls/young women in music and pop culture from the early 1990s to the present. It doesn't focus on any single group or musical movement, but instead discusses a variety (ranging from riot grrrl to Alanis Morissette to Britney Spears to Taylor Swift), tracing common themes through the years. She also does a nice job of relating her own personal experiences without overwhelming the overall narrative.

David Lee Roth said in a m...more I liked this a lot! Marisa Meltzer's book is a fairly light history of girls/young women in music and pop culture from the early 1990s to the present. It doesn't focus on any single group or musical movement, but instead discusses a variety (ranging from riot grrrl to Alanis Morissette to Britney Spears to Taylor Swift), tracing common themes through the years. She also does a nice job of relating her own personal experiences without overwhelming the overall narrative.

David Lee Roth said in a mid-80s interview, "What if a little girl picked up a guitar and said 'I want to be a rock star'? Nine times out of ten her parents would never allow her to do it. We don't have so many lead guitar women, not because women don't have the ability to play the instrument, but because they're locked up, taught to be something else." This book is an attempt to address how girls, in the past twenty-five years, have in fact picked up those guitars (or at least microphones). Lest you fear that Meltzer's view is overly cheerful, she does include some sharp criticisms about the commercialization and over-sexualization of very young girls that seems to have accompanied the "girl power" movement. Yet overall, she is at least cautiously optimistic: "Girl power's 'do-it-yourself' message of 'you can do anything' is a powerful entree to feminism, especially because its simplicity brings in the very young."

The greatest strength of this book is its fairly broad scope, bolstered by good research that synthesizes dozens of personal and print interviews; a quote from Courtney Love might appear on a page beside a conversation the author had with a budding eight-year-old rocker, for example. At the same time, this breadth also creates what could be perceived as a weakness in the book, which is that it seems to lack depth, and certainly doesn't make any particularly radical statements about feminism. It's a very comfortable third-wave feminist read that I enjoyed a lot, however. As a girl of the 1990s I was pretty familiar with most of her subjects and liked learning how they all fit together in a meta-arc of women in music. I would definitely recommend this book to any woman around my age (27), or anyone who's curious about popular culture's more political layers.

EDITED: So I read some of the other reviews and wow, people have a lot of feelings! Fair points: This is a book with limited perspective, namely that of a white middle-class cisgender college-educated woman. (I should probably concede that I fit that description exactly.) She does address this fact by writing about a transgender-inclusive festival, and briefly points out the homogeneity of most of the riot grrrl movement, but otherwise stays within her own milieu. Also fair but perhaps beside the point: The book oversimplifies a lot. It's short and addresses too many different things to get into great depth. So if you have really strong personal feelings about any particular artist or movement, maybe be prepared to feel misunderstood? At any rate, I didn't.(less)

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Jun 29, 2010 Pam rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is a book in part about music I love--Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Hole, Liz Phair. After all the positive press this book garnered on my corner of the internet, I was really looking forward to reading it. But I suspect if you have more than a glancing familiarity with female musicians from the 90s--riot grrrls or Jewel/Alanis/Joan Osbourne/Meredith Brooks, whatever, you will find it wanting. Basically a list in prose form of the decade's female musicians, it seems to save its deepest analy...more

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Apr 11, 2010 Caitlin Constantine rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to love this book so hard, you have no idea. I was a teenager in the 1990s, and there was so much in the book I could relate to - discussion about Lilith Fair (which I went to - twice), having the release of "You Oughta Know" coincide with my first heartbreak, openly hating (yet secretly loving) the Spice Girls, obsessing over Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos, worshipping Kim Gordon - that I found myself all giddy and excited like I did while reading "Girl Zines."

So when I say...more I wanted to love this book so hard, you have no idea. I was a teenager in the 1990s, and there was so much in the book I could relate to - discussion about Lilith Fair (which I went to - twice), having the release of "You Oughta Know" coincide with my first heartbreak, openly hating (yet secretly loving) the Spice Girls, obsessing over Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos, worshipping Kim Gordon - that I found myself all giddy and excited like I did while reading "Girl Zines."

So when I say I wanted to love this book, I mean it. I really did. But it was so short, less than 150 pages long! That is, in my view, hardly enough time to cover the music itself, let alone engage in a serious analysis of the music and its role in the wider contexts of feminism and society. There were a few places where Meltzer interrogated the lack of connection to a wider political community when it came to the "angry womyn" music and also criticized the way the idea of "girl power" evolved from riot grrrl to a completely depoliticized slogan on sparkly baby-doll t-shirts, but she didn't go much further than that. And truth be told, these are not new analyses. I know that not everyone who picks up this book will be aware of these criticisms, and so they should definitely be included in the book, but it would have been nice if Meltzer had brought something new to the table, something that would have given those of us who aren't still engaged in parsing Feminism 101 something to think about.

And did I mention that the book was less than 150 pages long? Maybe it's just me, but if I had the opportunity to write a book about something that was one of the most transformative things in my entire life, I would like to think I could muster more than 150 pages about it.

There were also things I really did like about the book, particularly when Meltzer talks about her own experiences and engagement in the music. I liked reading about her days stalking Kathleen Hanna at Evergreen. I liked reading about her visit to Michigan Women's Music Festival, and then her visit to Camp Trans. I liked that she was able to actually interview a lot of the women who were involved in the whole riot grrrl scene (although I, once again, came away with the sense that I would find Tobi Vail really annoying if I knew her in real life). What made these aspects of her book so enjoyable to me is the fact that I wouldn't have been able to read them anywhere else.

It's definitely worth a read, but it is by no means the definitive book about women in rock in the 1990s. Hopefully the publishers of the world won't think this is a niche that has already been occupied by this book, and they will be willing to give a few more a chance.(less)

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Feb 19, 2010 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I struggled between giving this book 3 and 4 stars. It was a fast, almost couldn't-put-it-down read; Meltzer is a very good writer; the book was thoughtful and raises a handful of thought provoking points; and I liked her cautiously optimistic approach to feminism.

In some ways, the books strengths also prompted its weaknesses. The book was a fast read because it was 150 pages, but 150 pages was nowhere near enough to cover the breadth of material she does. Meltzer examines the emergence of the c...more I struggled between giving this book 3 and 4 stars. It was a fast, almost couldn't-put-it-down read; Meltzer is a very good writer; the book was thoughtful and raises a handful of thought provoking points; and I liked her cautiously optimistic approach to feminism.

In some ways, the books strengths also prompted its weaknesses. The book was a fast read because it was 150 pages, but 150 pages was nowhere near enough to cover the breadth of material she does. Meltzer examines the emergence of the concept of "girl power" from its rawest and most political origins - the nascent riot grrl scene in early 1990s Olympia and D.C. - to its most commercialized moments - the Spice Girls and, dare I say it, Miley Cyrus. Meltzer, unfortunately, did not give enough time or analysis to anyone along the way. As a feminist, I was bummed to see how bare-bones and watered-down her riot grrl chapter was - despite the fact that Meltzer herself was an ardent riot grrl participant. She captured none of the passion, the exciting and raw-to-the-point-of-uncomfortable beauty of riot grrl that is so clearly visible if you just look up "kathleen hanna" on youtube.

Her read on the more commercialized, apolitical aspects of "girl power" - the Spice Girls, etc. - was actually quite generous considering any feminist would be quick to vilify these acts. But ultimately in her attempt to see the good in their existence, she avoided analyzing the perniciousness of their prepackaged, commercial, musically bland catalogs. Maybe I'm an old lady, but most of the present day girl-power music - from Pink to the Pussycat Dolls - seems to be about bashing women or competing with other women - for men. It's enough to make this feminist cry - these songs, these singers, and their messages cannot exist without the presumed Male Gaze. Not only that, but the beauty of early riot grrl was its "DIY" attitude - when it came to making zines, and when it came to making music. Today's "girl power band" requires millions of dollars of auto tune equipment and the highest paid (MALE) managers and songwriters. I don't think that the Spice Girls and Britney are watered down versions of girl power - honestly, I think they are anathema.

The best thing about this book is that it made me want to go and read more about riot grrl and reconnect with Third Wave Feminism - a flawed, and probably past-its-prime, but nonetheless passionate and exciting movement.(less)

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Aug 02, 2011 Sheba rated it 2 of 5 stars

I love Meltzer's enthusiasm in attacking this subject. Having said that, the writing--or perhaps the editing--of this book was so distracting that I could barely keep an interest in the subject. Some very noticeable issues: The book, particularly chapter 1, could use some breathing space with clear paragraphs--often it felt as though Meltzer was too quickly jumping to the next subject without any sense of a transition; there's a chronic misuse of the article "the" throughout; there are more quot...more

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Nov 20, 2009 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Marisa Meltzer, I would love to grab coffee or a drink with you. The focus of this book is all too close to my heart as it's very similar to my masters thesis on the potential for feminist activism in indie rock subcultures. While I would have liked less analysis of Spice Girls (Meltzer does state at the beginning that she will focus primarily on pop and punk music) and more interviews with Ladyfest organizers, musicians, zine writers, I devoured this book. Given that the Lilith Fair is starting...more

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Mar 02, 2010 Melanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, music

I think that the Goodreads elementary-school-book-report-style prompt "What I learned from this book" is useful here, because truthfully, I didn't learn anything from this book. It's well written and zippy, but I found myself anticipating Meltzer's next steps: "And now she's going to talk about Liz Phair. Ah, yes, hello, Liz, there you are, nice to see you." Everything--from the chronological arrangement to the subjects (very briefly) addressed to the underlying assumptions and arguments--was pr...more

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Feb 13, 2010 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Decent, not fabulous. More than a clip job linking together all of her articles from the late 90s and onward on the topic (though there are some of those telltale present-tense discussions of performances from, say, 1997), this argues, sometimes in a and-then-there-was spirit and sometimes in a more concerted way, that riot grrrl and its offshoots accomplished much more than they may have seemed at the time. She even has an ambivalent, and somewhat confusing, take on the Spice Girls' ultimate co...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Florinda rated it 3 of 5 stars

By the time I heard about the riot-grrrl movement of the early 1990�s, I'�d missed it. However, as a relatively short-lived and deliberately noncommercial development in music, its influence on what followed it outstripped its immediate impact, and I suspect a lot of women who were past high-school and college age (I was in my late 20�s, already married and a mother) missed it at the time. In this exploration of women in music during the last couple of decades, Marisa Meltzer looks at the music�...more By the time I heard about the riot-grrrl movement of the early 1990�s, I'�d missed it. However, as a relatively short-lived and deliberately noncommercial development in music, its influence on what followed it outstripped its immediate impact, and I suspect a lot of women who were past high-school and college age (I was in my late 20�s, already married and a mother) missed it at the time. In this exploration of women in music during the last couple of decades, Marisa Meltzer looks at the music�'s �anyone-can-do-it� roots in punk, its filtering into mainstream consciousness, and its sometimes-shaky connections to modern feminism.

Meltzer argues that the original riot grrrls viewed their independent music-making, writing and publishing activities as feminist, political acts, but their determination not to be exploited diluted their potential impact on the direction of third-wave feminism. However, the 1990�s were notable for the assimilation of �alternative� culture into the mainstream, and stylistic elements of riot grrrl - assertiveness, embracing and expression of �negative� emotions, an upfront expression of sexuality, and reclaiming �"girl"� as a positive term rather than a demeaning one - became part of a pop-culture-based �empowerment� that may have helped produce more confident girls, but affected very little genuine social change. The sense of community, sisterhood and �women for women� that spurred the feminist movement through the 1960s and into the early 1980s was present in riot grrrl, but it too became diluted and the focus shifted to the individual. Meltzer suggests that without a revived sense of community, genuine progress for feminist values may be limited - and I think she�'s right.

Girl Power is a fast read that touches on a lot of material, but doesn'�t explore much of it in great detail, and I admit I was somewhat disappointed by that - I�'d have liked more, not just about the politics but about the music; too many of the early-�90s artists Meltzer references were unfamiliar to me. The book'�s appendices include a bibliography and filmography; I�'d have liked a discography as well, but I�'m not sure that some of the music discussed is even available (several playlists linked in the book�s website may help with that). It�'s not enough to satisfy your 1990s nostalgia, but it may pique your appetite for more. Hopefully, it will also get you thinking about further exploration of the feminist questions it raises.(less)

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Jan 30, 2011 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

The content (a detailed history of the riot grrrl movement and its lesser offspring) is strong and contains interesting first-person stories from the author. The style almost wrecked the book for me, though. Meltzer takes this vital feminist story and tells it in a dry, term-paper style. I forgive her because this book introduced me to the movie Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (a very enjoyable 1982 flick about a punk girl band, starring a teenage Diane Lane--who knew she had it in her...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: grrrls and ladies, but probably not womyn

Shelves: 2010-resolution

Well, I liked it. Sometimes I liked it less than other times, but it was a pretty solid read. Readers expecting a definitive history of Riot Grrrl will be disappointed, as this is (mostly) Meltzer's personal, conflicted and affectionate history with the lady-made music of the 90s and beyond. But reading this book often felt like talking to my best girlfriend about the music and activism of our wilder years. But WTF with Ani DiFranco only getting half a page?

Ahem. So anyway. The book starts with...more

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Jun 30, 2010 Cynth rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are insights into my fourteen-year old self here that would have never crossed my mind, like how the Spice Girls could have possible been dreamt up because of Pacific Northwest third-wave feminism. I'm not sure if I believe it, but I also know that it's hard to swallow someone else criticizing your adolescent heroes (riot grrrl's media blackout) or drawing conclusions that it is likely that Huggy Bear influenced Meredith Brooks. Ugh! To think how much I hated mainstream commercial girl-roc...more

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Mar 30, 2010 Sarra rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is where I nitpick: Meltzer's constant abuse of the definite article drove me batty. "The guitarist Donna R..."; "the Olympia riot-grrrl groups Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17..."; "the British retailer Evans...", "the drag queen Lady Bunny, the pop sensation Lady Gaga, ... and the musician Ladyhawke..."; "the 'One of Us' singer and avowed feminist Joan Osborne..."; 'the journalist Evelyn McDonnell...". Over and over and over, multiple times on one page, she inserts "the" where it really doe...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Rebekah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: women-in-music

This book wasn't bad. I appreciate the variety of female artists she addressed and the different avenue women in music took during the 1990s. It totally wasn't about Riot Grrrl as much as the reviews claimed, but that's fine with me. I wish she just would have taken things a step or two deeper. She had some nice points and I just wanted her to unpack them a bit more. And I can't believe I just wrote "unpack" in my review. But it's true. I did love the part about the MWMF and Camp Trans and I'm g...more

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Mar 20, 2010 Shannon rated it 5 of 5 stars

I want to be Marisa Metlzer's best friend. Her latest book, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, explores the history and influence of the most integral years of my life. The early '90s were a pivotal time for women in music. Feminism wasn't new---neither were girl groups, zines or punk rock---but Meltzer permeates the spirit of a movement that forever changed the music industry. Meltzer dives into how riot grrrl morphed and was mass-marketed, sans all of the politics and intellect, as...more

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Mar 08, 2010 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a great fast read. I was too young in the '90s to really understand everything that was going on and this book made me want to revisit the whole decade as well as reread my well worn copy of The Feminine Mystique. It offered a great overview of the female musicians of the '90s and what their legacy is today. It has been descibed as "feminism lite", and I think that is a great description. Not too heavy, but Melter still hits all of teh importance points. I am giving this book to my youn...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars

Most of the artists she talks about in this book are what I grew up listening to. I was a young teen when I caught the tail end of riot grrrl and I still look back at that era quite fondly. But this book is so whitefeminist back-patty. Yeah, all this stuff is great but at this point in my life I need to go beyond the conversation presented in this book. But I do hope girls now and in the future might look up some of the artists mentioned (and it would be cooler if there was a new edition that wa...more

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Aug 07, 2012 alana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: females-and-feminists, non-fiction

I enjoyed reading this book because I like the topic and could remember much of what the author discussed. She makes some interesting observations on the evolution of women’s participation in the American music scene in the 1990s. She also, in passing, highlights how the role of the internet in today’s music scene could radically affect feminism as expressed through music.

Unfortunately, this is not a fabulous read. The information is scattered and patchy. Quotations are overused and cut and pas...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Though some reviews seem to indicate this is primarily a book about the riot grrrl movement, it's really not. (If you're interested in reading about that, check out Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution)

Rather, it deals with women in music in the 90s, spanning a few different genres. The book starts with riot grrls and winds its way through the decade, discussing Lilith Fair, the Spice Girls, and Britney Spears on its way. At the same time, the author interjects some of...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have always been outspoken and unashamed about being a feminist, and though I sometimes gravitate toward the harder stuff, I've always appreciated that Lilith Fair, Ladyfest, and other events can co-exist. They offer millions of people a kinship they might not get in other scenes, and they also offer an artist's living for the makers. I appreciate her assertion that Riot Grrrl committed a sad suicide when it could have taken over the world instead (it was certainly poised to have real power of...more

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Aug 20, 2011 JR rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, lady-power, music, pop, sex-politics, sisterhood, smart-girls

I'm really struggling between one or two stars on this. Meltzer's Girl Power was incredibly disappointing. I was hoping for a more comprehensive analysis of women in music in the nineties, and their overall effect on pop culture subsequently. This, however, is basically the author's love letter to her own youth. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, the way she continuously distances herself from her own privilege is a bit maddening.

I'm not going to lie, I was already a bit skeptica

...more

I'm really struggling between one or two stars on this. Meltzer's Girl Power was incredibly disappointing. I was hoping for a more comprehensive analysis of women in music in the nineties, and their overall effect on pop culture subsequently. This, however, is basically the author's love letter to her own youth. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, the way she continuously distances herself from her own privilege is a bit maddening.

I'm not going to lie, I was already a bit skeptical going into this book. The whimsical cover art and slim volume did not match the hefty promises of the subtitle "The Nineties Revolution in Music." However, Jennifer Baumgardner's blurb on the back cover is what inevitably sold me:

Marisa Meltzer's incisive and awesome Girl Power proves that riot grrrls, womyn musicians, Courtney Love, Queen Latifah, Ani DiFranco, Liz Phair, the Spice Girls, and M.I.A. are all dancing to the same (feminist) revolution.

Except, nothing could be further from the truth. None of these artists (save for the Spice Girls and riot grrrls, but more on that in a bit) get much ink. Womyn musicians are openly mocked for being too crunchy and second-wave before Meltzer rectifies her remarks by heralding the redeeming qualities of women-only spaces. When Courtney Love's name is brought up it is often in discussion of feminist compromise and the toll the dominant culture takes on third-wave sensibilities. Liz Phair is heckled for buying-in to society's expectations of a female pop star. Queen Latifah and M.I.A. are each referenced two times, always in passing, adding nothing substantial to the discussion.

The primary focus of this book is Riot Grrrls versus Spice Girls, always erring on the side of the former. This is no surprise, as Meltzer is constantly invoking the music, culture and experience of her own formative years, incessantly name-dropping the likes of Tobi Vail, Mirah Zeityn, Kathleen Hanna and Lois Maffeo, and steadily insisting that there is nothing like seeing Sleater-Kinney play in someone's living room.

Meltzer's analysis of the Spice Girls phenomenon is no more than a comparison to her own teenage years. The subtext drips with so much detachment one could reasonably conclude that she may feel alienated by it. According to the author, the Spice Girls' greatest crime, outside of watering down "girl power," is that they were a constructed and manufactured music group marketed to girls. Meltzer acts as though it is an entirely new concept, like the Monkees never existed or the trend hadn't exploded in the eighties. Furthermore, she spends more time lamenting over the popularity of body glitter than talking to or sharing the stories of the Spice's target audience.

There is so much anecdotal support in the early chapters discussing riot grrrl and its "lesser" early- and mid- nineties cousins (Hole, Alanis Morisette, Liz Phair, etc), and virtually none when discussing the Spice Girls and the pop stars come after. The Spices, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Avril Lavigne are treated only with the author's own perspective and studies conducted by people who would undoubtedly consider themselves late second-wavers and early riot grrrls. Where peer-review is considered the cornerstone of Meltzer's early- to mid-nineties analysis, it is not even a consideration when it comes to anything after 1997.

Of course, the most glaring omission in this book is the discussion of women of color. As already mentioned, Queen Latifah and M.I.A. receive only inconsequential mentions, as does Erykah Badu. Salt 'N Pepa is not even mentioned. Neither is En Vogue, TLC or Destiny's Child. Hip hop and R&B have consistently made up so much of the popular music scene in the MTV generation, I cannot fathom a reasonable excuse for its absence.

Overall, the book is vastly inadequate. Much of its analysis is subjective and sloppy. Meltzer's travel through the nineties music scene is so anachronistic it is hard to tell what is accurate, and her writing, which so lacks quality, only makes it more difficult. Should Meltzer have endeavored to write a book about the music that impacted her teenage years, or informed her own feminism this would be acceptable. If she had decided to frame the book solely on the impact of the riot grrrl movement on mainstream culture, this would be adequate at best. But, this is not "the nineties revolution in music" I was promised. It's too messy to be exclusive to the impact of riot grrrl. It's too shallow (both in content and perspective) to be inclusive of the nineties girl revolution.

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Jun 11, 2010 Lidia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Full disclosure that I can't finish the last chapter. And I'm way harder on non-fiction than fiction in terms of ratings and so on.

This poor book is bound to fail for so many people who care really deeply about riot grrrl and this period of musical history. I'm one of those people. This book was just straight up amateur hour. I kept thinking it felt like reading a really long high school essay...so much explanatory stuff and so little analysis.

Plus, blowing off the experiences of women of color...more

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