Sexing the Groove : Popular Music and Gender

Why is record collecting associated with men and not women? Why are female singers well-known but female guitarists and drummers overlooked? Are record companies misogynistic? What different ideas about masculinity are represented by Bruce Springsteen and the Pet Shop Boys? Can there be such a thing as a Female Elvis? How do Take That videos represent the erotic male body? Sexing the Groove provides the answers to these questions and many more, bringing together leading international music and cultural theorists to explore the relationship between popular music, gender and sexuality. Using a variety of methodologies and a wide range of case studies, from Mick Jagger to Riot Grrrls, the contributors describe and debate how pop music performers, subcultures, fans and texts construct and deconstruct 'masculine' and 'feminine' identites. Sexing the Groove is structured into sections focusing on rock music culture, masculinities and popular music, women and popular music, and music, image and identity.

Each section begins with an introductory essay which contextualises the individual essays and situates them within the overall argument of the collection: that there is nothing 'natural', permanent or immovable about the regime of sexual difference which governs society and culture. Sexing the Groove also includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography for further reading and research into gender and popular music.

CONTENIDO:

List of contributors
Acknowledgements

Introduction, by Sheila Whiteley

Part I. Rock music culture
1. Sizing up record collections
- Gender and connoisseurship in rock music culture, by Will Straw
2. Men making a scene
- Rock music and the production of gender, by Sara Cohen
3. Women and the electric guitar, by Mavis Bayton
4. (R)evolution now?
- Rock and the political potential of gender, by Norma Coates

Part II. Masculinities and popular music
5. Little red rooster v. the Honky tonk woman
- Mick Jagger, sexuality, style and image, by Sheila Whiteley
6. Bruce Springsteen and masculinity, by Gareth Palmer
7. The Pet Shop Boys
- Musicology, masculinity and banality, by Stan Hawkins

Part III. A time of growth and change: Femininities and popular music
8. Can a Fujiyama mama be the female Elvis?
- The wild, wild women of rockabilli, by David Sanjek
9. Female identity and the woman songwriter, by Charlotte Greig
10. Sinéad O'Connor - Musical mother, by Keith Negus
11. Mannish girl
- K.d. Lang - from cowpunk to androgyny, by Stella Bruzzi
12. The missing links
- Riot grrrl - feminism - lesbian culture, by Mary Celeste Kearney
13. "Rebel girl, you are the queen of my world"
- Feminism, "subculture" and grrrl power, by Marion Leonard

Part IV. Music, image and identity
14. Seduced by the sign
- An analysis of the textual links between sound and image in pop videos, by Sheila Whiteley
15. Feeling and fun
- Romance, dance and the performing male body in the Take That videos, by Paul McDonald
16. Rolling and tumbling
- Digital erotics and the culture of narcissism, by Sean Cubitt

Part V. Annotated bibliography
17. Sources for futher reading and research

Index
Discography