MUS 503 Study Guide - Final Guide: Tegan And Sara, Teleology, Dixie Chicks
22 Oct 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
MUS 503 final exam notes
Week 7
Capitalism shapes our understanding of:
- Normative male and female behaviour
- Gendered divisions of labour
- Sexuality and sexual relationships
History of women in pop
- In blues and RnB: female agency enacted through songs that express sexual desire
- Women were singers not instrumentalists
- They often led their bands (Big Mama Thornton)
- They used RnB and blues to discuss forms of oppression
- Country: women not allowed to perform onstage without a man
o they had to sing about serving the man
- Later: challenges to women’s roles in the domestic sphere
o When women’s rights started coming to play their roles changed in society.
o It changed from serving a man to be a part of a romantic relationship
o Showed independence through song writing and collective performance
o Lyrics about domestic abuse instead of serving the man
Rock and Roll: principally a male genre
- Women felt left out since it was mostly a male populated genre
Girl Groups:
- Groups formed by girls or industry executives
- Not allowed to make decisions on
o Repertoire (plays dances or pieces to perform)
o Arranging and production
o Choreography
o Dress
o Performances
- Subject of songs were against female independence at the time
- Solo dances develop, giving girls a space of their own apart from men
- Men often the songwriters and producers behind these songs
o Assume the position of a teenage girl in love
How cock rock presentation of masculinity challenged as the 1970s unfold?
- Cock rock: male sexuality emphasis in rock
- Androgyny in rock:
o Gays, lesbians participating in rock music
o Glam rock (when males wear make up) gobbles up normative displays of femininity,
rendering them invisible
o They were reconceptualize by later performers
▪ Alice cooper
▪ Boy George
▪ Queen
▪ Suzi quatro
▪ Annie lennox
- Women in Rock
o Features few women
o About masculinity
o People who participated straight white males
o Discouraged female participation
o Women found it difficult to access technology, lessons and discourse of rock
- Heart (group name)
o Led by 2 sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson
o One of the first women to write and play their own rock songs
o Rotating group of side musicians
o Wrote “barracuda” in response to industry’s attempt to re-make them into a novelty act
o Assumption that their appeal rooted in physical attractiveness rather than musical
ability.
Listening: The Bangles
- “in your room”
- the magic that happens between two people behind closed doors.
- Conflates sexual connection with romantic love
- Shows equality between two people in the video
- No men on screen
Listening: Janet Jackson, Miss you Much
- Missing someone romantically
- Desire entirely in her control
- Jackson and dancers fully clothed
- Confident and in charge
Riot Grrrl
- Feminist movement in the early 1990’s tied to the third wave of feminism
- Third wave feminism: focused on female empowerment, reclaiming experiences and feelings of
girlhood.
- Activist movement than encouraged participation
- Prompted young women to start bands
- RG music was mostly hard rock and punk (rebellious)
o Genre spaces that were previously dominated by men.
Musical Characteristics of Riot Grrrl
- Heaviness: Thick textures and noise
- Instrumentation: electric guitar, bass, drums, voice
- Loud, yelling
- Harsh timbres
- Topics included were gender politics, women’s rights and sexual politics
Bikini Kill, “Rebel Girl”
Timbres: strained voices, crunch, noise, fuzz → all signal aggression and rejection of musical femininity
- Screeching and yelling
- Collective singing in the chorus, all on same pitch
Lilith Fair
- Founded by Sarah McLachlan in 1997
o Against suggestion that two women on one bill would not sell tickets
o “People won’t buy tickets to see two women on stage”
o They proved the norm wrong
o Played 35-55 shows per year
o Outsold all other NA touring festivals
- Problems with the Lilith Fair
o Represented a singular, limiting view of female musicians
▪ White
▪ Singer-songwriter
▪ Introspective and emotional
o Few rock musicians, other genres barely represented
o Few non-white artists
o Demonstrates that white women in the commercial market as singer songwriter, they
will do well in the market
Tracy Chapman
Fast Car
- About cyclical poverty and unemployment; escape
- Cycle suggested by repeating, unchanging guitar riff
- Vulnerability in voice: wavers and vibrato
- Opens with long stretch of strophes
Why did Lilith Fair have to be created in the first place?
- The tour created problems with the underrepresentation of women
o In large scales festivals
o Back to back on radio
o Assumption that female acts don’t sell
