Part I
Voice and Agency
Chapter 1
Since the inception of rock culture, the easiest route in for a woman has been as a groupie, or an adjunct to male musicians. Despite this, girls and women create bands, carving out spaces of solidarity, shared power and collective authorship. This chapter explores the history of all girl rock bands, outlining how the dynamics of band formation intersect with second and third wave feminism. Analyzing interviews with musicians and fans, memoirs by female artists, and drawing from her own experiences in an all girls band, OâBrien argues that these bands exhibited feminist approaches to music making that established a solid foundation for contemporary girl bands to flourish. Chapters 2, 3, and 9 continue this discussion of the creativity, activism, and resilience of women and girls in popular music culture.
Chapter 2
While gender and musical performance are examined relatively frequently in academic discourse, little attention has been paid to women working âbehind the scenesâ of the music industry. Women in these particularly sex-segregated occupations have to negotiate being labeled a âgirlâ while they work among âthe boys.â Using interviews with women inside industry, this chapter illuminates how women are positioned and position themselves to operate with respect to the gendered rhetoric of the workplace. As exhibited in Chapters 4, 5, and 10, the barriers to entry can be steep for women and girls in these musical worlds.
Chapter 3
How do pop musicians define, energize, and enable girl activism? This chapter explores the contradictory ways girl activists understand and talk about female performers who inspire them to raise their voices. Girlsâ polyphonic identifications with artists remind us that thereâs no one way to listen for or enact feminism in music. Girls make sense of the tensions they see and hear as pop musicians navigate mainstream success and authenticity, a topic explored in Chapter 9 as well. Girl activists develop systems of their own to evaluate performers that may conflict with critical reception (see Chapter 4), and must come to terms with ways their favorite female artists occasionally make patriarchal bargains to gain visibility (see also Chapters 9, 10, and 12).
1 Iâm with the Band
Redefining Young Feminism
Lucy OâBrien
âIt was really different to anything else Iâve been to. There were lots of younger teenage girls up front, and we were all in the mosh pit. One girl had a quote from Courtney Love on her back, and another one from Paris who started a conversation. A 17-year-old girl crashed into me and I didnât mind. It was a really good atmosphere,â says Ilona Pope, a 15-year-old music fan who went to see Babes in Toyland play the 02 in West London as part of their reunion tour.1 She went with her mother, Beth Sather, who lived in Portland, Oregon, when the first wave of riot grrrl and grunge hit the U.S. âThis wasnât a typical nostalgia gig,â says Sather. âIt was strong and active. At recent Mudhoney gigs there were signs up saying âNo Crowdsurfingâ but Babes in Toyland are still really authentic.â2
The return of the â90s Minneapolis female punk trio coincides with a new wave of girl bands. Many suggest that the prominence of female solo artists on the festival circuitâfrom Patti Smith to Florence Welch and FKA Twigsâsuggests a healthy indicator of twenty-first century feminism. However, while top stars have made headlines in the last fifteen years with passionate gestures and key albums, whether itâs Bjork, PJ Harvey, or MIA, much interesting current feminist work is being done in girl bands. I would define girl bands as groups of young female musicians who share songwriting and performing duties among themselves, and present an image of collectivity. Girl bands are distinct from girl groups; the latter term refers to female vocal groups who project an image of popular teen girl culture. Mitchell and Reid-Walshâs definition of girlhood is useful here, as one that is associated with the domesticated space of the bedroom and social practices linked to beauty, make-up, and shopping. This culture is different from the social world of boys, which is more likely to be in outside spaces and the âstreet corner.â
Girl groups from the Supremes and the Spice Girls to Little Mix and The Saturdays embody the âdigital bedroomâ space of girl culture, whereas girl bands (traditionally competing in more male environments), from The Runaways and Girlschool to Skating Polly, are more identified with the freedom and rebelliousness of boy culture. The word âgirlâ in this context is associated with youth and the period between late childhood and adulthood, though as Mitchell and Reid-Walsh argue, women in their 20s, 30s, and beyond enjoy and engage with the social practices of a constructed girlhood.
I would argue girl bands are a key source of feminist empowerment in popular music. Whether or not they are conscious feminists (and many want to be taken seriously as musicians, regardless of gender politics), girl bands operate like mini feminist collectives, with the emphasis on equality and the sense of a creative space that is separate from men. One of the fundamentals of second-wave feminism was this nurturing of a separate space for consciousness raising, campaigning, and building confidence. Although many young feminists are critical of the emphasis on white middle-class women in second-wave feminism, they are still inspired by their ideals of collective activism.
In their interviews with female musicians, Bayton, Reddington, and OâBrien et al. cite how women often write music in a way that is more cooperative and democratic than hierarchical. It is important not to idealize the processâtensions and competitiveness arise in female as well as male bandsâbut many speak of a supportive environment in making music with other women. âWe wanted to have more ownership and found our own way to do it,â3 says Miki Berenyi, who teamed up with Emma Anderson in the late â80s to form Lush. âIâd never played with other girls before. Itâs a lot less about egos. Guys are âme, me, me,ââ says Marion Andrau from indie girl band The Wharves. âGirls arenât judging you on what you play.â4
No wonder Beyoncé likes to underline her point about female liberation by always performing with her ten-piece band the Sugar Mamas. I remember my first gig at the age of 17 with the all-girl punk band The Catholic Girls. Standing on stage in front of an expectant crowd was the scariest thing I had experienced, but we managed to perform three songs and create an impact. It was like taking a skydive; it made me fearless and it set the template for the rest of my life. In terms of confidence-building, being in a girl band at that age should be a national requirement.
The band is a crucible for female activism. In his book How Music Works, David Byrne lays out the nuts and bolts of collaborative music-making. A band should be tight, i.e., âIt doesnât mean that everyone plays exactly to the beat ⊠it means that everyone plays together.â5 A band learns about baton-passing: âThe learning, the baton-passing, happens on the bandstandâone has to play with others, to learn by watching and imitating.â6 The band is multidisciplinary, ideas are passed back and forth, and there is authorship as a group, with members working as a team. Even supreme solo artist Madonna recognizes the importance of being in a band. âBeing part of a band teaches you about musicality. Thereâs no better way to understand about arrangements. How to create a song, how to perform,â she told Mojo. âIâm so lucky that I had all of those years playing in bands as an unknown musician, as an unknown singer, to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. To me, those early days were so essential to building me as an artist.â7
Last, the band creates and participates in a wider cultural network. This is evident from the early 1960s, when beat girl band Goldie & The Gingerbreads were part of the emerging rock ânâ roll scene, touring with The Rolling Stones, The Animals, and The Yardbirds. Their first hit single in the U.K., âCan You Hear My Heartbeat,â was produced by Animals keyboardist Alan Price, who said that Margot Lewisâs organ playing was so good it made him want to go out and get drunk.8 Then in the 1980s, along with Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead, Girlschool was part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. By 2015 Girlschool was the longest-running female rock band and a major influence on young male musicians as well as all-girl bands like The Donnas and, latterly, The Kut. Apart from their work ethic, what binds the members of Girlschool together is their enduring friendship and a shared musical community. âWe understand each other in the studio and on stage ⊠weâre really good friends still, and we hang out together a lot,â said guitarist Jackie Chambers.9
So musical cohesion, friendship, and teamworkâwhether itâs experienced as a short burst like The Runaways or over decades like Girlschoolâare all great skills to have in learning the foundations of sisterhood, solidarity, feminine agency, and sharing power.
There are currently two strands in music and media shaping a dynamic new girl band culture. First, an expanding body of written work in the form of memoir and biography, where older female artists like Viv Albertine, Cherie Currie, Tracey Thorn, Kim Gordon, and Alice Bag are reflecting on their practice and telling their stories of the music business. This forms part of a widening critical context for a young teenage generation of girl bands like Girlpool, Baby in Vain, Trashkit, Skinny Girl Diet, The Wharves, Dolls, Chastity Belt, The Kut, and Skating Polly, who are advancing in a variety of genres and voices. Many of the current female musicians have feminist mothers who are music fans or in bands, thus building on a culture that, like womenâs football, is set to rival the male canon. These feminist-raised feminists are part of a diverse, inclusive third-wave feminism that engages with queer theory and the ambiguities of women in pornography and sex work. The new wave of bands feel less limited by the perceived certainties of second-wave feminism. Baby in Vain, for example, sees no contradiction between looking pretty and playing powerful rock ânâ roll guitar.
This chapter looks first at the contribution of the original 1970s punk and 1990s riot grrrl generation to this conversation, and the issues highlighted in popular music studies, analyzing the obstacles faced by female musicians. I will then examine how this testimony is being changed or challenged by the new generation, arguing that teenage girls are using feminist history in words and music to articulate their experience with greater confidence than ever before.
Testimony: Confessions of a Musician
In 1987 Pamela Des Barres published Iâm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, a book about her sexual adventures in the 1960s. For decades the clearest route for women into rock ânâ roll has been as a groupie or adjunct to a male musician. Female bands were considered a novelty and not worthy of long-term record company investment. And as Sara Cohen wrote in âMen Making a Sceneâ male music networks were created that actively excluded women.10
As a result of this marginalization, female musicians...