Week One: Introduction

As a journalism student here at DU, it’s often assumed that I want to write about politics and hard news, but that’s hardly the case. The truth is I want to be able to write about music and various music scenes within the community as well as on a national basis. As a niche of my writing, I’ve always been interested in female musicians and female bands and their specific niche within the music industry, including the type of music they make and the roles they portray as a part of the dominantly male music industry. Simply put, this class fits into everything I’d like to do with my career as a journalist.

As Whitely points out, women remain the minority in the music industry as whole even behind the scenes, which is something I had no previous knowledge of. It’s not a surprising statistic, however, considering the glass ceiling that women face in all other realms of corporate America. Also, since music has traditionally been a male dominated industry, it makes sense that women would not be accepted openly, such as in other realms such as the sciences.

Whitely also quotes Lucy O’Brien, who states, “women don’t buy music. They internalize and use music differently than men... (And) although pop’s biggest market is teenage girls, by the time they reach their twenties, this interest significantly declines.” I think this falls in line with the place of women regarding the music industry, as a temporary fixture in the lives of the female population. Music is highly influential to young girls, but their participation is only temporary in that they only fit into the music model until they leave their teenage years and are no longer targeted by music experts. This leads to the adoption of the music presented to them by their husbands and boyfriends, as Whitely suggests. If this is true, however, then why is this audience not being targeted since they are apparently open to being targeted but no longer fit into that market?

When it comes to gender bending of glam rock, Auslander states, “Arguably, glam rock was the first fully developed post-countercultural genre of rock music,” and what turned the sexual revolution 60s into the more conservative 70s. Genres such as glam rock, however, distort that vision of conservatism in the 70s as men approached female performance tactics and clothing as part of their performance persona. The sexual openness and removal of taboo in the 60s then led to the (at least somewhat) acceptance of the gender bending that artists such as David Bowie undertook throughout their performances.