1st Edition

'Rock On': Women, Ageing and Popular Music

Edited By Ros Jennings, Abigail Gardner Copyright 2012
186 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

186 Pages
by Routledge

For female pop stars, whose star bodies and star performances are undisputedly the objects of a sexualized external gaze, the process of ageing in public poses particular challenges. Taking a broadly feminist perspective, 'Rock On': women, ageing and popular music shifts popular music studies in a new direction. Focussing on British, American and Latina women performers and ageing, the collection... Read more
Contents: Introduction: women, ageing and popular music, Ros Jennings and Abigail Gardner; Part I 'Renewal, Recycling and Renegotiation': Madonna: like a crone, Lucy O’Brien; It’s all just a little bit of history repeating: pop-stars, audiences, performance and ageing - exploring the performance strategies of Shirley Bassey and Petula Clark, Ros Jennings; Long live the Queen!: Celia Cruz’s longevity as a counterpoint of tradition and change, Delia Poey; Framing Grace: shock and awe at the ageless black body, Abigail Gardner. Part II 'It’s Not Over...': Mom rock? Media representations of ’mothers who rock’, Norma Coates; 27 for ever: Kristen Pfaff and the coverage of death as the re-presentation of a gendered musical life, Paula Hearsum; ’I’d stage-dive, but I’m far too elderly’: Courtney Love and expectations of femininity and ageing, Catherine Strong; Rebel without a pause: the continuity of controversy in Madonna’s contemporary music videos, Paul Watson and Diane Railton; Bibliography; Index.

Biography

Abigail Gardner, Ros Jennings

'... female performers are often marginalised in music literature and this is especially so of older female performers. Academic work which highlights their lives and experiences is vital.' The F-Word 'Timely and pertinent, the collection successfully opens up a space where the ageing female body traverses musical discourses of identity and subjectivity, always and already marked by gender, sexuality and ethnicity'. Popular Music