Sex and Gender in Pop/Rock Music: The Blues Through the Beatles to Beyoncé

Description

Following the 1960's sexual revolution, rock and pop have continued to map the societal understanding of sexuality, feminism, and gender studies. Although scholarship has well established how early rock and roll encouraged and affected issues of sex in the baby boomer generation, this book asks how subsequent pop music has maintained that tradition. The text discusses the gendered performances and biographical experiences of individual musicians, including Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Etta James, and Frank Ocean, and how their invented personae contribute to musical representations of sexuality. It evaluates lyric structure and symbolic language of these artists, and overall emphasizes how pop music, while a commodity art form, reflects the diversity of human sex and gender. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Illustrations Preface with Acknowledgments Introduction: Means of Expression and Reception in Poetic Texts Chapter 1: The Musical Expression of Identity in Terms of Biological Sex: The Self in Physiology and Psychology Chapter 2: Gendered Identity Chapter 3: Sexuality: Sexual Orientation Chapter 4: Pop/Rock Erotics Chapter 5: A Brainiac Amour: Command, Surrender, and Improvisation in Patti Smith’s “Land” Sources Cited Subject Index Index of Names and Titles