Rock She Wrote

Rating:
Summary: It's girls vs. boys in the rock boxing ring
Review: This anthology represents more than 25 years of women demanding their props in the pop music arena. Collected here for the first time by Evelyn McDonald and Ann Powers, these essays demonstrate the talent, insight, and innovation that women have brought to a playing field already trampled to smithereens by legions of boys, boys, and more boys.

Contributions from performing artists like Patti Smith, Donna Dresch, Marianne Faithfull, and Cherie Currie provide snapshots of the very act of being female in the music industry. Sharp commentaries by journalists including Gina Arnold, the late Lori Twersky, Mim Udtovitch, Jaan Uhelszki, Deborah Frost, Lisa Jones, and bell hooks analyze the pop genre as it relates to both sexes, and in some cases skewer the men who have owned it waaaaaay too long.

I really enjoyed this book, and you will too. The only real issue I had was the editors insisting on identifying Patricia Kennealy-Morrison by referencing her 1970 Wiccan marriage to Jim Morrison. Can you say "Mrs. Mojo Risin'?" Oh well. I guess you can't have everything.

Rating:
Summary: Write on, sisters!
Review: This is a fantastic anthology of feminist music criticism. With plenty of variety, information and verbosity, this 500-page tome is a veritable feast of wit.

Spanning the last few decades and mainly American-based, Rock She Wrote reveals the polemic and visionary deliberations of a host of women, including New York journalist Ellen Willis, who was stimulated by New Journalism and Critical Theory in the late 60's. And just as you'll never get bored hearing how Patti Smith "f--ked with form", or how women are ghettoised within the industry, neither is it tiring to rediscover the roots of Riot Grrrl as defined by Sassy magazine.

From the radical rhetoric of San Francisco's Tribe-8 to Kim Gordon's Sonic Youth tour diary, to Courtney Love being interviewed by Pamela Des Barres, to Susan Brownmiller's Rolling Stone piece on the vilification of Yoko Ono, to bell hoks' attack on Madonna, it's an all-encompassing read.

Rating:
Summary: Write on, sisters!
Review: This is a fantastic anthology of feminist music criticism. With plenty of variety, information and verbosity, this 500-page tome is a veritable feast of wit.

Spanning the last few decades and mainly American-based, Rock She Wrote reveals the polemic and visionary deliberations of a host of women, including New York journalist Ellen Willis, who was stimulated by New Journalism and Critical Theory in the late 60's. And just as you'll never get bored hearing how Patti Smith "f--ked with form", or how women are ghettoised within the industry, neither is it tiring to rediscover the roots of Riot Grrrl as defined by Sassy magazine.

From the radical rhetoric of San Francisco's Tribe-8 to Kim Gordon's Sonic Youth tour diary, to Courtney Love being interviewed by Pamela Des Barres, to Susan Brownmiller's Rolling Stone piece on the vilification of Yoko Ono, to bell hoks' attack on Madonna, it's an all-encompassing read.