Glitter up the dark : how pop music broke the binary Cover Image

Book

Glitter up the dark : how pop music broke the binary

Summary: "Is our love of pop music innately queer? That's the question Sasha Geffen answers--with a "yes," of course--in this book. Beginning with the Beatles and moving to the present, Geffen identifies artists of all stripes who performed "outside the limitations of their assigned genders." This includes not only trans artists like Wendy Carlos, or openly gender-bending artists like David Bowie and Prince, but ostensibly cis and hetero artists whose work and performance complicate the binary. This musical androgyny, they argue, is the result of different factors at different points in the timeline, but the flexibility of the human voice in pop music emerges as the most consistent form of expression. Geffen continues right up to the present, covering the origins of House and disco in gay clubs and the utopia of the dance floor, the genderless technology of hip-hop and artists like Missy Elliott who embody masculine virtues." --

Record details

ISBN: 9781477318782
ISBN: 147731878X
ISBN: 9781477320839
ISBN: 9781477320846
Physical Description: print
viii, 254 pages ; 22 cm.
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, 2020.
Copyright: ©2020

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction : An alternate ribbon of time -- 1. Screaming the Beatles : The first boy band breaks the gender mold -- 2. Oh! You pretty things : The glitter revolution -- 3. Whining Is gender neutral : Punk's adolescent escapism -- 4. Wreckers of civilization : Post-punk, Goth, and industrial -- 5. Soft machines : Women, cyborgs, and electronic music -- 6. Not a woman, not a man : Prince's Sapphic androgyny -- 7. The fake makes it real : Synthpop and MTV -- 8. Infinite Utopia : Queer time in disco and house -- 9. Funky cyborgs : Time, technology, and gender in hip-hop -- 10. Butch throats : Women's music and riot grrrl -- 11. God is gay : The grunge eruption -- 12. No shape : The formless Internet -- Coda : Whole new world.