Girls Rock : Fifty Years of Women Making Music

Title - Girls Rock : Fifty Years of Women Making Music
Author - Mina Julia Carson
ISBN - 0813123100
/Publication Date - 2004

Plot - The music industry for much of its existence has been a male dominated field.  When trying to come up with the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, only two women made the list.  And yet women have been an integral apart of the rock world for at least the last 50 years.  This book tries to rectify the discrepancy between what people think and how integral they have been a part of the scene.  The beginning of the book starts out trying to discuss the origins of the creativity of the women in the music scene.  As opposed to males, they were not trying to rebel against their family.  Frequently, women's families were integral to the development of their music.  Many of the women also began with learning a different instrument before they actually learned to play on the guitar.  The book then goes on to cover the issue of sexuality and race in the music industry.  Many of the Rhythm and Blues artists of the time were women.  And many of them had their starts playing gospel music.  But when they made it to the music scene they found that what people expected out of women was sex. 

Despite these expectations, women in the industry have found ways to deal with how men portray their sexuality and have found ways to take control of their musical careers and how they are portrayed.  They had to find ways to take control of the message.  Some of the women did this by coming out of the closet..  Others of them decided to make themselves blatantly sexual.  While others would decide to try to confuse sexuality by toning down the blatantly sexual images.  But with the rise of television, they had to fight the images that were imposed upon them.  MTV created world where musicians did not always have control over how they were viewed.

Finally, the book covered how women in rock had to survive and thrive in the industry.  The nature of music is that if you are going to last, you need to continue making successful music, worth people buying.  To last, a female musician must be as successful at selling their music as any man would.  Women need to find ways to connect with their fans in order for them to have any sustainability.  Current technology has aided them a lot in this endeavor, as many are taking to the Internet to keep an active conversation going with the people who purchase their music.

Critical Review - Girls Rock, told by Mina Carson, develops an interesting look at the music scene from a feminine perspective.  Mina Carson would probably argue that it was really a feminist perspective, as the thrust of the book is to tell how women have succeeded in rock, and much of that was due to a rise in the power of women.  Rock, according to Carson, was a vehicle whereby women could assert some sort of power in society.  Of course much of this power was muddled with other complications like how people viewed the musicians themselves.

While an interesting study of the music is going on, I feel that Carson sometimes gets lost in the sexualization of the music and the people.  Maybe the fault of this is that she is trying to discuss things from a woman's perspective, and from the beginning that is complicated by notions of sex.  But as she decried at the beginning of the novel that women guitarists are not as well regarded as their male counterparts, this might be because people end up focusing on the sex of the women, and not the music that they produce.  I think it might have been a more interesting examination if she had spent more time discussing the musical background and talents of the artists, and not their sex, whether that be a physical attribute, or their sexual orientation.

Reader's Annotation - While Girl power seems to have permeated the culture in all sorts of areas, sometimes society seems to forget one thing  Girls Rock!  And they rock as well as any man might do.

About the Author - Carson's beginnings started with her being a musician.  She spent a great deal of her time playing guitar from the time she was in junior high school.  She has been interested in music and its history from those early beginnings.

This would take her into research about social movements throughout history.  From which she has had an interest in progressive politics, the women's movement and gay and lesbian movements that have happened in society.  It is with this rich cultural background and appreciation for music that she approached her project for Girls Rock!

Genre - Music

Curriculum Ties - Discuss the representation of Women in the music industry.  How might ideas of women effect how we view them as musicians?  - Psychology, Social Science

Booktalking Ideas - Discuss some of the successful female artists who are out there.  How do we remember them?

Reading Level - Grade 9+

Challenge Issues - Some parents might complain about the excessive content about sexual orientation, and sex that permeates a good deal of the book.

Overcoming Challenges - Make sure to compare some of the male musicians with the female ones.  Discuss the balanced portrayal the novel gives that relates to women.  As the women in the music scene are influenced by their families as much as anything else.

Why Included - Girl power is such a prevalent thing now that I wanted to read something that seemed to have a bit of that resonating in what I was reading.

Everybody Hurts : An Essential Guide to Emo Culture

Title - Everybody Hurts : An Essential Guide to Emo Culture
Author - Leslie Simon
ISBN - 9780061195396
Publication Date - 2007

Plot -  This is a loving tribute, or possibly a satire, to all things Emo.  For the teenage set, this would be a book written to see if one fits into a particular type of subculture, while for the older set trying to explain whether or not the people they know would fit into this sub-culture. Emo, according to the book, is not just a style of "emotional" music that developed in the 80s and really took flight in the mid to late 90s.  Emo is a whole entire lifestyle.  It is characterized by several important qualities.  The first is depression.  Misery loves company as the author puts it, and depression has driven this subculture together to form a unique bond. The second aspect is Effort(lessness).  This requires a great deal of effort to look like one doesn't care about themselves.  Then there is Empathy, or deep feeling of another person's pain.  We move onto faith, which is a firm belief in whatever an Emo person believes, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.  Then there is Insecurity, or the realization that someone somewhere is having it better than you are.  And the final rule of the Emo subculture is non-athleticism.  One should not, must not be caught dead doing anything that would include the word exercise in it.  While the entire book exists in this tongue in cheek style, there is a method to the madness of the author, who is trying to appreciate the people of the scene (as they consider themselves to be of this scene), while having a level of self-depreciation at the same time.  They are paying homage to what it means to be Emo.

Book Review - While the style of this book is firmly tongue-in-cheek, it is a fascinating read about all things emo.  It has a list of people and whether or not they fit into the Emo subculture and why: selecting John Mayer as completely un-emo while Kelly Clarkson maybe considered slightly emo.  It directs one's attention to one of the largest methods of emo communication at the release of this book, MySpace.  While most think of this as a social networking site, it is appropriate that it was so popular among the emo culture that in that it allowed exposure to a lot of lesser known bands that people could connect with.  While music is not all of emo subculture, it is an essential part of it.  I was even taken a back about the listing of "porn" sites that are considered emo.  While this may get the censors out in mass, certainly the self-depreciating humor about it all will alleviate some of the vociferousness involved in any attempt to censor the material.  Overall this book is a useful manual to all things emo, and should be a welcome read for anyone who wants to know if they too might be emo.

Reader's Annotation - Sad? Depressed? Wanting to cry when things go wrong? You don't have to worry about whether you fit into someone else's mold of who you are.  You just might be emo.

About the Author - Primarily into the indie music scene Leslie Simon has written a couple of different efforts covering the indie music scene and its various incarnations.  She lives in Los Angeles where, according to her bio, she hunts down Zack Galifianakis trying to make sure that she marries him, or gets a restraining order placed against her, whichever may come first.  It is this self depreciating wit that infects much of her writing.

Genre- Teen Non-Fiction

Curriculum Ties - A class could discuss satire and comedy in Literature.

Booktalking Ideas - Have people discuss the music that they listen to and see if they qualify for being emo.  Follow the pattern of the book and try to describe other music fads and see where everyone might fit.

Reading Level/Interest Age - Grade 9+

Challenge Issues - Buried in the book there is a section on emo pornography.  While I had heard about one of these sites before because Showtime had run a special on it, I am certain that parents might complain if they knew about this particular content.

Overcoming Challenge - There are only two ways I can see of overcoming this challenge.  One is to focus on the comedy and tongue in cheek nature of the writing, as it elicits a kind of humorous response about having a porn emo site, and hope parents anger is somewhat abated.  The other is to be willing to interfile it with the rest of the non-fiction making it not so readily available and considered specifically for teens, even if teens might take the most interest in it.

Why Included -  While I am way too old to be considered emo, much of the emo subculture started around when I was growing up.  Many of the large influences to the emo music scene were among my favorite bands, like The Smiths and The Cure.  I also wanted to have something specifically non-fiction and yet directed at a teenage audience.

I Don't Need a Record Deal! : Your Survival Guide for the Indie Music Revolution

Title - I Don't Need a Record Deal! : Your Survival Guide for the Indie Music Revolution
Author - Daylle Schwartz
ISBN - 0823079481
Publication Date - 2005

Plot -  Furthering on my trend in music, Daylle Schwartz's book I Don't Need a Record Deal! gives an insiders view of the music industry, helping to allow artists to navigate the murky waters of being independent.  She begins the book discussing the nature of the music industry as it sits today.  She describes that the industry is not back in the 1950s where you had to pay to get play on the radio for any artist you were trying to promote.  Big record companies no longer can control what gets put out on the airwaves.  This is not to say that they do not have some major advantages.  But there are also some distinct disadvantages, such as not controlling your own career.  The rest of the book is used to discuss how one can control their own career.

Controlling your career in the music industry, according to Schwartz, is not as difficult as it may see, although requires a lot of time and effort put into it.  Some of the major themes involved in the book, aside from convincing you that maybe going the "indie" route is the way to go, include finding a following.  This means going out and playing as many shows as you can, even for free, so that you can get exposure.  Finding a promoter or a publicist, if you have the money to do so, as they can help you navigate the waters of getting gigs and getting on the radio.  You have to develop relationships in the industry.  This does not just mean making relationships with the large organizations or club owners.  Sometimes this can mean making relationships with some of the bands that one would play with on stage.  Schwartz suggests that by doing that you might find yourself invited to more shows, which can never hurt when trying to make a name for yourself in this route.  Every ounce of exposure leads to more opportunities

Finally, if there were one thing that Schwartz were trying to convey, is that you have to have fun with the whole process.  Yes, it can be frustrating at times. And it certainly can be a lot of work.  But the whole point of choosing to go the "indie" route is to have control of your own destiny.  A person choosing this path does so because they want to have control over the music that they produce, and to reap the profits of the items that they create.  And ultimately it means that they have ownership of the stuff that they produce, not having some record label taking it away from them for the whole of their life. 

Critical Review - While I think this is a fairly easy read, covering over the same material time and time again, I am not sure that this isn't the best method of reaching the audience you are trying to.  Many kids in high school are starting up bands for the first time, trying to find their niche in the music world.  Much of the music world promotes the dream that one gets signed to a big record label deal and then all of their dreams magically come true.  This book tries to dispel that notion, while at the same time trying to encourage the young artists to keep plugging away at their music, and enjoy the possibilities that are out there for them.  I think the dangerous territory in the book happens when the Schwartz tries to make analogies between relationships and record labels.  Simply stating that when one is not working out for you, its best not to be in it.  As a result of feeling that this is an oversimplification of what is going on in relationships, it makes me less likely to be trustworthy that they fully understand what the workings are of the record industry.  Despite this lapse into dangerous territory, I love the fact that the work cites so many different sources in the music industry for its knowledge about all things "indie."  Its almost a ridiculous list of artists, but it lends credence to the notion that maybe getting involved with the independent music scene is the way to go.

Reader's Annotation- Why have your work sucked away from you by someone who doesn't care?  Why go to the trouble of producing art when the moment it is produced, it is no longer your own?  What is so dreamy about working for "the man?"  Daylle Schwartz suggests another route in I Don't Need a Record Deal! Maybe some deals aren't worth the price you pay for them.

About the Author- Daylle Deanna Schwartz became a product of her environment.  As a child she was always pushed upon to do the right thing, what everyone expected her to do. By the time she was 20 this lead her to marriage and into a teaching career, not really what she wanted in her life.  She found that she was always being pushed around in relationships, and eventually she would begin to push back.  Beginning with the dissolution of her marriage, she decided she was never going to be anyone's doormat again.

From encouraging students, she decided to venture out into the music scene, trying to show them that anyone could be capable of anything.  She attempted to be the only female white rapper on the market.  Amazingly some record label picked her up, but promptly stole all the work that she did.  She decided to exact revenge in a kind of way, by creating her own label, contrary to what her students would have done, which is to get someone to hurt the people who hurt her.  Ironically she would call the name of the label, Revenge Records, and she ran it successfully for five years.

This has lead her to further endeavors about speaking about relationships, as she believes the music industry and relationships are not incompatible topics.  To be in the music industry one needs to build relationships.  And so she has tried to use her skills in one to help people in both fields.  Out of which she developed the book about the independent music scene and how one could be successful in it.

Genre - Non-Fiction, Music

Curriculum Ties - Try to draw up your resume of things that you are good at and have accomplished. - Careers Class; Discuss the analogy of the music industry to relationships - Literature

Booktalking Ideas - Create a list of people that you can network with.  Play a game of six degrees of separation with people.  See how many degrees you are from someone famous.

Reading Level/Interest Age - Grade 10+

Challenge Issues - None

Why Included -  I am making a bit of a music themed area of my non-fiction section.  This is partly because I enjoy music, and partly because the library I work for has an extensive music selection, of which this found itself in the teen section of the library.