The rock revolution was often connected with male performers and masculine energy; as critics of gender and rock have noted, “rock’n’roll in excelsis… [is] male ferocity, resentment, [and] virulence” …as rock was the aesthetic of masculine energy in the 1960s, the French Revolution expressed its aesthetic energy in Romanticism, which dominated art, literature, and musicContinue reading ““Our Generation”: Gender, Regeneration and Women in Rock”
Monthly Archives: January 2023
“A Woman with an Attitude”: Male and Female Gothic and Siouxsie and the Banshees
Notably, the [1976 Thames Television interview with the Sex Pistols] also showcases Siouxsie’s measured response, one that encapsulates what her life and music has always been about — a challenge to patriarchal structures through measured control mixed with playful dismissiveness. Diana Edelman, Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism, p. 123 Diana Edelman contributed chapter 6Continue reading ““A Woman with an Attitude”: Male and Female Gothic and Siouxsie and the Banshees”
“There Is No Pure Evil, Nor Pure Good, Only Purity”: William Blake’s and Patti Smith’s Art as Opposition to Societal Boundaries
Patti Smith’s Blakean influence deviates from the infamous excess that has come to define rock; rather, Smith presents the alternative, individualized responses to Romanticism that illuminate the spirituality present in rock singers. . . This chapter investigates the connections between Smith and Blake and thus hopes to remind readers that female artists should be discussedContinue reading ““There Is No Pure Evil, Nor Pure Good, Only Purity”: William Blake’s and Patti Smith’s Art as Opposition to Societal Boundaries”
“All Romantics Meet the Same Fate Someday”: Joni Mitchell, Blue, and Romanticism
“The Last Time I Saw Richard”. . . is a Romantic tour-de-force with respect to lyrics, composition, and performance. In the folk song tradition, Mitchell sings to her own musical accompaniment, and there is no other instrument playing in the recording; yet, the melodic and harmonic complexity of the song makes for a performance farContinue reading ““All Romantics Meet the Same Fate Someday”: Joni Mitchell, Blue, and Romanticism”
“Work Me, Lord”: Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues
Like the more traditional blues before her, Joplin’s soulful white blues, her “kozmic blues,” is similar to Romantic poetry, as it is charged with radical praxis; it is an unwaveringly personal music that conveys much about Joplin emotionally, and in turn, the sociocultural climate of the flower children in the mid- to late-1960s. The radicalContinue reading ““Work Me, Lord”: Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues”
The Philosophy of Contemporary Song 