Oh Boy Masculinities and Popular Music [Paperback]

From Muddy Waters to Mick Jagger, Elvis to Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley to Justin Timberlake, masculinity in popular music has been an issue explored by performers, critics, and audiences. From the dominance of the blues singer over his woman to the sensitive singer/songwriter, popular music artists have adopted various gendered personae in a search for new forms of expression. Sometimes these roles shift as the singer ages, attitudes change, or new challenges on the pop scene arise; other times, the persona hardens into a shell-like mask that the performer struggles to escape.

Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Musicis the first serious study of how forms of masculinity are negotiated, constructed, represented and addressed across a range of popular music texts and practices. Written by a group of internationally recognized popular music scholarsincluding Sheila Whiteley, Richard Middleton, and Judith Halberstamthese essays study the concept of masculinity in performance and appearance, and how both male and female artists have engaged with notions of masculinity in popular music.

Introduction  1. Which Freddie? Constructions of Masculinity in Freddie Mercury and Justin Hawkins  2. Negotiating Masculinity in an Indonesian Pop Song 3: Moshpit Menace and Masculine Mayhem  4. To See Their Fathers Eyes  5. Mums the Word  6. The Sing-song of Undead Labor  7. A Walking Open Wound  8. Dont Cry, Daddy  9. Queer Voices and Musical Genders  10. (Un)Justified  11. Not With You But Of You  12. Some Of Us Can Only Live In Songs Of Love and Trouble

Freya Jarman-Ivens and her fellow contributors offer a fresh and imaginative take on masculinity in popular music. This forward-looking book may well provide a model for future work in identity politics. --Kiera, Galway, Notes

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