Classic Rock

Lucy O’Brien

She-Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Popular Music JAWBONE

- David Quantick

A book that lives up to its bold-claim title.

The history of women in rock and other forms of music has often been a sidebar to the allegedly more exciting world of men in rock (now there’s a book that would be made almost entirely of sweat), and when dealt with in detail has often been confined to specialist areas like jazz and blues. That's not the case with She-Bop. The 'Definitive History' subtitle of this volume would be quite a claim were this the work of a lesser writer, but Lucy O’Brien’s book (updated for its twenty-fifth anniversar­y) lives up to it – and then some.

Its interviewe­es alone – all 250 of them, from Chrissie Hynde to Dusty Springfiel­d, from blues singers to Riot Grrls – would make it a labour of brilliance, but it’s O’Brien’s ability to sift through the tragedy, the misogyny and the grimness of the music industry’s treatment of female talent, and her cleareyed conclusion­s, that make it a classic. She may quote Suzanne Vega – “Female artists are rarely encouraged to pursue greatness” – but O’Brien explains, brilliantl­y, how women have “learned to use music to describe, define, and give meaning to their life”, and in nearly 500 well-researched and superbly argued pages she details exactly how that has happened, from the blues brilliance of Bessie Smith and the very different Billie Holiday to modern artists like Lizzo and Lana Del Rey.

An essential music book for anyone who can read or think. ■■■■■■■■■■

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom