mariannepop

[mariannepop]

Should you go to concerts on your own?

I had a conversation with a friend last week where we discussed this subject. 

The discussion started because Renaud released a new album. And being a big fan of Renaud I absolutely want to see him at least once in concert (even if his evolution and last album were disappointing to say the least). Last time he was on tour I didn’t go because none of my friends like him, so I would have been alone at the concert. 

When I told this friend, two years ago, she swore she would come with me if he went on tour again.

Well the album is out, there will probably be a tour, but… 

I’ve never been to a concert alone. I like sharing that experience with my friends. Also I don’t really enjoy being alone in a crowd, it stresses me out and being with someone I trust takes away the anxiety. 

I think it’s best to have someone with you, even just to talk about it afterwards. 

To me going to a concert is not just getting to a venue and listening to someone on stage for a few hours. It’s a social activity, you share an experience, you create memories with the other people there. And being able to talk about it after is also very important to me. 

She, on the other side, argues that going alone can be nice sometimes. Like going to the movies alone, it’s a special moment for you. 

I also read this article that emphasizes the fact that you can meet new people and be free of a possible judgment from your friends. 

I would argue that if your friends are judging you for being emotional, or for your poor singing skills, are they really your friends? But it’s not the subject. 

And also it’s part of the experience, isn’t it? You cry a little, your friend notices it, you laugh about it together afterwards. 

So yeah, what do you think? Do you usually go to concert alone? Do you prefer sharing the experience with someone else? 

[mariannepop]

Memories

Let’s talk about one of my favorite band. Well Queen (peep the tattoo on my wrist) is my favorite band but this one is close second. 

AC/DC. 

You obviously know them, if not for the music just thanks to the cheap H&M merch. 

They are a hard rock band, formed in 1973. They’re still active, they were on tour only a  couple years ago. 

They’re considered to be the pioneer of hard rock even if they usually qualify their music as being ‘rock’n’roll’. 

The original singer, Bon Scott, died in 1980. And was replaced by the iconic Brian Johnson. 

I must admit my favorite albums are from the beginning of their career, before Johnson became the lead singer, but it has nothing to do with his performance. 

I’m talking about them to talk about how you associate songs and memories. 

Yes, many of us already talked about this subject but… I don’t have any argument except the fact that it’s the subject I wanted to write on this week. 

The first actual physical CD I ever bought was Highway To Hell back in middle school. Not because I already liked it, but because it was on sale. 

And from that point, I listened to the album on repeat for years. I never grew tired of it. And so the songs of this album act like a time machine to 2012. 

I have specific memories associated with some songs, be they good or bad. 

It had such an impact on me and on my day to day life, that to this day I know by heart the lyrics of all the songs. 

Back in Black (the first album with Johnson), played a role a little later in my life. I study listening to music, it’s always been the case and I believe will always be. And for my first year of LLCE, I listened exclusively to Back in Black. So much so that when I hear Shoot to Thrill (link), I still see the list of the different reigns of English monarchs. 

T.N.T is my go-to album when I’m driving alone. I cannot hear the song T.N.T (link) without imagining myself on the highway. Strangely it’s not Highway to Hell that has this effect on me. 

And I will never be able to listen to Ride On (link) without thinking about my driving instructor who did the ultimate elitist move asking if I knew this song, because if I didn’t 'I wasn’t a real fan, just a girl trying to imitate the real ones for attention’

On other artists, or songs that have specific memories attached to them, I have Rammstein’s Live aus Berlin that is forever associated with the first year of high school. And Honey Honey by ABBA for that one specific day when I was still in PACES and started to wonder if I should just… change field and do something I was actually interested in. 

I find it interesting to see how some song have an impact on us and stick to certain memories. How they are associated to a certain day, a certain voice, or a certain period. We live our lives with music, mostly without thinking about it, just as a background for other things. But sometimes the music sticks out. 

On that note let me leave you with a list of AC/DC songs (in no particular order): 

If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)

Love Hungry Man 

What Do You Do For Money Honey

Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution 

Rock or Bust 

Meltdown

Hold Me Back  (but tbh the entire Stiff upper Lip album is gold) 

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (the album with this name is my favorite from the band so…) 

Squealer

Can I Seat Next To You Girl

[mariannepop]

New discoveries

After your feedback concerning my presentation, I spent a good amount of time trying to find a more precise way of studying the representation of women. And I did find one in the end, which would allow me to still talk about most of the things I worked on.

But then, I realized I had no subject to talk about for this week. 

So welcome to this post about the recent songs/ albums/ artists I discovered and want to present to you! 

I’ve discovered the song Daft Pretty Boys (link) by the group Bad Suns early this month. It’s a sweet upbeat song, not a lot of depth in the lyrics but I still enjoy it a lot. I love that the genius page for this song just has 3 comments on the lyrics. One basically being ‘this song is about fuckboys’ (using that term specifically). 

Next on the list is Uber Capitalist Death Trade (link) by Cabbage. Very different from the last song. I discovered it in the Peaky Blinders TV show. I really need to listen more to this group, they seem to introduce a lot of irony in their songs which I find enjoyable. But also it’s just a really nice song if you’re feeling stressed and need something to unwind. 

I listened to YUNGBLUD for the first time this month, apart from the ‘my parents don’t get me, they’re all boomers lol’ message, I found his music has something that very entertaining. The anger in some of the songs, works well with the tone of his voice. I especially enjoy the song Original Me (link), where he kind of scream sings the chorus. 

In a very different style, I love Conan Gray’s voice, which is really soft and soothing. I already really enjoyed his EP Sunset Season, and he released a new song Maniac (link), and I’m clearly listening to it on repeat. It is still as soft as the previous ones, still dealing with the same motifs. He started on youtube and then pursued his music career. He is also quite young, born in 1998 like me, so listening to him is almost like listening to a friend, you can relate to him and recognize your own experiences in his. 

And lastly, maybe the strangest thing I’m presenting, Something Rotten!. It’s a musical about Shakespeare and eggs? I’m not sure it’s the best way to explain the plot and yet make you want to listen to it…

I first listened to the song Hard To Be The Bard (link). 

Mostly for the lines : ‘And I know, I know, I gotta go // And get back to my pen and ink // Oh, don't make me do it // Don’t make me go through it //Can somebody get me a drink?’ Which… I mean… I’ll probably say something similar during the exam period. 

Then, looking for the lyrics, I realized it was from a musical, about Shakespeare, and eggs.

It’s a musical full of irony. Not only ironical towards Shakespeare (with: God, I hate Shakespeare (link) or Will Power (link) ) but also towards musicals in general.

The plot is about this man, who hates Shakespeare, and following the predictions of Nostradamus wants to write the most famous play of the renaissance Omelette ( haha Hamlet, got it?). 

I found it incredibly funny, just listen to The Black Death (link), a song on the plague but on a very upbeat music.

It’s one of those musicals that make you laugh rather than cry your eyes off. 

And you, did you discover new artists this month?

[mariannepop]

More representation!

This week I’m writing a post that I wanted to share since the beginning of the class in September. I don’t know why it took me so long, but let’s talk about Lizzo! 

If you listened to the radio or went through a breakup this summer you probably already know about her. (the holy trinity of breakups : Lizzo, Lewis Capaldi and Stan Smith don’t @ me ) 

So Lizzo, she is a rapper, singer and song writer. She became famous this year with her third album ‘Cuz I Love You’. Not only her album managed to be in the top 5 of the billboard 200, but 2 of her previously released songs managed to hit the Billboard as well. 

And maybe the most interesting case is the one of ‘Truth Hurts’ (link) that even topped the Billboard for 7 weeks. And with that she was the first black woman to have a n°1 hit this year. Which I find incredible knowing that this song was released 2 years ago. 

Maybe she is the exception to the rule of popular music having an expiry date. 

But I want to talk about her because she represents a group of women that isn’t usually represented in popular music. 

We already talked about how the music industry expects of women to look a certain way to be successful. We even talked about it in the comments of one of my previous posts. We expect of women to be perfect, flawless, skinny, beautiful, to look polished. All in all to fit nicely in what society considers attractive and acceptable for women. 

Lizzo is a plus-size black woman. She wears revealing clothes and she is even naked on the cover of her most recent album. 

She is confident, sings about how beautiful she is and feels. How badass a woman she is. She very much uses the Girl Power message. 

I find it refreshing to see more artists that don’t fit in what’s expected of them. That don’t starve themselves to have a chance to be successful. That represent more that just one type of women. 

She is the type of artists you listen to when you want to be hyped up, when you want to feel good, happy and powerful. 

I obviously think that representation is a big part of acceptance (from society but also yourself). She is a great example of how women are now represented, mostly on how some codes of the industry can be rejected and yet the artist can still be successful.

I’ll leave you with some of her songs: 

Juice 

Tempo 

Like a Girl 

Soulmate 

Good as Hell

[mariannepop]

Spooky season

As this is my last post before the end of spooky season, I wanted to write something related to that. 

I’m not going to talk about one artist in particular but about a theme occurring in a number of songs. Witches. 

Okay, so first of all some of you might think of satanism right away. But satanism is a subject of its own and I’m more focused on the motif of the witches themselves. And how it can be related to feminism. 

I’m not going to talk about Wicca or crystals or the moon, since it’s not the subject. But about how the witch has been reclaimed by feminists nowadays. (see this book)

The witch has been used in feminist discourse, to create a sort of legacy from powerful women that have been oppressed by men. 

But also it’s about reasserting power and finding it in words that once were used to discredit and hurt women. 

Are you a good christian woman or are you a witch? 

I think we can find links between the use of "witch" in an empowering way and the same use of "slut" (like Samirah Raheem here) 

So it’s not just a way to create a tradition, like ‘we’re those that you didn’t manage to burn and we remember’, but also reusing the words meant to hurt us to our own advantage. 

And with the image of the witch you represent women as powerful and liberated, and we find this in popular music too. 

From the sweet soft eerie witch (yes I’m talking about Florence Welch) to the Rock and powerful and angry one, but also the one following the path of voodoo (which is such an interesting topic, it would need an article on its own). 

You can be inspired by and identify to those powerful characters that we find so often in popular music. And I think it’s interesting in my overall ‘representation’ subject, because we can see how an image has been modified and has now a positive connotation. And how it’s used to characterize women in a different way.

I really wanted to share with you my ‘witchy vibes’ playlist but ugh… It’s a really random playlist and it has no clear order so… I will just drop some of my favorite songs. So if you want to get witchy during the break you have a little listening list right here! 

Burn The Witch - Queens of The Stone Age 

Black Magic Woman - Fleetwood Mac 

Sticks and Stones - The Pierces

Cupid Carries a Gun - Marilyn Manson

Bottom of The River - Delta Rae 

Which Witch - Florence + The Machine 

Witch - The Bird and The Bee

Crystal - Stevie Nicks 

(and just 2 random songs for fun ) 

Glitter & Gold - Barns Courtney 

Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge 

Have a great break and may you spend a spooky halloween! 

[mariannepop]

All rock and roll is homosocial: the representation of women in the British rock music press (Davies, 2001)

I chose an article (link) relating to feminism and how women are represented in popular music. I found interesting that this article focused on music press and critics. 

In this article, the author (Helen Davies) shows us how women are ridiculed, denigrated and even ignored all together by the British rock music press. She talks both of performers and fans. 

Firstly she explains that the industry is mostly male and that women tend to be excluded, given less important work on the assumption that the reader is male and wants to read articles written from a male perspective. Which could explain the blatant misogyny in some article. 

She explains all the methods used to discredit female artists. 

All in all they get less media coverage than their male counterparts.

And when they do that are reduced to their womanhood rather than their talent. They are often compared to men, seen as the female version of some celebrity. 

They are usually insulted rather than criticized when men are criticized on their work. 

They are often described as children or extremely sexualized. And when they’re not, they’re seen as hysterical or control freaks. 

They’re not believed to have deep thoughts and feelings, their intelligence is questioned. We expect of them to put more effort and time into their appearance. 

They are associated with mainstream/ non-serious music. And therefore mainstream music is supposed to be made for women and more particularly, working class women.

They’re perceived as not rebellious enough because it’s associated with anger, and being angry is not ladylike. And when they are angry it’s a result of what has being done to them, they’re seen as passive beings. 

But not everything is all that dark… Or is it? 

To gain credibility they have to willingly follow the rules listed before. Or work with a man.

But also they gain some when they no longer are a threat, when they seem "appeased" almost tamed. 

I found this very interesting but the next point the author makes even more. She talks about how women are criticized for being feminine, reduced as children or objects, but also for having "masculine characteristics" (like anger).

And right after she talks about the impact of being a feminist and an artist. And how they are expected to speak for all women and to claim that they are indeed feminists so that they can be criticized on that. She also states that the feminist label can be harmful to their carrier in many cases. 

She then focusses on female fans and draws 4 different categories. 

1/ teenyboppers aka young teenagers.

They are seen as passive consumers, fanatical for latest fashion. 

The author also links this category with sexual shaming. Women are believed to like an artist because they are attracted to them. And for this category, fans are shamed, not for being active sexually like we would expect, but for being young and inexperienced.

2/ 'serious music' fans

This group is believed to be quite small because journalist believe that there is few women interested in serious rock. They are also suspected of liking it for the wrong reasons, and are constantly asked to prove that they are indeed fans. (rings a bell gamers and comic readers?) 

3/women in subcultures

This category enabled women to be more active. They became writers, producers, musicians, managers. And yet they are ignored in the press.

4/ 'group- ies'. 

It’s also a word often used to refer to all female fans.  With the belief that they only like a performer because they are attracted to them. Also strangely this category is strictly composed of women, a man can never be a groupie. It’s also used to denigrate the women working in the music industry and the wives of rockstars. 

I found this article extremely interesting, because it showed how the press relays the stereotypes and the misogyny of our societies. And also because it talked about issues I already noticed, so it was "nice to see" that there is indeed a sort of women bashing tendency in the music industry. 

(sorry for the very long post but I found this article too interesting to be reduced even more. And also for it being a little late)

[mariannepop]

Representation of women

Last week after my post on Joan Jett, in the comment section we talked about how we represent women in popular music and popular music videos. 

And I explained that I do not advocate for complete change in how we represent women. The industry is hyper-sexualized and we see many objectified women. But is it a good idea to completely remove that? 

I believe in choice and so that it’s more about being sexualized when you agree to it, and want it and not being sexualized when you don’t want to. 

See I want a world where Billie Eilish can wear her baggy clothes without some people making sexual comments about her (still a minor let’s add that) whenever she doesn’t. But also a world where slut-shaming isn’t the norm. 

But let’s not talk only about what I think or want. 

Let’s (maybe) prove to you that idealizing women and putting them on a pedestal can be extremely harmful. 

*quick historical funfact* 

During the victorian era, homosexuality between men was penalized. But homosexuality between women? It wasn’t. Why? Simply because women were seen as pure, having no sex drive and only put up with sex because they had to. It is even said that Queen Victoria herself didn’t believe lesbians existed and that’s why there were no legislation on it. Men were seen as almost animals, driven by passion and sexuality. 

So yeah, nice, we got away with being gay for a while, but what about men (only time you’ll see me asking that) ? Seeing women as pure angelic things, made men appear as beasts in comparison, which led to a not only homophobic but also discriminatory legislation. (see chapter on sexuality in this book)

Let’s link that with popular music, and particularly with one specific song "Miss Maggie" (link) by the French singer Renaud 

Renaud is one of my favorite French singers so writing this post hurt a little ngl. 

Miss Maggie is a song about Margaret Thatcher. Let’s not dive into politics too much, but watch maybe the movie Pride (trailer) to see a bit on the mine strikes that happened when she was PM. 

In this song, Renaud compares Thatcher to the worst of humanity. He does so while declaring his love to women, saying that women are better than men, less evil, more intelligent, less racist, you name it he probably said it. And then he says how Thatcher is not ladylike in that manner. How she sticks out of the group by being a bad person, which women could never be. 

Like for example the lines : "Car aucune femme sur la planète // Ne sera jamais plus con que son frère // Ni plus fière ni plus malhonnête // À part peut-être, Madame Thatcher"

Well should I say thank you Renaud? 

No, not really. See he depicts women as pure and good and better than men in virtue and morality ( as the victorians did may I add), when we are not pure angelical forms. 

One, it gives a false idea of women, we’re not harmless. Here women seem feeble against the big dumb men. Which is false. And adds to the idea that it’s not ladylike to be passionate and fight for what you believe in (they say it for the feminists nowadays and said it for the suffragettes too) 

And two, it negates the crimes that were committed by women. If we want equality, we want to be treated equally as men. So if a woman kills or rapes someone, she should be punished the same way as men are. And not like an "immature man", that is just prone to hysteria. 

So, do I believe that women are over sexualized, objectified in the music industry and that we need to change that? Yes. 

Do I think that over protecting women and idealizing them is wrong and harmful? Also yes. 

I could talk in much more details about Renaud and how he represents women, an important part of his songs.

Or how he treats his relationship with Radios with the title "Allongés sous les vagues" (link). 

Or the fact that he went from "Société tu m’auras pas" (link) to "J’ai embrassé un flic" (link) in just a few decades. 

But this post is long enough already. 

So I’ll leave you with one of his most moving songs, "Les charognards" (link).

(as for my subject of research, I want to write about feminism, about the representation of women and how it evolved. Maybe comparing the 60’s and the 2010’s.) 

[mariannepop]

Double standard

I know I said I wanted to write about Joan Jett this week. But not only. 

Let’s give you a little context before diving in the heart of the matter. 

Joan Jett is a rock, hard rock and punk rock singer. She was part of The Runaways, one of the first all female rock group that became famous. And she is also a feminist. 

With this blog I think I’ll dive into feminist popular music and lgbtq+ popular music. Starting with Joan Jett only seemed right since she fits into both categories. She imposed herself in a very masculine genre, in an industry run by men. She fought against gender roles and is still very aware of the work that has to be done even today.

I planned on leaving the article there, explaining her positions and maybe some fun facts about her. 

But I read an interview where she talked about what feminism meant to her. And explained it was all about being able to do what men were able to do. Plain and simple equality. 

And as I was thinking about that one day, I thought of the immense difference we have between male and female artists. But also between lgbtq+ artists and straight ones. 

Talking about sexuality. 

See, one of my favorite group (AC/DC) talks constantly about sex in their music, and the character of the playboy is very VERY common in popular music (see: Juglio Iglesias, Jim Morrison, Shawn Mendez, the list could go on and on). Sexuality doesn’t seem so taboo when it comes from a man talking about a woman. 

But "oh no Taylor swift has a new boyfriend" "omg cupcakke raps about sex in very colorful details". Those reactions are extremely common. I believe we clearly have a double standard. But we’re almost used to that in our society. It’s good when a man is sexually active, but it’s degrading when it’s a woman. 

And even if in our society, we seem more accepting of female sexuality, we still have a difference in the perception of it depending on who is talking. 

Another example of this is the difference on how we treat lgbtq+ artists and straight artists. 

Lil Nas X. He went viral with "Old town road" (link) and its dozens of remixes. No one said anything about the lyrics of his song until he came out as gay. And suddenly the lyrics "I’m gonna ride till I can’t no more" were seen as sexual. No one said anything about it, but as soon as the homophobic side of twitter got the news of another gay artist, you best believe there was a ton of tweets saying how shocked they were by the lyrics. And how inappropriate it was for it to be put on the radio. 

Yeah I always forget that "Let me put my love into you" by AC/DC (link) is about Jesus, of course. 

I find this double standard hypocritical, misogynist and, homophobic. 

But again, it’s maybe just because I believe in a feminism à la Joan Jett.

All of this to tell you, go listen to "You don’t own me" (link) by Joan Jett. 

[mariannepop]

Led Zeppelin

So I already had a blog post ready, on a singer that I find particularly interesting but (and I’m not completely sure why) I decided to post it next week and talk about something else today (sorry not sorry for the Joan Jett fans out there, see you next week) 

Led Zeppelin. 8 albums. 1969-1979. 4 members. 

Most of you already know the band, or at least some songs. Or maybe not, in that case welcome to a psychedelic introduction. 

If you like hard rock, folk rock, blues rock or feeling like you’re somehow floating on air while listening to music, Led Zep is the group for you. 

I personally discovered them in middle school, but didn’t really take the time to discover the band more. 

One day a few years later, as I was looking for songs about the Norse mythology (yeah Amon Amarth is great, but ugh), I came across Immigrant song (link) and from there I listened to more and more of their songs. 

Are there any Tolkien fans reading? Because you’re going to love Led Zep too, in ‘Ramble on’ (link) (one of my favorites by the way), you can hear: 

"'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair.' 'Gollum the evil one crept up and slipped away with her.’"

I think it’s always nice to have songs that make you smile or remind you of things you like. And personally that line always puts me in a good mood. 

What I love about Led Zeppelin is the very psychedelic mood of some of their songs and then you have more rock ones, you’re really travelling between different universes. And if you like mythology, you’re going to love all the references they used. 

They’re also great to listen to while studying, in fact if you ever see me in the library with my headphones on I’m either listening to the collection ‘Mothership’ (2007) or ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ (1976) by AC/DC but that’s a story for another post. 

I’ll leave you with my all time favorite song from Led Zeppelin, Achilles Last Stand (link).