She bop: the definitive history of women in popular music

She bop: the definitive history of women in popular music by Lucy O’Brien

Imagine changing just one word in the title: The Definitive History of Men in Popular Music. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Like so many areas of life, men are the norm, and it is only the fact that women in music are still seen as something of a rarity that makes the subject worth write about.  Aware that ‘music is a political issue’, in She Bop – reissued last month in a revised and updated third edition – Lucy O’Brien explores the relationship between the music business, the music consumer, and the female. A prolific writer on women and music, having written for the Guardian, Q, The Face and the NME, O’Brien is authoritative and her knowledge of her subject is thorough. The stories, anecdotes and evidence that this book is built upon come from over two hundred interviews conducted by O’Brien between 1984 and 1994. Voices of women from across the industry are documented loud and clear, with quotes from Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, Madonna and Tahita Bulmer amongst others. This is far more than just a catalogue and record of women in music… Structured thematically, the book is an exploration of trends such as images and marketing, identity and androgyny, protest pop and navigating the music business.