REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW:
POPULAR MUSIC, FEMINISM, AND REVOLUTION
by
Vera Caisip Gamboa
BA, Simon Fraser University, 19%
THESIS SUBMlïTED iN PARTIAL FULFIUMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in the Department
of
Women's Studies
O Vera Caisip Gamboa 2000
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSlTY
April20ûû
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The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantiai extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT
As a medium with the capacity for mas communication and dissemination of ideas and messages, popular music is located as a site of revolutionary possibilities. The use of popular music by musiciluis to articulate revolutionary desire and promote revolutionary endeavours is examined as conducive to transfomative struggles within society.
Revolution is defined as a process of multiple resistances that expose and challenge the mechanisms of power. The revolutionary process is perpetuated through regenerative and continual eruptions of resistances that emerge from locdized and individual points, but that Function as networks of pluralized resistances.
Because the popular music industry predominantiy determines the production, distribution, and consumption of popular music on a mass level, the structure and operations of the popular music industry are examined to illustrate how popular music is conformed to the standards and demands ofa capitalist economic system. The use of popular music for revolutionary interests versus capital gain is tempered by this relationship to the popular music industry.
The riot grrrl movement, as it took fom in the early 1990s. is analyzed as partaking in a revolutionary process. A case study of the music, lycics, performance, and activist tactics of women musicians involved with riot gml exemplifies how a community of girldyoung women engaged in feminist struggles as articulated through the popular music form of punk. Riot grrr1 deconstnicted and resisted paradigrnatic gender coles and relations, while calling for a feminist revolution. Through localized and multiple resistances, riot gml utilized the revolutionary potential of popular music. And how can we expect anyune to listen ifwe are using the same old voice? We need new noise, new art for the real people.
The Refused, "New Noise" The Shape of Punk to Corne ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The experience of writing this thesis was made particularly enjoyable and rewarding through my discussions with Dr. Jacqueline Levitin. 1am indebted to her depth of critical inqujr and insightful guidance.
The comrnents and criticisms offered by Dr. Karlene Faith were also very helpiul to the process of writing, and thinking, about this work. 1 am very grateful for her time and suggestions.
Thank you to the Anne Peters Pinto Graduate Scholarship in Women's Studies and the Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship for providing much appreciated support.
For recovecïng lost files (and an entire chapter) from the nether regions of my computer, 1 thank Patrick Bragg. 1 also thank Scott Malin, who was especially gracious in ailowing me to borrow his computer for severai weeks when mine finaiiy crashed and was sent away.
And, finally, to Nicolas Bragg, who ensured that my other life was in order whenever this work threatened to ovemn it-thank you. vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
.. APPROVAL 11
ABSTRACT iii
QUOTATION v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi
ZNTRODUCTION
Revolution Girl Style Now
The Problem
Questions and Ovewiew of the Problem
Delineating the Thesis
Context
Scope
Met hodo logy
Notes
CHAP'ïER 1: POPULAR MUSIC AND REVOLUTION
We AU Want to Change the World
The Social Significance of Popular Music
The Popular
Popular Culture
Revolution viii
Individual Resistances and the Revolutionary Process
Feminist Revolution
Notes
CHAPTER II: THE REVOLUTIONARY POTENTLAI. OF POPULM MUSIC 50
The Popular Music industry: Capitalism and Globalization 50
The Capitaüst Structure of the Popular Music Industry 53
History and Technology 56
When Pop Becomes industry 6 1
Notes 69
CHAPTER III. GRRRL REVOLUTION
Riot Gml
Punk Music and Feminism
Riot Grrrl as a Movement
Membership
Issues
Communicating the Revolution
Rebeliion in Music and Against Musical Traditions
Rebellion in Image and Performance
The Problematics of Women's Rebeiiion
Revolution inc. Notes
CONCLUSION
Continuing the Revolution
The Shape of Revolution to Corne
Notes
GLOSSARY
DISCOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION
Revolution Girl Style Now
"A belief in instant revolution," Kathleen Hanna wrote in 1991, "is just what THE POWERS THAT BE want. That way we won't realize that WE ARE THE REVOLUTION." She said a similar thing when her band, Bikini Kill would play live, dernanding "REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW!"...Itls 1998 now, seven years after "revolution summer" and the Spice Girls are the biggest band in the world; the Lilith Fair is fast on the way to king the biggest-grossing summer festival again this year; and Titanic has mode half a billion dollars at the box office largely from, according to The Nation's Katha Politt, "Wornen-especially teenage girls- whose repeated viewings, often in groups of fiends. have made Titanic the highest- grossing movie in history." Yes, it was a revolution al1 right: Wornen were finally recognized as a market force that stretched into the previously male-dominated realm of entertainment. -Daniel ~inker'
It seems that whenever anything has a chance to become radical in pop culture, they just get the Monkees to do it. They'll have auditions and get girls that won? Say anything beyond "Girl Power Y... What really is girl power? ...It's these different moments when women really did seriously challenge the structure of society. That's girl power! My problem cornes when it's just about barrettes and T-shirts. -Kathleen an na*
One of the most defining, if not hstrating, aspects of revolution3 as declared through a medium such as popular music,' is what seems to be the inevitable decline of hop into disappointment-when the promise of some sort of cultural/sociaYpolitical deliverance or transformation is, in Deleuzian fashion.' regenerated as capital or simply goes "out of style." When Kathleen Hama caiied for a revolution as the lead singer of
Bikini Kill, she was heralded as an originator and icon of the riot grrrl movement6 and, in tum, she inspired a large following of girls and young women to not only mate and become involved in popular music, but to do so with politicai awareness and feminist goals in mind. in live performance, whiie singing (and screaming) lyrics about such topics as incest or sexuaI abuse, Hanna was known to remove her shirt, barhg her breasts but also exposing the words slut or rape scrawled in thick black marker on her beliy. In this defiant and, albeit, problematic moment, Hanna transgressed and subverted ber presence and position as a woman in the traditionaliy male-dominated, female-objectified world of pupular music, whiie imbuing her own music with a feminist agenda? However,
Hanna's demand for revolutionary insurrection was answered with the appeiltance of apparently Hama-inspired t-shirts with dut or birch written across the fronts8Meanwhile, teenage girls had purcbased suid were wearing these t-shirts in a manner that appeared in opposition to or, at the very least, as a degenerated translation of Hanna's feminist politics. Without the context of Hanna's ironic and angry performance and lyrics, the t- shirts as a fashion (versus feminist) statement had the effect of suggesting submission ro the term dut, rather than confrontation.
Som enough, girlpower, a motto encapsulating the efforts of Hanna and Bikini
Ki11 to incite a feminist revolution through popular music, became a signifier for the markeiability of women musicians. Riot grn19 bad climaxed with media interest and attention-constnicted as the harbinger of the "explosion" or "takeover" of women in popular rnu~ic~~-onl~to be ovemn by commrcial imitations and replacements. And as coprate-supported, major label1' women musicians gained visibility within the popular music industry, and comrnanded the top of the music charts, the riot grrrl movement begm to disband. Aithough today there is activity on the intemet and some bands still associated with riot gnri, they are now less about a "movement" than the residual spirit of rîot gml; hence, riot gml is considececi over."Whether or not the commercial &mand for and containment of women musicians bad a direct and adverse effect on the riot grrrl movement's fate, it demonstrateci how revolutionary desire cm be recuperated as capital.
Women musicians may have ben able to secure some tirne in the popular music spotlight, but the commerciaiiy successful ones were without the ferninist agenda prescribed by riot gml and, instead, served the interests of the industry by opening up fresh markets and demographics for exploitation. And yet, in spite of capital recuperation, riot grrrl's agenda still holds potential.
As women musicians continue to command headlining prominence within the popular music ind~stry,'~and with popular music's prevalence in youth cu~tures,'~the chance to promote sociopolitical criticism and transformation presents itself with much promise and urgency-urgent kause the current popularity of women musicians may prove itself to be just another fad, a trend that fades in importance and influence as the industry looks towards new products and markets to exploit. Women musicians have the opportunity to present and debate issues hke feminism in the realm of popular music and, through it, access a wide audience. And despite the problematics of a medium deeply intertwined with a capitaiist industry," the ponntial of popular music as a swiopoiiticai tool begs to be realized. With gmls (riot or otherwise) in mind, this study is a wary, but obdurate, cling to the hope that revolution is still possible.
The Problem
As a counterpoint to the "decline of hop into disappointment" that leads to the dismissal of revolutionary endeavours in popular music,16 this dissertation examines the revolutionary potential of popular music. My argument is tbat a poiiticaiiy engaged popular music can play a role in revolutionary struggles within society, The capacity of popular music to have an affective iduence on its audience, as weU as its capacity for mass communication, renders it a viable medium for disseminating revolutionary ideas and inspiring revolutionary action. However, 1caution that popular music is in itseif not political, and must engage society in order to be effective on a sociopolitical level. The challenge, then, would be to utilize popular music as a tool for mobilizing and organizing individuals toward social change. One key to this challenge is the practice of a popular music that has a distinct message of, and employs specific strategies for, revolution. The active engagement of popular music by popular musicians to promote sociopolitical causes can contribute to keeping revolutionary desire and possibilities alive. In particular,
1 look at the riot gml movement, with its demimd for a feminist revolution, as a case study of how popular musicians can engage in and promote social suuggle through popular music and, as a result, parîake in a revolutioniuy process. Although riot grrrl could be, and is, considered an ineffective revolutionary movement because tangible and imrnediate social transformation was not gdvanized into being, riot plcan also be considered a continuation of the revolutionary efforts of feminism and previous women's movements. Using the popular music medium as a platform, riot gml revised and added to the feminist concems and goals inherited from its predecessors, and regenerated the revolutionary vision of feminism for a new audience, Situated within a continuum of feminist suuggle, riot grrrl is understood here as a contributory element to maintaining the future of a feminist cevolution.
Questions and Overview of the Problem
How does popular music's pmfound relations with a capitalist, profit-dnven industry undermine its capacity for revolution? Can popular music go beyond merely king a space where the desire for revoluiion is expressed to playing an active role in realizing revolution, while the predominant conditions within which it is produced, circulated, and consurned are determined by this industry? And, more caustically, how can revolution be realized if, as GiUes Deleuze and Felix Guattari have argued, capitaiism is a process capable of absorbing or CO-optingrevolutionary dissent and converthg it into capital?" 'LRevolution." or the hetocic of revolution, can also be packaged and sold, its social or political meaning made trivial and subject to the fickle and exiguous attention span of industry trends. In effect, the popular music industry profits from revolutionary desire, while "revolutionizing" its own markets and selling tactics as it attempts to capture new brands of consumers.'* But can a commodifed "revolution" still be potent,
in that it inspires and feeds a desire for revolution? Can the desire be dangernus in itself?
How, then, can revolution through populûr music become more than just a dictum
or, worse, a marketing ploy? It is possible that traditionai definitions of revolution are
inadequate, leaving us unable to recognize that revolution is already happening. Musi
revolution only exist withstructural change, an overthrow of a dominant system? Or
cm the policing of dominant forces, keeping them in check, be considered a component
of revolution? Can we find hope in the fact that. by the tirne a revolution "fnils" or is
contained, the message of revolution bas already been communicated and that, in order to
market revaîution, industry actually promotes revolutionary ideas? Inevitably, as much as
the desire for revoluiion can be recuperated as capital, this desire persists and
(re)generates subsequent revolutions-the ensuing revolutions evolving hmand
amending the failutes of previous revolutionary attempts, often with more stringent and
radical demands. Can revolution be found in tbis obstinate renewal of desire and its
erosive challenge to dominant systems? Can revolution, like capitaüsm, also be defined as a process versus the definition of revolution as an event, or happening? If so, cevolution as a process would require the construction and employment of new revolutionary strategies. In the constantiy mutating arena of popular music and popular culture in generd, with their trends and fads, styles and standards are transient and disposable. Everything is replaceable. with the incessant clamour for the "next new thing" indicative of the industry need for market revitalization, Wihthis climate of perpetual change, definitions of revolution could benefit fiom developing a similar energy of adaptability and flux. Much Wre Guattaci and Deleuze's ~chizo~hnnic,'~which has the capacity to "[escape] from the axiomatic of ~a~italism"~by disturbing the flow of capital production, the revolutionary potential of popular music lies in how the desire for revolution and its articulation cause disruptions and mutations to the dominant order of things.
One means of making use of the revolutionary potential of popular music is to
"spread the word" of revolution through the support and advocacy of sociopolitical agendas. If revolution is bound to be co-opted and absorbed, it would seem advantagems
for it to have an agenda for social change to uphold so that its message, however diluted and distorted. receives some fom of attention and discussion. Furthemore, if the
message is particularly rebellious or resistant, then its absorption has the potential to
undermine the "absorber," wbich is compelled to promote and sel1 a message that is self-
in~riminatin~."Riot grrrl utiüzed this capacity of popular music for communication and
for resistance to forward a feminist revolution. But how did riot grrrl's sirategies work in
relation to the revolution it demanded? Was it a "failure" as a revolutionary movement
because quantifiable social transformation did not occur as a direct result from its efforts? And was it inconsequential as a revolutionary movement because it could not evade capital recuperation? Was it al1 in vain? Or was the very fact that it happened-that it emerged to challenge, expose, and resist the workings of dominant systems-integral to a revolutionary pmess?
Deheating the Thesis
In order to contextualize this study, Chapter I provides some definitions and examines popular music as an element of revolutionary strategies. Although my discussion does involve what is commonly considered "popular" music-that which is most comrnercially successful, mass produced, and mass consumed-the popular music that 1am also concerned with and specifically interested in is what Simon Frith has termed the unpopularpopular? a popular music that dmnot necessarily appeal to a mass audience or provide a marketable product for the popular music industry, but is more genuinely "popular" by serving the interests of "the people."u Hence, analyses of
"the popular" and of popular culture, as a contested site where resistance and consumption are both exercised, are helpful to demonstrate the tension between revolutionary impulses and economic demands that situate popular music in a volatile terrain. Furthemore, diverging from classical definitions of revolution as historicaüy situated events and as restructuring upheavals, revolution is defined as a process and continuum of individual and communal struggles. Bearing in mind Michel Foucault's arguments on power relations." a revolutionary pmcess is understd here as multiplicities of struggles and resistances that cdto question and reveal the mechanisms of power. Because the primary exchange for populac music on a mas level operates with a capitalist economic system, an element of my discussion deals specifîcally with the popular music industry. Chapter II examines how the popular music indusîry operates and how its control over the production and distribution of popular music mediates revolutionary impulses and efforts. Although 1 focus on the popular music industry of
North America as a whole, there are differences between the Canadian and American popular music industries, and it is understood that they are not entirely homogeneous and interchangeable. However, because they are controlled by the same corporations and major record labels, and operate within similar capitalist structures, they rire considered here as congruent parts of the larger North Amencan popular music ind~stry.~
Economic shifts and technologicai advances that have impact on the popular music industry form part of this discussion as well. The effects of these changes on the factors governing and shaping the popular music industry have been to further embed popular music within capitalist concems, while also opening up new possibilities for resistance. Popular music can therefore be a site of struggle as much iis an extension of the industry. Although 1do not attempt to reconcile these conflicting aspects, 1discuss them both to outline how the Limitations of the popular music industry are a prevalent reason for why revolutionary movements have not been sustained hughpopular music-why they inevitably decline in importance and are abandoned. However, rather than consider capital recuperation as signifying "faiiure" for these movements, 1argue that revolution as a process is able to adapt to the recuperative tactics of capitalism.
Because a revolutionary pmcess aiso works as a constantly mutating cycle, it rebounds and participates in its own "recuperation*' from cycles of capitalist absorption and co- optation. Consequently, revolutionary movements challenge and recover from capitalist recuperation by continually emerging and ce-emerging, amending and improving on strategies from ptevious revolutionary attempts, to keep stmggles ongoing.
Chapter IIi focuses on the riot plmovement as an illustrative case study of the revolutionary potential of popular music. Coming into prominence in the early 1990s, riot grrrl primarily, though not exclusively, consisted of ail-female or female-led bands with a musicai style and do-it-yourself (DMsensibility inherited from punk rock,26merged with an assertive, often fierce, brand of feminism and feminist goals? Fostering a community of girls and young women, riot gml encouraged their participation, as musicians and audience members, in a politically motivated popular music. Redressing the traditional exclusion of females fiom active involvement within popular rn~sic.'~riot gml demonstrated the capacity of popular music to endorse a sociopolitical, in this case feminist, agenda with the result of bringing young women together who were stciving to change their individual and collective lives. Popular music allowed them to actively cultivate their political awareness and aspirations personally, and as part ofa larger movement. 1 want to stress that other (women) musicians can be sources of inspiration and empowerment for individuai girls; fans can be inspired by or read meaning into a popular music that does not have revolutionary intent. However, this form of cesistance is separate from my discussion around the conscious undertaking of a sociopolitical cause by popular musicians. in this case study, 1focus on a popular music that makes au attempt at a feminist revolution through tactics that actively, and not suggestively, encourage the empowerment of girls, Riot pl's use of popular music to brhg feminist issues and debate into popular discourse, to appeai to other womealgirls and its larger audience for social change, and to foster an activist community, are focal areas of investigation. Although specilïc tactics of riot grrrl are examined as sometimes flawed and not always effective, they are also understood to be rethinkings and reworkings of paradigrnatic gender relations and des. The riot gml movement provides an exploration
into the problematics of revolution through populiir music, as weli as into how a feminist
agenda and specific, aggressive strategies towards gender transformation enable(d) riot
grrrl and its legacy to uphold a revolutionary pmcess.
Context
Although popular music is centrai to my arguments, it is by no means the only, or
primary, site for revolutionary struggles. And although 1 deal specifically with riot grrrl
and its feminist concerns, revolution does not need to corne only from women. Moreover,
the condition of women is not the only arena that requires revolutionary intervention. My
discussion of riot grrrl is meant to be a snapshot of a siniggle: of one movement within a
particular society, within particular conditions. 1do not intend it to be representative of
al1 stmggles or even encompassing of feminist concems." The inequities and hierarchies
suucturing the popular music industry that were spotlighted with the high profile of
women musicians in the 1990s, as well as with the emergence of riot grrrl, indicated that,
in the particular case of women, there was a battle to be waged on the terrain of popular
music. My focus on riot gml is a reflection of the demand for change in women's
conditions as it was articulated by this specifrc group.
The use of popular music as a means and as a site for exercising resistance is not
exclusive to riot gml. Popular musicians in various ways, in various times and locations, have bamessed popular music to support and ampli& social movements, while popular music has been extensively championed as a medium conducive to resistance and revol~tion?~In particular, riot grrrl emerges from a history of women musicians who have stniggied within the popuiar music industry to improve their positions and opporhmities as musicians, and have also looked towards popular music to make a difference saially?' Furtbemore. in the realm of cap and hiphop music for example. other women musicians were, concurrent with riot grrrl, using popular music to renegotiate and resist dominant discourses of gender and race in their particular music fonns, as weil as in the popular music industry and in s~ciet~?~However, a discussion of this history and practice of popular music would overreach the purpose and capacity of tbis study. Nonetheless, acknowledgement of the historicity of the Link between popular music and social mobilization is important here CO show that riot gml did not occur in isoiation but, rather, should be contextuaiized within a continuum of resistance. Riot pl wûs one resistance amongst multiple resistances as articulated through popular music.
QuaMication of its singularity or uniqueness is not meant to devalue it as a revolutionary movement but, instead, serves to connect it to an extended and ongoing struggle.
Riot gml determined the terrain and language of discussions here. Kathleen
Hanna demanded "revolution girl style now," and, so, revolution is the marker by which riot gml is analyzed. Furtherrnore, rather than appraise the necessity of revolution, or attempt to distinguish and evaluate different revolutionary i~n~ulses~~the desirability of revolution is understood here on riot pl's terms. Because riot grrrl voiced a desire for revolution, and because its community of fans and musicians shared this desire, revolution is assumed here to ôe "sought after"; witbin this context, revolution is desirable because it was an imperative for riot pl.Furthermore, with its origins as a challenge to the patriarchal structures and dominance of punk music circles, riot grrrI's cal1 for revolution was articulated specifically as a feminist undertaking. In Modern
Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to "Post-Feminism"(1995), Imelda Wheleban
States,
The first wave [of feminism] succeeded in achieving a significant victory-that of enfranchising women within the political and legal system, and facilitating the possible future reform of the most inequitable aspects of social life. The second wave, however, became a response to the lean years afier the achievement of putative equality; the result of a dawning recognition chat the system itself seemed to have an inbuilt propensity for institutionalizing gender (as well as other) inequality. The second wave is therefore distinct in recognizing the possibility that there rnight not be a solution to women's continued oppression short of a revolution."
Considered here as a continuation of second wave feminism, riot gnlsupported an open and fluid definition of feminism that was inclusive of various str~~~les?~With its assertion of "girlhood" and strategies for resistance, riot gml manifested as feminist intervention in popular music through its refusal and deconstruction of normative roies and limitations on girls and women.
Because riot grrrl was rooted in and pnmacily employed punk music, punk is the focal popular music form within these discussions. However, aithough punk music was the means by which riot gml exercised resistance, it was also a force to be resisted-the patriarchy of punk is what originaiiy provoked and instigated not gml. Furthermore, in chaüenging the paîriarchy of punk music, riot grrrl also found itself challenging the capitalism of the popular music iadustry. Hence, this discussion converges on the tacticai
resistances of riot grrrl as they predominantly manifested as overlapping chalienges to patriarchy and capitalism. However, this is not to indicate that patriarchy and capitaiism
were the ody points of contention for individual girls. Ifrevolutionary stmggle is about rnulti-resistances, then rïot grrrl demonstrated that, even within its own movement, the battie was multifold.
scope
It is specificaily North American society that serves as the reference of this study.
However, because of the global expansion of industries and the growing interdependence of world economies, as well as the rise of transnationaYintercultural communication,
North American society cannot be considered entirely auto nom ou^.^ Nevertheless, riot pl's location of emergence, its primary point of reference for the social relations and economic system it challenged, situates it within a North Amencan specificity. Hence, the popular music in question is that of contemporary North American society or, perhaps more precisely, of contemporary North American indusrry. Furthemore, because popular music has been similady affected by globalization, it is equally dificult to isolate it within a specific location?' As certain musical forms and cultures gain popularity, they are marketed to reach wider audiences in different countries, spawning an international network of musicians md fans that share styles and influences. Although 1am concerned with popular music that aims to specifically revolutionize North American society, the music itself may not be entirely a product of this same society. A popular music form may emerge hma particular area in North America, but it may be an amalgamation of previous and concurrent forms hmthe global community of popular music. Riot grrri itseif, which was predominantiy a North American phenomenon, is an example of this exchange, as its punk rock mots originated in the United ~in~dorn?However, in order to provide some delineation to the nature of the popular music being dealt with, "the contempocary popular music of North American industry" wïli bave to serve as a definition. What 1want to highiight by this description is a popular music that functions mainly as commodity, exchanged for its leisure and entertainment value. So whether it is a popular music that is imported from South Ahica, with political undertones or social protest informing the music.'9 when functioning as a comodity within the popular music industry of North America, its meanings are lost or subordinated to its comrnercid and entertainment use. Although this same popular music may be actively revolutionary in its own country and context, it does not carry the same weight in a society that hano use for its poli tic^.^
A further clarification 1 would like to make is thrit "revolutions" in popular music concerning its technologicai or aesthetic production are not central to my arguments.
Although there have been innovations and transformations within popular music, which have changed the manner in which it is conceived or created, it is the potentiai for popular music to instigate revolution within sociefythat shapes this discussion. I will acknowledge, however, that technological and aesthetic revolutions have the capacity to effect social revolutions as well, and that they are vital areas of examination. From the way in which a band like Coldcut can revolutionize the concepts of musicianship and musical ownership, to the explorations of "noise" as music.'i changes in the production and conception of music have the potential to impact society and to be revolutionary. By opening up new perceptions of and functions for popular music, or by deconstnicting established conventions, revolutions within popuIar music itself have the capacity to indirectly inspire changes in society by envisionhg alternate ways of seeing, creating, and understanding. However, in my particular arguments, 1am principaily interested in the use of popular music by musicians with the intenr of trausforming society.
Granted, as noted, revolutionary sentiments may arise from popular music that does not attempt to be "revolutionary." A musician's intended message can be rnisinterpreted, while audiences cm read meaning into or be motivated by popular music that does not convey a particular message. Additionally, the reception of popular music with a message may be ambivalent, if not hostile at times; popular music with overtly political lyrics, or that seeks to provoke and agitate, can be ill-received and criticized by its own audience, the popular music industry, or society at large? However, in acknowledging these aspects of audience reception, 1 am not suggesting that inspiring or instigating revolution should be the sole function, or most valuable use, of popular music.
Popular music holds various, often personai, meanings for its audience-it would not necessarüy be desirable or effective to demmd tùiit ail popular music subscribe to "a cause" or that musicians have a social responsibility to their fans. Nevertheless, the position of this thesis does support a popular music that maintains a guard against acquiescence to capiralist lulling and that expresses a desire to expose and alter power relations. To make an audience uncornfortable, to shake individuals out of complacency, is a powerful capacity of popdar music. And as long as the desire for revolutionary action continues to be voiced and disseminated tiuough the influential, mas medium of popular music, the potential for transfomative change remains a potentid and a hope. Tobi Vail, dmmmer for the band Bikini KU, writes in the Liner notes to The CD
Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Kill:
We have been written about a lot by big magazines who have never talked to us or seen Our shows. They wcite about us authoritatively, as if they understand us better than we understand our own ideas, tactics and significance. They largely miss the point of everything about us because they have no idea what our context isbas ken. Their ideaof punk rock is not based on anything they have ever experienced directly or even sought an understanding of by talking to those who have, yet they continue to write about it as if their stereotypical surface level view of it is al1 it is?
This study is not intended to be representiuive of Bikini Kiil, riot grrrl, or any other individual or group mentioned. Moreover, when 1have analyzed or interpreted their music, lyrics, interviews, writing, or performances, it is my own reading of their work and words, and rny perspective or arguments are not to rneant to be definitive or indicative of their individual intentions and motivations. In addition, 1 am wary that transcriptions of their interviews can be inaccurate and dependent upon the idiosyncrasies of interviewers (a complaint voiced by Vail, manifesting in Bikini Kill's refusai to gant interviews with many publications: "As a rule we don't do interviews with mainstrearn newspapers or magazines. in the few cases where we did do them we feel like we were totaily fucked over by the way our words were fmdto back up ideas that weren't our o~n").~However, although Vail's fnisuation over the lack of control over representation is valid, in investigating the work of Bikini Ki11 or riot gmls, it is sometimes necessary to be critical and present a viewpoint that may be at odds with their intentions or with which they disagree. Nevertheless, any "disagreements" here are not to be understood as antagonistic. From a position sympathetic to the efforts of riot pl,criticism is offered as part of a process of anaiysis and amendment to certain strategies and actions, in the interest of improving them, and inspiring future revolutioaary endeavours. Another concem 1would Like to address, one which is touched upon in Vail's diatribe, is the potential for discussions around the transgressions of women musicians, in their performances or actions, to serve the purpose of academic "titiilation." This study, I hop, will be interpreted as resisting participation in a fom of voyeurism over their activities. Furthermore, although 1do not want to invoke arguments on the validity of outsider/insider status to riot gcrrl, 1believe there is value to Vail's sentiment that wciters
"largely miss the point" to what Bikini Kill, or other bands and musicians, "are about" or are trying to do, due to these writers* lack of involvement or active interest in the music, activities, or scene. In this case, however, 1 have a personal stake in the research. This study does not only concern those in my "generation," my age bracket, and my gender, but dso a "culture" with which 1 am farniliar and affiiated. I have ken involved in
music, as a fan and musician, since childhood and have been active within the locd
music community since my late teens. I have played in various bands, performed shows,
and recorded music since that time, and 1continue to do so. in the early 1990s, the band 1
was involved in was signed to an independent local record label for which we produced
several projects, inciuding the donation of a Song for a compilation CD benefiting BC
Women's ~helters? Furthemore, we played a show that was organized by a local riot
grrrl chapter. Consequently, I have knowledge of popuIar music not only as a fan, consumer, and audience member, but dso as an active participant with experience in the
workings of the industry. My involvement with a record label and individuals within the
industry has given me insight into the business of popular music, while the do-it-yourself
ethic of not gml is an equal part of rny own experience-hm self-financed home
recordings to self-promotion involving walkùig around the city with hand-made posters and a stapling gun. Furthemore, cile particular music which riot grrrl is rooted in, that of punk rock, coincides with the music I myself have "grown up with"; often the inûuential musicians and bands cikd by riot grrrls overlap with my own influences and preferences.
Ultimately, 1 have a vested interest in the issues conceming riot gml and the position of women musicians as a whole within the popular music industry.
This study features content analysis of the music and lyrics of women musicians either claiming to be part of the riot grrrl movement, or in some way associated to riot gml, whether in their musical form or politics. However, I do not want to impose boundaries on specific musicians or bands, labeling them as riot grrrl when they themselves do not subscribe to that de finition. Consequently, 1 am reluctant to provide a
"Iist" of so-cdled riot grrrl bands, and 1 narne them oniy when they are relevant to a particular argument. Nevertheless, in order to provide some framework for discussion, 1 address various individuais and groups as king comparable or having parallel styles and tac tics to riot pl.Furthemore, the perception, whether by the media or fans, of some musicians or bands to be representative of riot gml is also a useful measure for determining how riot gml is understood and received by its audience, as compared to how riot gmls and "non-riot gmls" perceive themselves and the movement. The performances of these women are dso analyzed; however, the analysis is less about a first-hand account of these events than an investigation into tbe mamer in which these women's live shows are wcitten about by magazine reviewers, riot grrrl fans, or acadernic critics, I am concemed with how these women's audience and the media have constructeci their image as much as with the tactics and strategies they employ in their music and performance. Published interviews with some of these women, as weii as their own writing, in fanzines or CD iiner notes, are an aspect of thîs research. As noted, 1remain cautious and critical of interviews that often harbour the specific interests and motivations of the intemewer andor publication, ranging from the market and consumer driven commercial magazines ta the fan appreciation and engaged participation of fanzines. However, interviews also provide insight into the differences in representation and understanding of riot grrrl depemding on the interviewer's relation to the movement.
Finally, the majority of this research is heory-based, drawing upon the body of work within culture studies. Examining th ppular meanings of cultural xtifacts, which affect and penneate our everyday lives, is vduable to understanding and, possibly, changing the conditions that we contend with and live in. Ct is preçisely because popular music, pdcularly in its most rebeüious foms, iippeals and is marketed to youths md youth cultures that I believe makes it wonh investigation. Popular music's incredible influence and ability to sbape individuai and communal hopes and ideas of what it means to be it
"girl" is a central motivator of my research. Notes
ENTRODUCTION ' Punk Planet (Issue 27, SeptemberIOctober 1998). 36. ' Interview with Punk Planet, 43. ' See Chapter 1for an extended definition of "revolution." 'See Chapter 1 for a definition and analysis of "popular music" as well as "the popular." A reference to Gilles Deleuze. With Felix Guattari, Deleuze argues throughout Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seern, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972) that capitalism is a process that converts desire, including the desire for revolution, into capital, In particular, see pages 233,236-237,250. The riot grni movement, reaching prominence in the early 1990s, is described as "young feminist women in underground rock" in Joanne Gottlieb and Gayle Wald's article "Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Gmls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock," in Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994), 250. In the liner notes to Bikini Kill's album, The CD Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Ki11 (January 1994), the band asserts that "[wle are not in anyway [sic] 'leaders of or authorities on the 'Riot Girl* movemnt. in fact. as individuals we have each had different experiences with, feelings on, opinions of and varying degrees of involvement with 'Riot Girl' and tho [sic] we totally respect those who still feel that label is important and meaningful to them, we have never used that tem to describe ourselves AS A BAND. As individuals we respect and utilize and subscribe to a variety of different aesthetics, strategies and beliefs, both politicai and punk-wise, some of which are probably considered 'riot girl."' It is not my intention to label Bikini Kill as a riot grrrl band; rather, I am interested in how their feminist concerns and musical style overlap and coincide with the riot gml movement. See Chapter iIl for further discussion of Kathleen Hanna and riot gml, including analysis of Hanna's performance and politics. Hanno. in her writing and in interviews, actively promoted a feminist agenda. a In an interview with Betty Boob in Bust (Issue 12. Spring 1999), Kathleen Hanna answers the question "What do you think of al1 the t-shirts chat have 'slut' and 'bitch' ernblazoned across the bosom areri?" with "1 just want to know where my royalties are!. ..T-shirt makers don't care about challenging the male gaze or reclaiming words or any of that, they just think it's trendy and maybe they'll make some money off it," 62. The term riot grrrl is used interchangeably with riot grrrl movement. Furthemore, riot 5lhas been variously spelled (grrrl, grrl, grl, gurl, girl). Catherine Driscoll's article "Girl Culture, Revenge and Global Capitalism: Cybergirls, Riot Grrls, Spice Girls," (Australian Feminist Studies. Volume 14, Issue 29, April 1999), 173-195, discusses the confiicts within the riot gml movement over the spelling of the word girl. Gayle Wald in "Just a Girl? Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth," Sigm Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Vo1.23, No. 3,1998), 585-610, notes that the tem girl has been "reclaimed" to signify empowerment, as an alternative to socially inscribed and normative definitions of girl as passive, etc. 'O There has been much media hype in the 1990s on the "explosion" of women musicians in the populrir music indusüy. Rolling Stone magazine dedicated their thirtieth anniversary issue to "Women of Rock" (Issue 773, November 1997), while Spin magazine put out ''The Gu1 Issue" (Volume 13, Number 8, November 1997) in the same rnonth. Commercial magazines such as Newsweek (Issue 21, Volume 120, November 1992). 84-86, Entertainment Weekly (Issue 207, January 1994), 52-54, and Glamour (Issue 5, Volume 91, May 1993), 134, also featured articles specifically about riot pl. " Record labels chat have corporate ownership, See Chapter II for discussion of major record labels. I2 Bands like Sleaier Kinney are stiii producing records and playing shows, while rnaintaining (although lmsely) the associations with riot pl. l3 In 1999, the Lilith Fair, a touring showcase of women musicians, was once again the highest grossing music festival in North America, according to Polhrar, 'The Concert Hotwire," (December 3 1. 1999), 4. l4 Microphone Fiends offers a collection of essays on the dynamic between popular music and youth cultures. Dick Hebdige, in Hiding in the Light (London: Routiedge, 1988). 27, investigates the category "youth" (from a British standpoint) and locates its emergence in Sociology in the laie 1920s. '' See Chapter ii for a discussion of the limitations to popular music's revolutionary capacities due to its tie to a capitaiist indusuy. l6 See the opening quotation of this chapter by Daniel Sinker, and the opening quotations of Chapter 11 by Greil Marcus and Greg Tate. l7 Deleuze and Guattari, Anri-Oedipus. See note 5. l8 Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool: Business Culrure, Counrerculture, and rhe Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 9, argues that during the 1960s. businesses actively sought to "revolutionize" and revitalize themselves by adopting the strategies of the counterculnire, not because they deemed it a "threût" and sought to absorb it, but because business itself was reacting to its own conservative traditions, 19 In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari present the "schizophrenic" as a potentid revolutionary due its ability COescape the recuperative process of capitalisrn, See pages 341, 378-379. 'O Ibid. 378. '' Kurt Cobain. lead singer of Nirvana, was photographed in a t-shirt that 4 Corporate Music Sucks, while his band was signed to a major, corporaie record Iabel. " Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On rhe Value of Popufar Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, W6), 20. * See Chapter 1 for an anaiysis of "the people" and what constitutes as "popular," as well as further discussion of Frith's unpopularpopular. " Michel Foucault, The Hisrory of Sexuality. Volume Ir An inrroducrion, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1978); in particular, see the chapter 'Method," 92-102. Foucault will be further discussed in Chapter 1. 'J See Chapter ii, endnote 1. '6 The DiY principle stresses the need for the production of music that is independent of the established popular music indusuy including home recordings, hand-packaging of products, as well as self-promotion, and distribution. See the section, "Context." AS Jessica Rosenberg and Gitana Garofalo record in "Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from Within," Signs: Journul of Women in Culture and Sociery (Volume 23, Number 3, Spring 1998), the intent of riot gml was "to make girls and women more involved in [Washington] DC's predominantly white, male punk scene, in which girls participated mostly as girlfnends of the boys," 809. 29 Vijay Agnew's Resisting Discrimination (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) and Feminist Praxis, ed. Liz Stanley (London: Routledge, 1990) discuss how various contentions, including those of race and class, intersect with, overlap, and inform women's experiences and are, thecefore, crucial to feminist discourse (see the articles by Chung Yuen Kay, 'At the Palace: researching gender and ethnicity," 189-204, and Sue Webb's "Counter-arguments: an ethnographie look at 'Womn and Class,"' 205-220, in Feminist Pmxis). However, as Shulamit Reinhan argues throughout Feminist Methodr in Social Research NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992). ihere is much debate on what constitutes feminism and ferninist ideology. - - - -- Feminism, as it is referred to in this thesis, is based on ciot pl's terms (see the section "Context"). and is not inclusive of al1 facets of feminist arguments. Popular music has been linked to sociai movements (Eyerman and Jarnison: 1998, Gitlin: 1987), and has been argued to play a role in race plitics (Decker: 1994) or to provide cornmunity for marginalid groups @yer: 1994, Thomton and Gelder: 1997). The personal meanings and individual inspirations atîached to popular music have been explored (Douglas: 1994), individual musical artists have been scmtinized (Faith: 1997), and the sexual politics of popular music have been analyzsd (Reynolds and Press: 1995). 31 Various texts have celebrated and documented women's contributions to popular music history (Gaar: 1992, O'Dair: 1997, Raphael: 1996) and have provided feminist analyses of these contributions (Becker: 1990, Felder. 1993. McClary: 1991). 32 See Tricia Rose, BLack Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994a). as well as Robin Roberts, "Music Videos, Performance and Resistance: Feminist Rappers," Journal of Popular Culture (25. Fall 1991), 141-152, and "'Ladies First': Queen Latifah's Afrocentric Ferninist Music Video," African American Review (28, Summer 1994). 245-257. 33 Kilclene Faith, in "Resistance: Lessons fiom Foucault and Feminism," in Power/Gender: Social Relations in Theory and Practice, eds. H. Lonaine Radtke and Henderikus J. Stram (London: Sage, 1994), States that "whereas some resistances effectively cause certain positive shifts in particular power relations, others are benign or counterproductive," 49. Similarly, reactionary or 'bcounterrevolutionary"movements cause shifts in power relations that may run counter to revolutionary rnovements seeking the transformation of dominant systems. Imelda Whelehan, Modem Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to "Post-Feminism" (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995). 4. '* Chapter iil will look at riot grrrl's feminist tactics in more detail. 36 FO~Mer discussion on globalization, see Chapier U. " See note 35, above. 38 Punk rock originated within the working class youth in the United Kingdom. See Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1979) and Hiding in the Light (London: Routledge, 1988) for analyses of the ernergence of punk as a popular music form and culture. 39 George Lipsitz, throughout Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodemism and the Poetics of Place (London: Verso, 1994). expounds on how the politics of popular music from "aggrieved communities" around the world can bring about change within their own societies. JO 1am not suggesting that the politics "imported" from other societies do not have an impact on North Amecican audiences, but that exchange is based primarily on a consumer relationship to a commodity. '' The band Coldcut released an "enhanced" CD, which included computer software that allowed consumecs to create their own music fiom the sampled source material that comprised Coldcut's compositions, challenging the industry nom and dependence on the idea of "ownetship" over music. Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) explores how musical pracîices that do not fali withii what has been encoded as "music," are relegated as "noise;" that notions of "music" and "noise" are constructions based upon established musical practices. "Kathleen Hanna discusses how her conftontational performances and angry lyrics wece censured by audience members, in Busr(Tssue 12. Spring 1999), 61-62. See also Chapter III. Tobi Vail, in the liner notes to The CD Version of the First Two Recoràs by Bikini KilL ibid. "The CD is entitled Dure to be Aware. See Discography. CHAPTER I: POPULAR MUSIC AND REVOLUTION
We AU Want to Change the ~ortd'
The Sex Pistols were a commercid proposition and a cultural conspiracy, launched to change the music business and make money off the change-but Johnny Rotten sang to change the world. So did some of those who, for a tirne, found their own voices in his. In the small body of work they left behind, you can hear it happen. Listening, you can feel yourself tespond: 'This is actually happening.'' But the voices remah suspendeâ in time because you can't look back and say, 'This actually happened." By the standards of wars and revolutions, the wodd did not change ... As against the absolute demands so bciefly generawl by the Sex Pistols, nothing changed. The shock communicated by the dernands of the music becornes a shock that something so seemingly complete could, finally, pass almost unnoticed in the world of affairs: 'This was acnittlly not happening." Music seeks to change lqe; IiJe goes on; the music is leji behind; that is what is lefi tu ralk about. (my italics) -Greil arc us'
What if hiphop is not the expression of black folks' rage, but only another rnomentary containment of it, or worse, an entertainhg displacement?... Hiphop should be an invitation for everyone to break the silence around injustice, but it has become am invitation to party for the right to demagoguery. As a successful counter- cultural industry, whose style assaults have boosted the profits of the record, radio, junk food, fashion, and electronic industries. hiphop's work is done. But as a harbinger of the black revoIution, hip-hop has yet to prove itse~capableof inspiring acrîon towards bonajide social change. (my italics) -Greg ~ate'
As in the working class protest of punk or the "blrk foks' rage" of hip-hop: popular music in various forms has consistently been a space where the desire for revolution is articulated. And with each emergent popular music form that engages in some manner of rebeliion or political protest, an imminent revolution on the social plane is declared. However, the revolution as promised has yet to be realized. As evidenced in the quotations above, underlying each disappointment, each "failed" revolution, is the disiilusioned suspicion that, perbaps, popular music is not tnily capable of instigating swial change. matthen are the capacities of popular music as a vehicle for revolution, and what are its limitations? Is its designaiion as a site of revolutionary possibilities misguided or inspired? To witness ttie amount of energy generated by the masses in attendance at a sold-out concert in a fifty-thousand-capacity stadium5 is to understand how the hop for revolution tbrough popular music germinates and is sustained. How cm a medium with the ability to bhgso rnany people together not be able to harness that mass energy for revoIutionary purposes? And yet, with every attempt to incite revolutionary action bughpopular music, the result is perceived to be the same: ultirnately, transformation does not wcur and, once again, "life goes on [while] the music is ieft behind."6
This disappointment with potentially transfomative moments in popular music emerges from a conception or perception of revolution as, what the band Bikini Ki11 fias named, "Instrint Macho Gun ~evolution."~Why do Greil Marcus and Greg Tate assert that punk and mp, respectively, have corne short o€(Marcusand Tate's) expectations of revolutionary deliverance? Perbaps it is because theirs is an impatient revolution requiring not only imrnediate gratification, but also a tangible final outcorne, a denouement. In conuast, this cbapter analyzes revolution as a process of multiple resistances resulting in multiple effects? In this context. the undentuidhg that resistances emerge hmmultifarious points ûnd times illusuates why instant and identifiable, sweeping social change cannot be gleaned from popular music in a single smke or in a single movemnt-there k no one enemy, then is no one conflict, and so there is no one downfd? The investigation of the revolutionary potential of popular music hem takes into account this particulardefinition of revolution, and it will be explored later in the chapter. But, first, the social significance of popular music, the meanings it hot& for its audience, is discussed to determine popular music's relevance to revolutionary desire. Furthemore, the sociopolitical possibilities and Limitations of "the popular" and popuiar culture are also explored as contextualizing aspects of resistance as manifested in popular music.
The Social Significance of Popular Music
Despite the disappointment that often surfaces to dismiss popular music that upholds a revolutionary program, thece is dways a counteracting, reswfacing hope that both instigates new revolutionsiry endeavours and supports them as they emerge. On one hand, a social movernent accompanied by populac music is deemed revolutionady
impotent as it disbands and wanes from social or political focus wiihout having made a
discemible difference. On the other hand, regenented declarations of revolution through
popular music with new, or renewed, plans for socid change consistently ernerge to insist
that "the revolution" is sti1l dive. This insistence, in itself, is revealing about the desire
for revolution manifested in a form that is popularly recognizable, or as belonging to "the
people." Thus, to examine popular music as a medium conducive to popular resistance, it
would be useful to look at its social significance.
The accessibility of popular music, the means by which it can be harnessed by
individuals, is a primary factor in its position as a clarnorous and prevalent arena for
expressing the desire for revolution. wbereas a medium Iike fdrnl0 is often more
expensive to produce, and gives the impression of requinng technical proficiency Cie. one
must go to film school), popular music is cornparatively readily available at a cheaper
cost." And, particuiarly with the do-it-yourseifand punk rock ethics, there are not the
same requirements of technique or skiil, but rather an emphasis on just grabbing an instrument or a microphone and becoming involved.12 Furthermo~,popular music has
okn emerged hmdisenfranchised and marginaiized cultures or locations; the %orking class" mots of many popular music forms or genres, such as punk, also contributes to the
identification of popular music as king fttingly "by the people, for îhe people."'3
Although television bas also been cited as a alevant popular form, it is slrictty govemed
by its own industry and is Limited by broadcast policies and regulations, in order to be
broadcast, the rules and regulations of television stations must be obeyed and network
producers or advertisers must be pleased, othenvise a show can be easily "canceled." And
although cable and "specialty" c hannels allow for more experimentation and negotiation
of television broadcasting niles, the average individual's access to the production of a
television show is limited. In contrast, while the exchange of popular music has become
increasingly dependent on its status as a commodity wiihin the populru music industry,
the act of playing music can still take place in one's own basement or garage, and cm be
showcased in self-promoted, local performances-"anyone cm be in a band."
Furthemore, an individual playing a guitar, done, in a private space, is able to access and
pdcipate in popular music, either by 1e;icning and playing "popular tunes" or creating
her own music. Popular music is chmpioned as king a readily accessible form, its
accessibility king an integral piut of its value as a popular medium.
The sucial significance of popular music can be found in its relationship with its
audience. Popular music is ubiquitous, making its way into our everyday lives: hmour
personal music coliections to film soundtracks, fiom elevators to shopping mails, and
from street-corner buskers to stadium concerts. From the "portable" music of Walkmans
to the fact that contemporary cars have a stereo system with radio, tape deck, andfor CD player instailed-music is the wallpaper of our existence, the background noise. More signifcant, however, is that popular music holds much meaning for us. A characteristic regularly attcibuted to "good" music is that it inspires or that it has the ability to make one feel moved.I4 The affective quality of popular music, and music in generai, shapes the way in which it is appreciated by individuais, how it shapes identities, and is attached to particular moments in our lives." Furthemore, popular music is affective on various fronts. Not only do the lyrics of songs convey specific messages or conjure up images and emotions, but the music itself-the aura1 phenomenon-is often the main source for affective connection. Aithough, admittedly, individuai reactions may differ with the same piece of music, popular music consistently evokes not only physical (e.g. dancing) and visceral reactions, but also has the potential to stimulate individual and communal desires. Because of this capacity to elicit intense responses from people on a mass level, popular music is vaiuable as a tool for resistance.
The capacity of popular music for mass communication provides an effective mems to voice social and politicai commentary, criticism, and protest; hence, popular music has regularly accompanied social movements. Because of its communicative propecîies, popular music cm aiso be used as an instrument for rnobilization and organization. Popular musicians can spread a message of social change, and employ popular music as an educating tool CO raise poiitical awareness. For example, Song lyrics are a means by which popular musicians can express and promote particular ideas. In addition, popular musicians can also further harness their positions in popular view, where thek words and actions are scmtinized by audiences and ccitics, to advance their causes in interviews with magazines or through their own activist conduct. Meanwhile, popular music is aiso valuable to efforts for social change because it can inspire and incite individuals into becoming involved in a cause; as mentioned, the affective quality of popular music can encourage revolutionary impulses. Furthemore, by providing a space
(e.g. at a concert venue) where those impulses can be shared, popuiar music can also offer a sense of community and collective identity.
1want to clarifj that, within the scope of these arguments, 1am not focusing on a theory of reception, or the notion that audiences can participate in resistant strategies through their use of popular music. Although 1 acknowledge that "the politics of contemporary popular music emerge as much from the reception strategies of audiences as From the intentions of a~tists,"'~1want to highlight the capacity of popular music for revolution through the engaged efforts of musicians and, when deaiing with issues of reception, it is in relation to how popular music and musicians attempt to afSect their audience. 1 coincide with the sentiments of the musician Fela Kuti, as quoted by George
Lipsitz, "1 see music as a weapon ...Musicians should be using music to find out what is wmng in the e~tablishment.'~"
The Popular
Our conception of the "popular" refers to the people who are not fully involved in the process of development but who are actually taking it over, forcing it, deciding it. We have in mind a people that is making history and altering the world and itself. We have in mind a fighting people and also a fighting conception of "popularity." -Bertolt ~recht''
In the same spirit as Brecht's "fighting conception of popuiarity," the understanding of "the popular" within this study is one that is produced by and works in the interest of "the people." By "the people," 1am refemng to individuals not essentially in conuol of the pmesses of production or in collusion with dominant systems, but who are challenging and aggressively working towards altering systems of domination.
However, the people cannot be easily located or &fined within a specifk set of social pups or networks. As John Fiske outlines,
The people, the popular, the popuiar forces, are a shifting set of allegiances ihat cross al1 social categories; various individuals belong to popular formations at different times, often rnoving between hem quite fluidly. By "the people," then, t mean this shifcing sense of social allegiances, which are described better in terms of people's felt collectivity than in ternis of external sociological factors such ris class, gender, age, race, region or what have you.'g
Significant in Fiske's characterization of the people is its designation within "people's felt coliectivity" rather than in "extemai soçiological factors." By aliowing for a more fluid definition of "the people," Fiske cecognizes the interrelated and overlapping interests and motivations of individuals, independent of and superseding their membership in various social categories, The people, then, can be conceived of as a mutating classification incorporating individuals' assorted (and sometimes conflicting) loyalties and affinities, but identified by the underlying desire and motivation CO alter their condition.
Conuasting the notion of the popdar as an arena for the people, a means by which individuals can exert revolutionary pressure, the popular is also regularly equated with mriss culture and consumerism. The popular in this sense coincides with its denotation as having mass apped. For the sake of differentiation, 1wiii cdthis a mass popular. This particuIar interpretation of the popular is prevalent ia the discourse around the cornmodification of popular culture. In terms of popular music, the mass popuIar finds validity in that which is at the top of the char&,which is marketed for and consumed by a mass audience, and which selis the most records. This mass popular is generally controlled by capitalist industry, produced with the purpose of giunering the greatest profit. It is possible for a musical form to have "zinti-mass popular" leanings, or to be cesistant to the pressure for mas sales, and yet become "popular," in the sense of being widely accepted and consumed. However. the main aspect of the mass popular is its emphasis on consumption practices, the market, and profit margins. What is deemed
"popular" is based on what "the people*' want as indicated through their buying habits or choices. Within the mass popular, the people are represented as consumers, marked by their purchasing power versus their stniggle for change.
Within the scope of these arguments, Brecht'sjighting popular is of interest and vdue, and is the basis of an understanding of the popular as a potential revolutionary force. Borrowing Simon Frith's terni, the wpopularpopula~Obest exemplifies a conception of the popular that works with the revolutionary desires of the people and also does not fundamentally collude with the demands of the mass popular. But, first, in order to understand how constructions of the popular can come to bave different, even oppositional, meanings, the distinction between notions of "high" and "low" must be established.
There has been much work exploring and contrasting the aspects of high and low, and it would be beyond the reach of this study to thoroughly delve into the nuances of those arguments here. Simply put, as a means of providing some background, the "high"
("high culture," "high art") is representative of the cultural artifacts regarded as bourgeois, hmthe intelligentsia to the avant-garde. The high is constnrcted to be superior to the low and, as suggested by Pierre Bourdieu, serves to iiiustrate the informed, discerning tastes of the bourgeois, i.e. as compared to the "lower c~ass."~'The "low" ("low culture," "low art") corresponds to the proletariai and is considered to appeai to more "cornmon" pieferences, often labeled as uncomplicated, ephemeral, even crass. The dispacities in the appreciation and evaluation of high and low are outlined by Frith: "high cultural audiences.. .assume the value of an art object is contained within it; low cultural audiences assume that the vaiue of an art object lies in what it can do for them.'J2 Fnth describes the distinction between high and low as conventionally residing in the prevaience of fonn in assessing value in the high and of function in the low.
The popular, within this hierarchy, is regarded as the low, as it embodies the sensibilities and serves the interests of "the people" (in this context, the people meaning the proletariat, the lower ch).However, the location of the popular in the sphere of the low has raised contention about its potentiai as a revolutionary site. Because the popular must appeal and be recognizable to the everyday lives of the people, that it must be
"usefui" to them, John Fiske has argued that the populardoes not have the capacity to be
"radical." Specifically, Fiske asserts that
Radical art fomthat oppose or ignore the structures of domination cm never be popular because they cannot offer points of pertinence to the everyday life of the people, for everyday life is a secies of tacticai maneuvers against the strategy of the colonizing forces. It cannot produce the conditions of its existence, but must make do with those it has, often tuming them against the system that produces them. Radical art tries tomate iis own terms of existence, COfree itself hmthe status quo. It has an important place in a system of culture, and some of its radicalness may filter through to, and increase the progressiveness of, popular art. but it cm never, in itself, be popular.?3
Fiske furthet suggests that "popular change.. .is aimed at maintaining or increasing the bottom-up power of the people within the system. It results in the softening of the harsh extremities of pwer, it produces small gains for the wealt'" but, ultimately, it cannot alter the conditions wiihin which it struggles. Although Fiske does not want to overlook the advances attained through popular change, he locates the strength of the popular in iis progressive capabilities. For Fiske, the popular canaot transgress its place within what is understandable to the daily realities of the people and, hence, cannot attempt a radical reconception of social relations or world orders. The high, however, as the site of experirnentation with "form*' and without dependence on "functionl'-as the realrn of the
"rivant-gardeW-canparticipate in radical evisionings of established roles and relations.
And it is this ability to envision alternate possibilities that can incite revolutionary
impulses and produce revolutionary effects.
Challenging the hierarchy of the high and low, and the manner in which the distinctions between them are constmcted, Frith, in contrast to Fiske, contends that value judgements often reserved for the high can just as easily be applied to the low: "there are obvious differences between operas and soap operas, between classical and country
music, but the fact that the objects of judgment are different doesn't rnean that the
processes of judgment are.'" Whiie not completely eradicating the boundacies betwan
high and low, Frith asks how well those boundaries would stand up to close scnitiny. For
example, he refew to Richard Shusterman's argument that the description of the pleasures
of popular art as being fleeting and transient could also be applied to high art.'6 By calling
for interweaving evaluations of both the high and low, Frith estabiishes the low as having
the capacity to envision radical possibilities Ne the high, yet still be "popular" by serving
the interests of the people. Frith critiques Fiske's dismissal of the popular's revolutionary
potential because of its dependence on a definition of the populat based on what 1have
called the mass popular-"popuiarity" that is estabtished by sales figures and market
indicators. Frith's problem with this understanding of the popular is that high sales do not ïndicate why certain products are "chosen by consumers nor whether they are actually enjoyed or vaiued by hem (it is a common enough experience to go to a blockbuster fi, watch a high-rated TV program, read a best-seliing book, or buy a chart record that turns out to be quite ~ninterestin~).""Frith questions the "assumption that a market failure is by definition unpopular or that a market success has by definition a popular audience.""
This staternent is vital to my own arguments on the popular and its capacity to elicit change. By breaking from a definition of the popular that is reliant on the market, by acknowledging that what constitutes the popular more significantly resides in the value that is given to it by its fan/consumer/audience/the people, Fcith offers a popular that dues not necessarily need to be relevant to everyday lives-a popular that can envision new and alternate realities. By not needing mass approval and high sales figures, the popular can take on radical, demanding forms and still be popular through the value accredited it by individuals.
It is with the desire to believe in alternate possibilities, with the ability to envision radical change, that the popular is understood within this study. As Frith stresses, ''culture as transformation must challenge experience, must be difîicult, must be ~npo~ular."~
And this unpopdar popular is the foundation of my discussions of popular musicN as potentially revolutionary. My own experience of valuing, of king deeply affected by, decidedly "unpopular" music (most of the music that holds meaning for me has ken commercidiy unsuccessful), informs my conviction that the popular can be "uunpopdar" according to mass market indicators, and yet have a profound impact on individuals. lf the popular can be taken as more genuinely belonging to the people by king sornething that they value rather than consume, then this popular has the capacity to affect these individuals and challenge them towards transformation.
Popular Culture
In his article, "Pessimism Versus Populism'* (MO), John Clarke gives the following definition of b'culture:"
"Culture" designates the social field of meaning production (sometimes called ideological stmggle, signifying practice or processes of representation). It refers to the processes through which people make sense of themselves and iheir lives within the frame of possibilities offered by the society of which they are members. It is within culture that individual and collective identities and pcojects are formed?'
Applying a Gramscian concept of hegemony, Clarke qualifies that meaning production for individuals takes place "within the frame ofpossibilities offered by the society of which they are members." The concept of hegemony, as explicated by Gramsci, has been influential to popular culture discussions as an exploration of the ways in which domination and control are exerted and rnait~tained.~'The ruling class, the bourgeoisie, sustain hegemony over the subordinate class, the proletariat, through the "elaboration and penetration of ideology (ideas and assumptions) into their comrnon sense and everyday practice; it is the systernatic (but not necessarily or even usually deliberate) engineering of mass consent to the established o~der."~~The ideology of the ruling class must be
"nahuaiized," insinuated into the daily reaiities of the subordinate class, in order to maintain hegemony. However, hegemony is not assured and must be consistently "won, produced, sustained," while the perpetuation of hegemony is achieved through the containment or "framing" of ideologies contesthg those of the mihg class? Members of the subordinate class are given the %dom" to move within this "fiamework," able to oppose and chailenge the ruling class. This "sanctioned resistance" allows for the
satiation of their revolutionacy desires, as it gants the expression and incorporation of
opposition-however, it never concedes its domination. The miing ideology regularly
absorbs competing and confiicting ideologies, giving the impression that resisting agents
are "gaining ground" when in fact they are only operating within parameters alteady
established. Hence, hegemony is sustained through "naturalized" ideology, which evades
detection. However, as Dick Hebdige has argued, just as hegemony is not a "given," a
nauraiized ideology can be deconstcucted. exposed as a hegemonic device and diffu~ed.'~
Another ruling ideology, though, is bound to take the place of a diffused one, and so the
cycle continues.
Stuart Hall's article "Encoding, ~ecodin~""is useful to emphasize how capitalist
industry produces meaning within culture for its own purposes, but why it cannot
guarantee consumer compiicity. Basing his discussion on television and the broadcasting
process, Haü theorizes that consumption can only take place after commodities are
"encoded" with meaning by institutions and industries, and then are "decoded" by
consumers. Meaning must fmt be put into language, or "discursive form," and then
translated into social practices that can be understood by consumers. However, Hall
points out that communication between the encoder and decoder cannot be guaranteed to
be syrnmetrical and, ofien, misunderstandings or distortions in this exchange occur. So
aithough a viewer of a television program may operate "inside the dominant code" by
decoding a program according to the "dominant or prefened meaning" as established by a
broadcasting institution, there is aiso room for a viewer to misunderstand or, even, read
oppositionaiiy to the intended meaning of a program. Haii recognizes that although there are structures and limitations to the intqretation and production of meaning, they are not entirely determining and can be negotiated. Hall fwther makes the statement that
"encoding will have the effect of constnicting some of the limits and parameters within which decodings will operate. If there were not Limits, audiences could simply read whatever they liked into any message."37 'lhus, Hd,lüce Gramsci, assects that although audiences, or consumers, can resist, misread, or distort the dominant meanings inscribed in commodities and culturd products, they cm only do so within the limitations imposed by the forms and processes dictated by capitdist industry. This industry grants audiences and consumers the room to exert resistance and opposition to encoded meanings, while maintaining control over the processes of meaning production.
The sphere of popular cuIture is a higfily contested terrain where the dueling interests of the industry and of the people play out their dominant and resistant roles.
Herbert J. Gans raises some questions on the social significance of popular culture:
How important is popular culture in society? 1s it merely a commerciaily concocted activity for the leisure hours, which goes in one eye or ear and out the other, or does it reflect both shallow and deep-tying, rnanifest and latent, assumptions, values, wishes, and even needs in American society? Are the everchanging fashions in television programs and characters only novelties invented by producers looking for a different way to entertain the audience and to score high Nielson ratings? Or are these fashions what George Gerbnercalls cultural indicators of changes in the lives and attitudes of Amencans, and of the uses which audiences make of popular cultures and the gratifications they receive from itfp
As John Clarke has outlined, the main views on popular culture can be (simplisticaily) placed in the two categocies of "pessiimsm" and b'populism.'J9 Under the pessimist definition, popular culture has becorne less about the people than about the centraiization of economic power over culture. According to Clarke, "the 'dienation' of cultural production locates it decisively in the heart of the capitalist domination of the social worid.. .People have to buy their way into popular culture.'* Populat culture, in this sense, bas ken transformed into a "consumer culture" where the exchange and consumption of commodities underlie social relations. The pessimistic view regards popular culture as an extension of capitalist economies and, therefore, the motives behind the production of culture become suspect. Clarke places a notion of "populism'* in opposition to this pessimism. Expanding on Hall's contention that meaning cm be negotiated, the populist definition allows for meaning production to be open to interpretation, while acknowledging the centrality of consumption in contempocary considerations of popular culture. The act of consumption is considered to be an autonomous practice from that of production; consumers have the ability to use commodities and give meaning to them as they see fit. Rather than viewing consumers as passive recipients of the cultural goods fed to them by corporate entities, populism views consumption as an active process by which consumers negotiate and signify commodities and social pcactices separately from the meanings inscribed by the culture industries. It is this perspective which gives rise to theocies of subcultures and popular resistance- consumers are granted the ability to discriminate and refuse cultural products, as well as re-inscribe oppositional meanings to these commodities in acts of subversion and rebeiiion?'
Clarke continues with a critique of both the pessimist and populist views that illustrates the ambiguities of popular culture. He questions the pessirnist notion of unified culture industries whose politicai and economic goals converge without contradiction,
Coinciding with a Grarnscian understanding of hegemony, Clarke cites how culturai products with subversive or oppositional meanirigs are often suppocted by cuItural industries in the name of expanding markets and increasing profit, despite these meanings mnning "counter to the 'politicaisultural' interests of the capital.'*2 Furthemore. the act of purchasing is not the same as the act of using a cultural product, as "exchange needs to be differentiated fiom con~um~tion.'*~Conversely, Clarke cciticizes the populist view for focusing too nmowly on consumption without situating it within the concrete conditions of mass production and exchange, and as Hall has warned against, gcanting consumers free reign over reading and re-signimng cultural products. By assuming that the consumption and use of cultural products can exist outside of the dominant economic relations wbich structure them. the populist view reduces acts of consumer cesistance to what Clarke has caüed "living subordination" or "passive dissent."
Revolution
Revolution has been classically defmed as structural change, where some form of mass upcising or militacy insurrection engenders the overturning or reconstruction of social or political systems. However, Michel de Certeau makes a waniing against
those who wish to collapse a system of authocity without preparing its replacement; those who would joyfully throw themselves into violence without accounting for the cepression or the fascism that their action would serve; those who would take joy in the perspective of taking part in the great upheaval without wondering what the cost of the spectacle will be and who will pay for it-always the same ones, the minority, those lem favored"
When considered in de Certeau's tenns, the classic definition of revohtion is problematic. Furthemore, by focusing on a hierarchical notion of power, this version of revolution assumes that power is embodied in individuals or institutions and, hence, can be overthrown. But a hierarchical understanding of power caiis for a revolution that mecely replaces one king with another-and, besides, a dictatorship can be overthrown by a tyrant. in contrast to this classic definition of revolution, and with a conception of
''power without the king,'" revolution is (rmefined hem as a process. Revolution as a process allows for revolutionary tactics and goals to be in a state of flux, to adapt to changes in social, political, and cultural chates. Furthermore, revolution as a process is also conducive to the evasion of and recovery from recuperative cycles of power. As
Michel Foucault has argued, "power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular s~ciet~."~With these rems, this study considers revolution as not about seeking to overcome or overthrow power, but as an employment of tacticai, multiple resistances that expose and deconstmct the mechanisms of power.
Class has been normatively situated as central to the realization of revolution from an economic standpoint: revolution must emerge from the working class, the proletariat, and it is through their overthrow of the upper class, the bourgeoisie, that revoIution will cake place. Under classicai Marxist standards, the revolution must be proletarian by nature and result in a cestructu~gof the production process and the redistribution of power, the god king the termination of class exploitation?' Furthermon, it has ken argued that a proletarian revolution must be a "total revo~ution,'~~a complete dismantling of former bourgeois systems with the establishment of new systems based on the proletariat. The proletariat revolution is considered incomplete or ineffective unless it creates a new order wholiy separate from the dominant order it has replaced and founded on its own systems of value and practice. Moving away hmthe location of class and economic systems as primary sites of revolutionary conflict, the concept of revolution in this discussion takes into account individual and localized resistances as outlined by
Foucault, in a conversation with Gilles Deleuze:
When one swggles against exploitation, it is the proletariat which not only leads the swggles, but also defines the targets, the methods, the places and the instruments of the swggle. To be allied with the proletariat is to join it in its positions and ideology, and to participate in their modes of combat. Thus, it becomes diffused. But if it is against authority and power that one struggles, then al1 those who are the victims of abusive authority, al1 those who recognize it as intolerable, can get involved in the stniggle where they are and departing frorn their own activity (or passivity). in participating in this stniggle which is iheir own, where they are perfectly aware of the target and for which they cm determine the method, they enter the revolutionary process?
Foucault identifies resistance as localized struggies that contend with particular conditions or particda injustices as individuaiiy identified and defined. Furthemore, because these resistances are localized and individualized, they manifest as multiplicities of resistances, emerging from and expressed at different and varying points and times.
Hence, these eruptions of resistimces cannot be rendered as absolute and representative, heeding Gilles Deleuze's caution against totdization:
It is not for us to totalize what cm be totalized only on the level of authority and which we could not totalize on our own level other than by restoring representative forms of centralism and hierarchy.* Moreover, while "there is no single locus of great ~ehisal,'~''tbere is also no single great
Refused, no one target that provokes and engenden the multiplicities of resistances.
Consequently, without one Refused, multiple resistances produce multiple effects, generating intertwining, intersecting, overlapping, and conflicting complex networks of
Karlene Faith notes, "Like power, resistance is nota homogeneous, fixed phenornenon: it is pluralized.. .Power relations, thus, are not inevitable, unchanging, unalterab~e.~*~With thk Merconception of resistance as rnutabk (as weU as mutaîing) and of power as "strategic relations," the recuperative cycles of power can be considered less as hegemonic tactics of a dominant system to absorb resistances that empt within its
'îrame of possibilities," than the negotiation and renegotiation of relations of power. instead of an understanding of resistances as "sanctioned" dismptions to "hegemonic systems," the interplay of power and resistance recognizes and acknowledges the changes, however localized, that occur within cycles of cecupemtion-that power is not static. For example, aithough the commerciaiization of women musicians may suggest that riot grni's promotion of women to become musicaiiy active was co-opted and absorbed by the popular music industry, women musicians are now supported by the indusüy, actively sought out by record labels and signed to contracts. The popular music indusüy has changed, however slightly, because of women musicians' resistance to exclusion.
And, it is in the mutating relations of power and resistance that the possibilities for revolution become a hope. if revolution is considered a process, instead of a centralized movement, then it is able to adapt to the recuperative cycles of power, because the continuai emergence and re-emergence of movements cm be understood as its own cycle of "recoveries*' and renewed resistances. With this understanding, the revolutionary process does not end with the recuperation of a movement; rather, the persistent regeneratioa of movements and revolutionary desire signify a continuum of süuggie.
Localized resistances can be Liaked to multiplicities of resistance, forming "networks of popular bases." The uansfonnative aspects of multiple cesistances Lie in their exposun and deconstmctions of established or "natualized" power relations. By revealing the mechanisms of power, and then chailenging and renegotiating relations of power, the multiple effects of multiple resistances allow for a process of transformation to take shape.
Individual Resistances and the Revolutionary hess
Stanley Cohen and iaurie Taylor argue in Escape Attempts (1992) that the desire for grand revolutionary gestures may be misleading and outmoded, and that resistances made by ordinary individuals within their "everyday lives" are a more propitious and practicd means of escaping the dominance of institutionalized systems and structures,
However, in their focus on the microcosmic resistances that occur in every day realities,
Cohen and Taylor do not situate individual "escape attempts" within revolutionary possibilities. John Fiske suggests that "Cohen and Taylor corne to wonder if the important question was not how to change the world, but rather 'in what ways should one resist or yield to its demands in order to make l@ bearable, in order to preserve some sense of identity."'" Cohen and Taylor put fonh "two endings" for their work. Their pessimistic conclusion coincides with Fiske's observation: 'What hope is there of escape? The slogan of getting it together advanced by communes and the cultural cevolution is illu~or~.'~~~
However, Cohen and Taylor also celebrate the many ways people perform resistances:
"none of our skepticism or pessimism should hide our continual amazement and delight at how people keep up this struggle, how they keep trying to dislodge the self from society-not in spectacular ways but in the infinite number of ordinary and short-lived ways we have recorded.'" Nonetheless. regardless of which ending is chosen. there is sathe reluctance to consider the possibilities of transformation. Cohen and Taylor's emphasis on individual resistances allow for the specificity of each reaiity, each coping strategy. In this sense, they coincide with Foucauldian mulitiplicities of resistances, recognizing that resistance emerges fiom localized and varying points. However, while they acknowledge the ability of individuals to escape, to evade, the conditions of their everyday tives, they dismiss the potential of individual resistances to effect change to those conditions. But to accept that evasion, not transformation, is the acme of resistance cornes uncomfortably close to giving in, a surrender of the hope for social change. With Foucault's conception of the dynamic of power relations, Cohen and Taylor's individuai resistances can be considered as partaking in the reworking of these re~ations.~If power and resistance are reciprocally mutating, then individuai resistances can still be part of a revolutionary process by causing disruptions and ruptures to pariuiigrnatic constructions of power relations. With ;in understanding of revolution as a continuing, communal struggle founded upon individud resistances amongst pluralized mistances, the possibility for sociai iransformation remains effectuai and keeps revolutionary hop alive.
Sarah Lucia Hoagland's notion of autokoenony" pm"des a cogent reconcüiation of the ostensible contradiction between individual resistances and social revolution. As coined by Hoagiand, autokoenony is defined as "the self in community." In Hoagiand's study of lesbian ethics, she argues that although perspectives and experiences may be individuaiized, there are still commonaiities that can connect individuals to a community.
She further asserts that identity is determined by interactions and relationships with other individualdat we do not exist in isoIation despite our individuality-and so individuai gmwth and action is related to community: Moral agency is not a matter of controlling situations but rather of addressing our part and acting within situations; it means we perceive out selves as functioning, not in isolation, but within situations and in relation to others. Moral agency then becornes a question of, not how we are going to stop al1 the injustice, but rather what out part is and what we are going to do next. in this way, acknowledging our boundaries does not detract from our interactions but rather locates us in a context wherein we
Hoagland's concept of autokoenony accounts for individuai resistances while connecting tbem to a larger struggle, in effect pressing the individuai into revolutionary territory.
Autokoenony makes the connection between the individuai and society, ailowing for an understanding of how individuais can participate in seemingly disparate and fragmented resistances and, yet, be linked in a common struggle towards social change.
Feminist Revolution
Working with the notion of revolution as a process, the challenge for feminism and women's movements is to keep dive the desire for and possibiiities of a feminist revolution through the continual and continuing eruption of women's resistance fiom multiplicities of points. With plunlized and localized resistances that cm also be tinked within collective resistances, a feminist revolutionary process is considered here as emerging hmand contingent on the ongoing individuai and collective struggles maintained and waged by women. Hence, an evaiuation of the revolutionary poteotial or ahievements of feminism cannot be determined through the immediate changes, if any, that result from a particular women's movement or feminist effort. instead, feminism partakes in a revolutionary process as founded on the tanpile changes that occur for individuai wornen and the ways in which these changes, when they become rooted and widespread, undermine dominant and normative gender roles and relations. Dorothy E. Smith bas acgued that "foms of consciousness are created that are properties of organization or discourse rather than of individual subjects9&and that "the concerns, interests, and experiences forming 'our' culture are those of men in positions of dominance whose perspectives are built on the silence of women (and of others).'"
However, as a feminist challenge to this silencing and exclusion, Smith aiso argues:
At the line of fault dong which women's experience breaks away from the discourses mediated by texts that are integral to the relations of ding in contempomy society, a critical standpoint emerges. We rnake a new language that gives us speech, ways of knowing, ways of working politically. At the moment of separation from established discourses, the objectified fomof knowledge they embody become critically visible.62
Focusing on women's perspectives and experiences of being-which oftentimes differ from and contradict dominant (patriarchal) discourses-Smith encourages a critical feminist speech as based on women's individual and personai standpoints. By valuhg and speaking fiom their localized positions, women can expose the ways in which their lived experiences are represented and misrepresented through the gendered constructions of dominant discourses. Thus, the individual becomes an agent of change, wMe the pmcess of a feminist revolution operates through women's individual voices that overlap and coincide to fonn a collectivity of voices that refute and challenge the discourses that have silenced them.
Acknowledging a debt to Foucault, but taking on a feminist perspective that
Foucault's work did not explore, Teresa de Lauretis examines the '%onstnictionof gender
[as] a proâuct and process of both representation and self-reprauitation.*Following
Foucault's arguments, de Lawtis recognizes the interplay of power that occurs between the construction of gender and its &construction. This interplay of power is a vital aspect of feminist stmggle because the consciousness and exposure of gender constructions cm, ultimately, result in their re-conceptuaiization. With emphasis on how the re-thinking of established gender roles and relations can reveai how women's sexuality or 'Temininity" or socialiy acceptable modes of bebviour are not "given" but are constructed by dominant discourses, de Lauretis recognizes the "poential dismption of the social fabric and of white male privilege that could ensue if this feminist critique of gender as ideologico-technical production were to become ~idespread."~~And it is with this
"potentiai dismption" that my discussion of riot grrrl as an element of a feminist revolutionq process is framed. Notes
C-R 1: POPULAR MUSIC AND REVOLUTION 1 A line fiom the Beatles' song "Revolution," from the White Album: "You Say you want a revolution. Well, you know, we ail want to change the world." 'Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 2-3. Johnny Rotten was the lead singer for the punk band, The Sex Pistols. Greg Tate, as quoted in Andrew Ross' introduction to Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture (New York: Routledge. 1994), 1. Punk and hiphop are various fonns or genres of popular music, each with their own sociopoliticai and cultural roots and concerns. 'Witness the screaming generated by a Beatles concert or the "moshing" (aggressive dancing characterized by bumping into each other) rit a rock show. See Greil Marcus quotation, note 1. ' Bikini Ki11 (Zine #2, n.d.). This definition of revolution will be dealt with further in the section, "Revolution." Michel Foucault in The History ofSexuulity. Volume i: An infrodrcction,trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1978). States chat the "relational character of power relationships.. .depends on a multiplicity of points of resismce: these play the role of adversary, target, support, or handle in power relations," 95. 9 This is a play on Foucault's staternent that ''there is no single locus of great Refusai, no sou1 of revoit, source of ail rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary," The History of Sexuuliry, 95-96. 'O 1am not suggesting here that film is not itself a site where revolutionary desire cm be expressed; on the contrary, film can envision revolutionary possibilities within its own medium (through aesthetic or technical innovations), as well as inspire revolutionary impulses: see Jacqueline Levitin's Jean-Luc Godard: Aesthetics as Revolution (Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1976). 1would simply like to compare film and popular music's accessibility. " 1am refemng to the availability and cornparatively lower expense of musical instruments, like a guitar, versus the apparatus of film, like a motion picture carnera. '' Punk and DIY, because of their challenge to (social, musical) nom, encouraged individuais to play music regardless of skill or ability, and championed a musical style that was deerned "chaotic" or "anarchic" to established notions of music. l3 Hebdige, in both Subculture: The Meaning of Sryle (London: Routledge, 1979) and Hiding in the Light (London: Routledge, 1988), explores the origins of a popular music form like punk within the working class youth of Britain, and how its rebellion was a pmtest to the disenfranchisement of the working class. l4Sharlene Azam's article "Going Beyond HipHop's Bad Rap" in The Toronto Star (Sunday, June 20,1999). D16-D17, notes audience expectations of king inspired and rnoved by popular music, in a discussion on hip-hop music. Susan J. Douglas' chapter "Why the Shirelles Mattered" in Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (New York: Times Books, 1994), describes how the 1960s girl group, the Shirelles, evoked "passion," "longing,'* "euphoria," and "an irresistibie desire to sing very loudly and off key and not care who hears," 83. '' Music is pervasive in social gatherings, hmweddiigs to funerals, and often signifies particular, personal moments in our Lives or is associated with certain memories. 16 George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodemism and the Poerics of Place, (London: Verso, 1994), 12. l7ibid. 140. '' Brecht on Theatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964). 108. l9 Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 24. Frith, Perjiorrning Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge: Harvard University hss, 1996). 20. 21 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (London: Routledge, 1979). In particular, see the section "The Aristocracy of Culture." pages 1 1-96. Y Frith, Per$orming Rites, 18. '" Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, 16 1. '4 ibid. 188. " Frith, Performing Rites, 17. Ibid. " ibid. 15. ibid. 15. ?9 ibid. 20. 1 use "popular music", as well as "the popular," as a general teminclusive of both the mass popular and the unpopular popular, and are defined prirnarily by their relegation to the "low"- see the section ''The Popular." 31 John Clarke, "Pessimism Versus Populism: The Problematic Politics of Popular Culture," in For Fun and Profi: The Transformation of Leisure into Consumption (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1 WO),28. " Specifically, Gramsci was writing against capitalist domination. See Antonio Gnmsci, Selectionsfrom Cultural Writings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 33 Tdd Gitlin, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmuking of the New Left (Berkley: University of California Press, 1980), 253. Stuart Hall's arguments as discussed by Dick Hebdige in Subculture, 16. See also Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain (London: Hutchinson, 1976). 3s Hebdigc, Subculture, 16- 17. 3b Stuart Hall, "Encoding, Decoding," in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon During (London: Routledge, 1993). 90-103. " ibid. 100. la Herbert S. Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture (New York: Basic Books hc., 1974), viii. Clarke, "Pessimism Versus Populism," 28-44, a lbid. 3 1. '" Attempting to recover popular culture from the domination of the culture industries, there have been various readings of popular culture that concentrate on its consurnption and use by consumers, constnicting instances of tebellion and subversion as challenges to the hegemonic fomthrough which popular culture is produced and circulated. See The Subcultures Reader, eds. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (London: Routledge, 1997) for an anthology of essays on different "subcultures" that challenge and resist consumer culture and the domination of culture by industries. "Clarke, "Pessimism Versus Populism," 36. " Ibid. 37. a Michel de Ceneau, Culture in the Plural [1974] (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 4. " Michel FoucauIt, The History of Sexualiry, 91. 46 Ibid- 93. '' Jacqueline Levitin's Jean-Luc Godard has an illuminating discussion of revolutionary theories. In particular, see pages 33-37 for her arguments on proletarianism and revolution. " As argued by Antonio Gramsci in Selectionsfrom Cultural Writings, "the proletarian revolution cannot but be a total revolution. It consists in the foundation of new modes of labour, new modes of production and distribution that are peculiar to the working class in its historical determination in the course of the capitalist process. This revolution also presupposes the formation of a new set of standards, a new psychology, new ways of feeling, thinking and living that must be specific to the working class, that must be created by it," 41. 49 Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, "The Intellectuals and Power: A Discussion beiween Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze," Telos, trans. Mark Seem (Number 16, Summer, 1973). 109. ibid. 107. '' Foucault, History of Sexuality, 95-96. " Karlene Faith, "Resistance: Lessons from Foucault and Feminism," Power/Gender: Social Relations in Theory and Practice, eds. H. Lorraine Radtke and Henderikus I. Stram (London: Sage, 1994), 45. Deleuze's term, in Foucault and Deleuze, 107. " Fiske, 34. 5s Stanley Cohen and Laurie Taylor, Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 1992). 233. 56 Ibid. 234. Cohen and Taylor acknowledge the impact of Foucault's theories on their work in the "Preface to the Second Edition" of Escape Attemprs (1992); the original work was published in 1976. Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Lesbian Ethics.. Toward New Value (Palo Alto: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1988). 145. 59 Ibid. 240-24 1. Dorothy E. Smith, The Evrryday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987),3. '' Ibid. 19-20. 62 Domthy E. Smith, The Conceprual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (Boston: Northeastem University Press, 1990), 1 1. Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gendec Essays on Theory, Film, adFiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 9. 64 Ibid. 21 C-R II: THE REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL OF KDPULAR MUSIC
The Popular Music lndustryl Capitalism and Globalization
Although popuiar music can be produced and used in various settings not entirely within the grasp of capital concems? it is predorninantiy a lucrative industry in its own right as well as a vital am of the entenainment and culture industries? Popular music is not only exchanged as a product in itself, but is also repackaged within other industry ventures, such as sewing as the soundtrack for television cornmerciais:' Hence, discussion of the potential of popular music as a revolutionary medium, or even as a site of cesistance, must take into account the current and prevalent conditions which entrench it in the process of selling things. The modus operandi of popular music as an industry coiiudes with the demands of the mass popular. Situated within the centraiity of commercial considerations and market exploitation, popuiar music cannot be extricated from the dominant structures that govem how it is produced, distributed, and consumed.
As a product of a capitalist industry, popular music functions as a commodity, its worth based on its ability to genecate mass sales and gamer the most profit. Consequentiy, economic stipulations fundamentaiiy shape popular music:
Popular music is, after dl, primarily produced within the institutional and organization contexts of media corporations whose ptimary intent is to demoney. Thus the music industry has important (if not easily determined) effects on the ways in which musicians work. how styles and genres are formed and marketed, the technological means through which music is recorded, broadcast, and circulateci, and the aesthetic fonn and meaning of popuiac music?
The advancement of capitalism has had profound impact on the contemporary production of popuiar music for industry. Capitaiism, loosely dehed, is the economic system in which commodities are produced and distributed in the interest of capital and profit, as conmiied by an exclusive group of privae owners? At the onset of industrialization, capitalism was primarily concemed with the efficient production and circulation of commodities as well as with the organization of the market in order to provide goods as demanded by consumers. However, in contemporary society, the onslaught of advanced capitaiism has expanded control to include the production of demand itself-the need not only to ensure the provision of goods, but also to ensure their consurnption: "1t becornes vital for the system in dis phase to control not only the apparatus of production, but consumer demand; to control not just prices, but what will k demanded at those prices."' Cowquently, thece bas ken a shift from consumer needs as centrai to market organization to the needs of minority capital-owners, of producers, seeking to guacantee profit and market viability. Meanwhiie, marketing and advertising have emerged as prevailing and necessary divisions of industry, siphoning funds and energy from the production of products, to the creation of need and desire for products?
Along with advanced capitalism, North American society and industry have undergone global expansion and cm no longer be discussed as autonornous and isolated.
When once countries had relatively contained, separate economies that contacted on the level of trade, the rise of the global economy has interwoven industries fiom different countries, overlapping in ownership and mergers, with the common objective of profit as gleaned fiom the widest market range ("the world" performing this function adequately).
Economies are now dependent on each other, interco~ectedas parts of the global whole.
For North Arnerican interests, globdization has extended not only the reach and iduence of capitalism, but has opened up world markets for exploitation, while providing a bmader sphen for communication? A major effect on the paplar music industry is that
regional corporations, which previously owned and coatroiied the output of popular
music hma specific record label, have mutated into global, multimedia conglomerates overseeing a variety of popular culture products from magazines to television shows.1°
The merging of large corporations from around the world" has resulted in what cm be
described as "super-corporations," the centnlization of power made more acute as it is
further funneled into the hands of rninority owners. Hence, profit is extracted from a
greater pool of consumers in the world market, oniy to be accumulated by a diminishing
number of controlling groups (increasing their profit margins as here is less sharing). The
combinacion of capitalism and globaliation pose a troublesome prospect as "these efforts
at monopolization of di media by transglobal enterprises transform individuais from
citizens into consumers and consumers alone."" Globalization is fuither problematic
given the imbalance amongst countries due to such factors as colonialism and varying
stages of industrialization. Although globalization theoretically opens markets up to "the
world," suggesting an even playhg field, there are countnes in positions of dominant
economic power, multing in the exploitation of "subordhate" countries and their
CeSoUCCes. 13
Globalization also prompts the introduction, circulation, and exchange of products
hmaround the world within North American markets. For the popular music indusîry,
this means that "world music" can be imported, creating a fresh "genre" to be marketed,
while providing a greater variety of products for consumption. Conversely, popular music
from North America can be exported to the rest of the worfd, further incceasing pmfit
possibilities as market ranges are expanded into other countnes. However, for fans and musicians, giobalization aiso works on the level of exposing them to music from other cultures, raising their awareness of differences in musical production, visions, and perspectives. Adrnittedly, this "difference" may preserve the colonial or impenal tradition of "exoticization," of hierarchical curiosity rather than lateral admiration of music outside of North ~merica.'~But exposure to music and cultures from around the world can also
inspire an appreciation for difference, an expansion of one's own rnind and cultural
insularity. Additionaily, musicians cm offer their music to a broader range of audiences,
potentidy increasing their own profits but, more significantly, ailowing for intercultural
and transnational communication, Musical styles and influences from around the world
become intenningled, while the medium of popular music can be utilized to exchange
ideas and, as George Lipsitz has suggested, provide a network, a global support system,
for .'aggrieved cornm~nities.*~'~Globalization exemplifies the tension cceated by an arena
that can be made to serve both industry and the people. On one hand, industry is poised to
exploit its global hoid over markets to serve its needy interest for profit. And, on the other
hand, globalization opens up communication lines, allowing for musical cultures to reach
international audiences, bcidging difference and creating a global community of "the
people" linked in their various suuggles.
The Capitaüst Structure of the Popular Music Industry
A bief synopsis of the popular music industry, from the perspective of the major
players immediately involved in profit shares, highlights the factors that undeMrrite how
popular music is "molded" to serve the needs of owners and producers, and not those of
the musicians or fan~/consumers.'~The popular music industry is hierarchicaiiy stnictured with major corporations that have ownership over one or several record labels situaîed at the top in temof capital. Beneath the major coprate owners are the record labels that directiy manage the production and distribution of the music. To illustrate their virtual monopolization of the popular music industry, there are currentiy onlyfive major record labels: Sony, Wamer, EMI. BMG, and ni vers al." These major record labels sign rnusicianshands to contracts, oversee the recording and production of their music, promote and package the music for distribution, as well as arrange tours, interviews, and other advertking or public relations demands. These labels also have the junsdiction to end contracts with musicians, usually based on their "performance" in the market as indicated by sales. Profit is prirnarily hamested from the popular music product: recorded music that, cunentiy, is predominantiy in the tom of compact dîscs (CDS)." in generai, the record label provides the resources for musicians to record their music in a studio, and then the recorded music is produced into CDS at a minimal price, often through in-house pressing plants. The CD prices are "marked up" to incorporate a profit margin for the labels and are distributed to record stores. The record stores then add their own markup to the labels' wholesale price and sel1 the CDS to consumers at a new price, often severai hundred percent higher than the original production cost.
in order for this system to work smwthiy (read profitably), there are various other steps taken to support, but not necessady guarantee, the generation of mass sales- As part of the distribution process, record labels send promotional CDS (promos) of new releases to radio stations, magazines, and other publications that featuce "music reviews" in an effort to gain airplay and p~texposure of their artists' work. Record labels also make it a practice to prime the marketplace for forthcornhg releases by distributhg promos to so- caiied "taste makers" or people at influentid positions within the industry. To further solidifv positive reception, labels contact youth culture sites such as snowboard shops and clothing retaüers, offering them "advance" copies of the latest releases for in-store play.
POP (point of purchase) merchandise such as posters, stickers, key chains, etc. are manufactured, announcing these forthcoming releases, while the record labels approach key retailers with contracts to display or give away the matecials. With centralized control as both the manufacturer and distributor of popular music, the record labels effectively buy "positioning" (strategic rack placement of their product; privilege as the "feature" CD at a listening booth) within the retail environment in exchange for volume discounts of their products for major record stores. in the interest of selling their stock as well as fulfrlling "responsibilities" to record labels who supply this stock, record stores further participate in this manipulation of the market with the display of posters and advertisements touting certain labels*merchandise, and through their own sales staff who suggest and encourage customer purchases. This control of artist exposure continues into the domain of magazines, with labels purchasing advertking space within "important" magazines. Thus, record labels can be said to "manufacture cool" as they orchestrate for infiuential cultural nodes to hype their artists, the exposure of musicians based on speculative market performance rather than artistic credibility.
Another important component in the labels' marketing program is the use of television and the music video. The cise and prevalence of the music video has made it an industry staple, witb record labels also becoming involved in the production and distribution of music videos by their artists. These videos are then sent to television stations with specialized programs featuring music videos that serve as "commercials" for the CDS of musicians. The promotional-advertising aspect of the ppular music industry continues through to the musicians themselves, who are further contracted to tour and perfom live in order to showcase their music in different parts of the country or around the world, in an effort to gain wider recognition, perhaps win new fans/consumers, and prompt (more) sales of their recorded music. Due to the globalized, multimedia nature of large corporations, the popular music industry has also become intertwined with projects involving other mediums, reaching even greater heights of market exploitation and profit margins. Record labels have reaped copyright entitiements through the "loaning" of songs by their artists to companies selling anything from cars to beer. These companies buy the right to use songs as soundtracks to television cornmercials, with the intent of lending some "cool" or "hipness" to their products and perhaps reaching new demographics of
consumer^.'^ Furthemore, ihere bas ken a growing trend for compania to buy the rights to the musicians themselves, whose presence lends some validation or "credibility" to the pmd~ct.'~Popular music becomes a selling tool, a conduit, for other non-musicai products while eaming record labels auxiliary income.
History and Technology
Advancements and developments in technology have had further ramifications on the popular music industry?' Historicaily, popular music was showcased hughiive
performances of musicians, who toured to different cities and played at various venues in order to gain exposure. incorne was generated through ticket sales to these shows.
However, the emergence of the analog recording-the vinyl record-in the late l8OOs and then its subsequent predorninance in the 1950s, circumvented the physical limitations of moving musicians from one place to the next, as well as the iimited profit coilected from each performance (which required ticket holders to be at a specific location, on a specific date, at a specific tirne). Vinyl records allowed for the distribution of music as a tactile product that could be mass produced, packaged, and sold to a wide market range in different locations. Although tive shows and tours remained a means of "shopping" music around, records supplanted performance as a main source of revenue and cataiyzed an industry around the production of popular music as a commodity, while constructing fans and audience membets as "consumers." The production of recorded music evolved with the next significant, market-changing audio format king the compact disc. introduced in the early 1980s, the CD took over as the reigning form of popular music exchange, marketed as a more durable and superior sounding product in a compact and lightweight design. Meanwhile, consumption of this new format resulted in consumers duplicating or replacing their vinyl record collections with CDS-providing record labels and stores with a new market. 1?
While the CD further cemented the consumption of popular music as a commodity, the introduction of the music video greatly aitered how popular music was to be marketed. The advent of the music video did not just change the face of popular music, it also gave it one. Coîiaborating with advanced capitalism, the music video manufactures consumer desire through popular music that takes form in image, tifestyle, fashion, or attitude, stimulating sales of not just music but other commodities such as clothing or even hais dye. Designed to sel1 the recorded music of musiciaas, the music video provides a visual accompaniment for songs "in rotation" (songs that are chosen to be released for radio airplay, functioning as a consumer bbsample"of what a CD has to offer). The impact on the popular music indusûy is that novelty, "coolness," attractiveness in the physical appearance or demeanor of musicians has become a fundamental factor in how they are promoted and packaged (hence, affecting which bands are signed to record labels).
Popular musicians must now not only comply with and conform their music to industry
standards in order to please their record labels (and stay on hem), but also harbour and
groom a market-catching "look." Image as much as, if not more than, the music
determines the commercial viability of contempocary popular musicians.
Further technological advances, however, have posed some challenges to the
popular music industry and provided the musician and consumer with tools for evasion.
Compact disc recorders (CD-Rs) have become an accessible means by which computer
owners can "bum" or record their own CDS. bstead of purchasing CDS, consumers can
"borrow" CDS and make their own disc c~p~.~From the industry's perspective, this is an
illegai piracy of copyrighted materiai, CD-Rs ceplicating the problem that emerged with
the introduction of cassette tapes and their abiiity to copy matecial fiom vinyl records.
However, the relatively poor quality of cassette tape recordiags did not rival record sales
alacmingly. With the digital technology of CDS and CD-Rs, the exact quaiity of the
original cm be duplicated, making it a genuine threat to record labels and stores, who lose
sales as consumers "produce" their own CDS.
Matters have been made more complici~tedfor the popular music industry with the
rapid exponential growth of the btemetF4 An intemet user can upload the material on a
CD to a website, which can be accessed by htemet users anywhere in the world, who can
then download the materiai and bwn a copy of the CD. When once records had to be
physicaliy passed around to cassette tape copiers, the btemet has allowed for "mass copying." "Conswners" can avoid purchashg CDS from record stores and directly access their own copy through the btemet. Consequentiy, there is a refwus on the dissemination of popular music for the enjoyment and use of the fan rather than its retail sale and consumption. The Intemet's potential to deliver popular music from industry also has signiilcant impact on the popuiar musicim. With the reccnt emergence of ~3~ technology, a means by which audio files can be encoded and compressed in digital form and uploaded/downloaded tbrough the Intemet in small and conveniently transmissible files?6 the popular musician is given the abiiity to cornpletely sidestep the "middlemen" of the industry. If musicians record and produce CDS autonomously-an attainable feat given the proliferation of recoding studios-tbey can pst samples of their songs ont0 the btemet. An interested consumer cm then purchase the material directly from the musician through the btemet and, with MP3, "copy" this material as a frle on their computer hard-drive. Meanwhile, "Red-Players," or the MP3 version of Walkmans, dlow for the playback of these fües just like they were CDS." In effect. both the musician and the consumer benefit from this technology as tbey can evade the "mark-ups" that record labels and stores profit from. Musicians are also emmcipated frorn contracts and responsibilities, conjecturaliy freeing them artisticdIy and creatively, as they are not answerable to the commercial demands of the major corporations and labels. The rnusician Chuck D. lays it out in an interview with the magazine, Wired:
And what will the litde man do with ail his new power? Som you'll see a marketplace with 500,000 independent labels-the majors can co- opt al1 they want, but it's not going to stop the average person hmgetting into the game. Today a major label makes a CD for as Iittle as 80 cents, then sells it wholesale for $10.50 so tetailers can charge $14-that's highway robbery. They were able to pimp that technology. Weii MP3 is a technoIogy they cadt pimp ... What will this mean? You'll see $3 albums, which artists won? mind if they're getting the money. And the public will ask, "Shit, I can get 25 songs off the Net and make my own Chrhave a Real-Player in my car-why the hell should I spend $14 at a storeY... Goodfor the consumer, but is it good for the musiciun? It's great for the musician. ïnsteiui of just depending on a song and a video, the Net will bnng back live performances. Artists will be able to release a song every two weeks, instead of waiting six, seven rnonths for a label to put it out. A band can become like a broadcaster?
The optirnism resonating in Chuck D.'s statements resides in the fact that the internet is still an "open" area, accessible to the people and reiatively free from ownership and industry restrictions. However, the popular music industry is presently attempting to recoup its losses, working towards imposing specific levies on recordable formats such as cassette tapes and CD-RS.'~and lobbying for more severe penalties for the piracy of copyrighted material?' The power of the Intemet has aiso been harnessed by the popular music industry for its own purPoses?' Music Week, a uade magazine "for everyone in the business of music," dacuments severai examples of industry benefiting from and getting more deeply involved in the Internet as a commercial twl, The on-line music retailer
CDNow has merged with the marketing divisions of Sony and Warner's Columbia House to seii CDS over the Internet? Meanwhile. the major corporation EMI has introduced a multimedia "team" devoted to developing new ways to increase the use and efficiency of the Intemet to sel1 pruducts? HMV,the chah record store, is working on "digitai kiosks" that aiiow customers to download tracks (songs) and bum their own CDS;~~ consumers can miike "personalized" CD compilations of songs much Like bbcopiers"... but then have to purcbase them from the store. Additionaily, the tracks are not downloaded fmm the Intemet but hm"secure networks" (sanctioned, royalties paid, copyright approved sites) with the tagiine king that "back cataiogues" (previously released material, sometùnes "deleted" or no longer in circulation) are featured. By stressing back catalogues, these kiosks reduce the costs of stocking retail outlets, and also open up markets for "old" material. New industries are even cropping up around CD-R technology, with Philips Electronics "pushing" CD-Rs (which it produces), qualifLing that the "biggest threat to industry is from cottage piracy and not home CD-R unit^.'"^
Cornpetition from other industries intepted with the popular music industry bas further convoluted this murky terrain, as major corporations are also "under pressure to adopt
MP3" from "recording, ll' [information technology] and consumer electronics industries" that have a profitable stake in marketing the technology." While the popillu music industry adapts to the obstacles posed by MP3, it is also seeking ways to overcome it, either with technological intervention or through gaining ownership over it-there have ken conferences looking to "set standards for legitimate digital di~tribution"~'as well as experimentation with CDS that are encoded with copyright protection, preventing them from king ~opied?~The industry may yet gain the upper hand (again).
When Pop Becomes Industry
Serious rock's dream is that people can be changed, minds opened. So the great nightmare is when pop becomes industry, when efficient marketing ensures music is channeled only toward the people who are already receptive-rather than working for an overall education of desire. Simon ~eynolds~'
For rnany musicians around the world, the "popular" has become a dangerous crossroads, an intersection between the emergence of a new public sphere that uses the circuits of comrnodity production and circulation to envision and activate new social relations. -George ~ipsitz~
With the changes imposed by capitalism and globalization, the imperative of profit is no longer the only industry pressure on the production of popular music. The stimulation, expansion, and expbitation of established markets as weU as the generation of new ones have becorne important factors in shaping what musiciaas/bands aii: signed tu record labels and how they are packaged for consumption. The indusuy deterrnines the forms that popular music wili take and how it wiIi be produceci and distributed. However, witbin and against the domination of the industry is the capacity of popular music to be a medium for the people, as a means of chdlenging the industry and inspiring cbange. The diffïculty is that capitalism "routinely generates, encourages, and tolerates ideologies which challenge and alter its uwn ~tionale."~'Under capitalism, resistance is frequently tbrown back at the people in a packaged, consumable form. Hence, the struggle continues as the popular music indusy persists with its consumption and profit-based use of popular music, while the people resist against and through the industry in the hop of meeting their own needs.
Theodor Adorno's arguments on the standardisation of popular music are helpful to demonstrate how industry dernands for profit affect the manifestation of popular music within the cultural ~~here.~~Adorno denounces the manner in which "hit" (commerciaiiy successfûl) songs are standardised and imitated by industry. An original bit song serves as a model for the production of "new" songs, which are merely reworkings and imitations of this model, in an attempt to generate fuctùer profit fmm a pmven aod successful predecessor. For this reason, Adomo argues, popular music is already "pre-digested" for the consumer-its structure, fom, and content hornogenized for maximum profit as dictateci by previous bits. For Adomo, the commercial imperatives of popular music undermine its artistic or creative potential. Meanwhile, the standardidon of popular music assumês astate of 'mudo-individualization" or, the endowment of "culturai mass production with the halo of free choica or open market";" culture industries constnict markets so that the consumer believes there is a range of commodities avaiiable and a freedom of choice over what pcoducts to consume. However, because these commodities are "imitations" of an established standard, consumers are actually offered a limited choice from an endless array of similar products. The only respite fiom this homogeneity,
Adorno contends, occurs when industry wants to "stimulate" a market that has gone stagnant or to expand into new ones. In this case, slight deviations from the standard are introduced, containing enough "novelty" to (re)rouse consumer interest.
Aithough some cciticism can be made of Adorno's conception of the consumer as
"passive" and submissive to the industry, his elucidation of the construction of popular music, the deliberate creation of "hits," is what is valuable here. The industry determines the shape, the sound of popular music, and commercial success is the determining factor.
Within the realm of the popular music industry, any need or desire by the audience for a
popular music with some other (cultural, political, aesthetic) value or meaning is not part of the process-unless, of course, it ciui guacantee a financial retuni. The paradox with
popular music is that in order for it to have an impact on an audience, it must first have an
audience. And, given the dominant systems of music circulation, popular musicians must
often go through the indushy if they seek mass exposure. So, even if profit is not a main
concern, musicians are made aware of the need to comply with demands made by their
record label, which has conuol over the dissemination of kirmusic, lest they run the
nsk of king "dropped" from their contracts. This compiiance, in effect, is bound to
influence some musicians, with the imperative to seli their "pcoduct" a determining factor
in how their music takes shape" To highiight how the popular music industry primes markets for its products, offering bath music and musicians as commodities, the use of tacticai advertising such as
"one-sheets" exemplifies the industry's effort to ensure commercial success. "One- sheets," literally a single page sent by record labels to retailers informing them of new releases, are a prime example of the popular music industry's emphasis on the marketability of their products. Frequently without descriptions of the music itself, one- sheets succinctly list the details deemed vital by the industry. For the R&B (rhythm and blues) compilation CD, Bump N' Grind 2, the record label Universai Music offers a one- sheet that includes such pertinent information as "Advertising will appear in the
September issues of Vice, Peace! & Mic Check Magazines. Promotions are king persued
[sic];" "Launch parties and Bump N' Grind events wiU happen at clubs coast to coast.
Posters, stickers and condoms are available for these events, plus for street level initiatives in al1 markets, to be executed by Universai's street team." This one-sheet even breaks down the spots (advertising) purchased on television programs:
MuchMusic national 15 second spots Sept 7 x 6 weeks ...Rogers TV Guide- Toronto, Southem Ontario, Ottawa, Vancouver 30 second spots Sept 7 x 6 weeks ...Targeted programrning includes: Simpsons, X Files, Friends, South Park, WWF, Sportsline, ER and more.
The push for multimedia control is evident, the record label having scrutinised the demographics of television shows, targeting specific viewers as potential consumers of this particulac CD. Sony's one-sheet for G. Love & Speciai Sauce's release
Philadelphonic, outlines what success means: "with a new batch of songs that seem more radio-friendly than ever, it seems that the tirne is right for G. Love & Special Sauce to break through to the mainstrearn." The one-sheet for another Sony-owned band, The
Dixie Chicks, gives the description, "They're Young, they're blonde, they're muiti- talented, and they're country music's hottest act! [my italics]." This one-sheet is noteworthy because it mentions the appearance of the band members htand as a selling point, while the text of the one-sheet itself is supecimposed on a full page image of the three "Dixie Chicks." image is exploited by the one-sheets to potentially sel1 more products, king a critical element of how popular musicians are marketed. One-sheets offer a glimpse of the industry pressures on popular musicians-they must not only ensure the commercial viability of their music, but must also sel1 their "look" as well.
Although the popular music industry is able to manipulate markets and influence consumption, often obtaining the mass sales it aspires to, it does not have complete, unfettered control. Industry has never been able to guarantee or consistently forecast commercial success, as evidenced through market failures backed by gross amounts of corporate investment? Consumers may regularly be compliant with the agendas of major record labels and end up purchasing and consuming the exact products they are primed for, but they are not fully maileable. The unexpected commercial successes of music that breaks from "standardised" forms or support "anti-corporate" sentiments are testaments to the "ppular disciunination**of consumers. Furthemore, popular musicians do not always consent to the demands of the industry and perform their own rebellions and resistances that challenge its domination. However, 1would not want to suggest that musicians are (or should be) above the profit hanicering of the industry. However, there is the popuIar musician who is interested in using popular music to "make a difierence," to
"change the world," and employs strategies to circumvent the processes of the industry as much as possible. It is this revolutionary desire that results in the creation of popular music that challenges the standards and authocity of the popular music industry. But, given the recuperative process of capitalism, these challenges are susceptible to being absorbed.
Exemplary of the dynamics between the dominant structures of the popular music industry and the countecing resistance of musicians and the people in generai, is the independent (indie) record label-labels that are "independent" fiom corporate ownership. Indie labels emerged primady as an answer to the control major record labels have over the foms of popular music offered in the market; popular music deemed inappropriate, as in "uncommercial," for major record labels was regularly overlooked.
Hence, this music did not have a chance to be widely disseminated to a mass audience.
Providing an alternative to the popular music produced and distributed by major labels, indie labels have altered the popular music indusiry by circulating music not normally made available or accepted by the industry. But, most important, indie labels have dso revealed the possibility of evading the indusy's control. In theory, indie Iakls are not answerable to the same demands as major Iabels-they do not depend on the approval of a corporation in order to sustain funding for their projects. Self-financed and self-reliant, indie labels hold the promise of providing popular music that defîes the homogenizing tendencies of corporate-produced music. The perception is that independent labels sign bands on merit and a belief in their music (whether for social, artistic, or even purely
"personal" muons)-a patronage of sorts. Furthemore, indie musicians are technicaily not subject to the drive for profit and, hence, are able to experiment with their music and embark on "non-cornmerciai" projects. As a result, the music that is released by indie labels has the potential to be more "radical," "marginal," "confiontational," presenting chalienging musical styles or lyxics that do not coincide with industry nomcequiring the pacification, not agitation. of its markets. However, as HoUy Kruse observes, even indie labels participate in "a market defined and süuctured by major labels,'" by needing to employ the same distributing and marketing practices in urder to sel1 their products.
Furthermore, indie labels must still make some kind of profit in urder to sustain themselves. Aithough indie labels may have altemate agendas from major labels and may not seek to control markets in the same manner, the structure of the industry has an influence on how they operate.
The eventual "buy out" of successful indie labels by major labels bas ken criticized as beiag another example of industry co-opfation or ncuperation~'For example, with the commercialization of "grunge" music, the major label Warner quickly bought up the independent label Sub Pop's record releases and rights to ytist~:~
Furthermore, with the rise and growth of indie labels, as weii as the unforseen popularity of "alternative" music originating with these labels, major labels have gone so fx as to produce imitations of independent music, mimicking its sound and signifiers (i'e. image and anti-corporate attitude). "Alternative" music is now a genre of the industry, not an indication of its ac tua1 position against "corporate music." However, major labels' ownership over "independent" labels often includes ailowing them to fbnction without much interference in their day to day operations or artist signing patterns. As a result, the major labels provide the indies with the necessary resources to gain wider audiences for their releases, financidy opening them up to new avenues of artistic promotion and expansion. But, then again, indie labels eam profit for the major labels in markets to which they have limiteci access, offering them indie credibility and future rights to emerging artists, while the indie label has also now become dependent on corporate support and, hence, accountable to it. And, significantiy, the major labels sustain and secure their control over the industry as a whole-their dominance over the popuiar music industry is assured its place. However, there is a devebping and steadfast base of indie labels committed to remaining "independent" not just in narne but by their resistance to corporate ownership. And herein lies the hope-with the continual, stubbom challenge and refusal of the dominant order of things. Notes
CHAPTER II: THE REVOLUTIONARY PûTENTIAL OF POPULAR MUSIC ' As noted in the Introduction, the popular music industry is discussed here within the context of North American Society. However, the North American popular music industry is not entirely homogenous. For example, the Canadian popular music industry differs fiom the Amencan popular music industry because of Canadian broadcast regulations and government-hded music releases or projects that specifically support the production, promotion, and broadcast representation of Canadian artists or musicians. For an outline of Canadian regdatory policies on television programs and music selections for radio play, see the special issue of the Fraser Forum (August 1998) entitled, "Canadian Content Regulations: The Intrusive State at Work" Nevertheless, although there is goverurnent and state intervention within the Canadian popular music industry, from the perspective of the major record labels, there is Me, if any, impact on their capital operations. in fact, the same major record labels govern both the Canadian and American popular music industries. Thus, these two industries act as extensions ofeach other, with their record labels fmctioning as correlating branches of larger (global, multinational) corporations. This chapter's discussion focuses on these major record labels and the mass production and consumption of popular music as based on profit. Hence, 1 consider the Canadian and Arnerican popular music industries as paralle1 components of the larger North American popular music industry. Popular music functions on varying levels not directly linked to industry: a group of individuals getting together to play music on a casual level, individuals playing popular songs or creating their own as a hobby or out of personal interest. ' By "entertainment and culture indusiries," I am referring to industries involved in the production of comrnodities for the cultural realm such as magazines, television shows, or films, 4 For example, the Gap clothing Company features popular music songs in their television conunercials and has gone a step Merby putting out a compilation CD of these songs, playing it in their retail stores as well as offwing it for sale to their customers. Andrew Hennan, Thomas Swiss, and John Sloop, "Mapping the Beat: Spaces of Noise and Places of Music," in Mapping the Beur (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). 5. 6 The following discussion ofcapitalism is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis but more of a general overview of the shifts that have occurred with the emergence of advanced capitalism. 'Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Strucrures (London: Sage Publications, 1970), 71. 8 Raymond Williams, "Advertising: The Magic System," in The Cultural Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1993), 334-336. 9 George Lipsitz delves into the globalkation of the popular music industry and the impact it has had on "aggrïeved communities" around the world, throughout Dangerous Crossroa&: Popular Music, Pmtmodernhm and the Poetics oflace (London: Verso, 1994). 10 Rob Kenner's article, The Top 5," Mred (August 1999), 134135, lists the five major record labels, their corporate ownership, and the various holdings of those corporations. For example, BMG Enteriainment "includes Arïsta, Arista Latin, Ansta Nashville, Bad Boy, BMG Classics, Jive, LaFace, Lou& RCA, and Wmdham Hi11 [smaller record labels]. Additional holdings include publishing, TV, software, and interests in Net companies such as AOL and Lycos," 134. Warner Music Gmup is similarly described "The Warner's music division (led by Bob Daly and Terry Semel) consists of Atlantic, Hekûa, Maverick, Reprise, Rhino, Sup Pop, and Warner Bros. Not to mention Time Warner's intetests in movies, TV, cable, Ted Turner, and the Looney Tunes gang," 135. --- " For example. the multinational major record label, Polygram, was absocbed by another multinational major record label, Universal, in 1998. rediicing the number of major record labels fmm six to €ive (Tom Harrison, "Major Label Maneuvering Creates Niche for Indies," The Province, December 3 1, 1998), B 14- l2David Sanjek, '%pular Music and the Synergy of Corporate Culture," in Mapping the Beur, (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). 176. l3 Lipsitz has noted "intercultural communication does not autornatically lead to intercultural cooperation, especially when participants in the dialogue speak fiom positions of highly unequd access to power, oppominity, and life changes" in Dangerous CrossroadF, 4. l4Edward Said's Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979) has ken an influentid text on the representation of the "other" in the imagination, writing, and experience of 'me West." l5See Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads. 16 These texts are helpful to delineate the structure and workings of the popular music industry: Keith Negus, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (London: Routledge, 1999); Dick Weissman, The Music Business (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1997); R. Serge Denisoff, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1975); Paul Hirsch, The Structure of the Poprilar Music Industry: The Filtering Process by Which Records are Preselectedfor Public Consumption (Michigan: University of Michigan. 1969). 17 Kenner, ''The Top 5." IBThe CD is currently the principal, but not only, format in which popular music is exchanged. l9 For example, Volkswagen uses the Song, "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space" by the band Spiritualized as the backdrop for a car commercial. 'O Musicians like LL Cool J or Luscious Jackson have appeared in Gap television commercials, while Jon Spencer or Kim Gordon (from the biuid. Sonic Youth) have been featured in Cdvin Klein print ads. *' As rnentioned in the Introduction, technology that has aitered the means by which popuiac music is created is not an aspect of this discussion. Tristam Cary's Illustrated Compendium of Musical Technolog (London: Faber and Faber, 1992) is a useful source for an overview of advances dein music and recording technology. Currently, there are "enhanced CDS emerging in the market which include special features like music videos which can be viewed on the computer with the use of a CDRom. Digital video discs (DVDs) are also another growing trend. ?3 CD-R discs, without record label and store markups, are cheaper than CDS as recorded music releases and cm be bought in bulk. Furthemore, a CD-R allows for music to be copied in whatever order or arrangement- consumer^" cm create compilations by copying music from several CDS and copying them onto one disc. 24 Billboard, The international Newsweekly of Music, Video, and Home Entertainment," (August 21, 1999), States bbJupiterCommunicationshas issued a study suggesting that intemet sales are already cannibalizing business from traditionai brick-and-mortar merchants.. .The consumer survey found that only 6% of 1999 total online sales will be incremental sales, which means that 94% will be cannibaiized from traditionai retail channels," 49. ?5 MP3: Motion Picture EAperrs Group 3. Ashiey Ford, "Free Music on the 'Net Rocks the Bi&" The Province (February 14, 1999), A48. " Iesse Freund in "The MP3 Players," Wired (March 1999). 136, notes the market arrivai of Diamond Multimedia's Rio. The Rio, a personai stereo that hnctions similar to a Walkman without the need for a physicai recording (e-g,cassette, compact diic), an store and playback audio fiIes as downloaded hmthe Intemet, etc. '8 AS interviewed by Jesse Freund in "Listen Up," Wired (March 1999), 138-139. The potential for MP3 to have a major impact on the popular music industry is debated in "Mp3? How Great is mat?" Select (April2000), 46. '9 Financial Post (January 12, 1999), C3. Music Week(7 August 1999), 3, notes that a cassette bootlegger (someone who manufactures copied cassettes-îhe industry calls them countefeit cassettes) was jailed for four months in the United Kingdom. " Billboard (July 17, 1999), 1, 117, notes the growing use of the Intemet by record labels, which are starting to make their releases available in a "downloadable format." '' Music Week (7 August 1999), 1. 33 Mwic Week (17 July 1999), 1. '' Music Week (3 1 July 1999), 1. l5 Music Week (7 August 1999), 1. l6 Music Week (15 May 1999). 1. " ibid, 38 Matt Richtel, "Digital Music Standard Raises Host of Questions," Nm York Times (June 30, 1999), Cl. Billboard (August 21,1999), 8,93, also discusses SDMi (Secure Digital Music initiative), which is experimenting with the digital encoding of music to ensure chat songs cannot be copied and emailed through the intemet as MP3 files. 39 Simon Reynolds, Vew Pop and Its Afterrnath," On Record: Rock Pop, and the Written Word (New York: Pantheon, 1985), 466. " George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads, 12. Jt Gitlin, île Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Lep. (Berkeley: University of California Press, IBSO), 257. J2 Theodor Adorno, "On Popular Music" in On Record: Rock. Pop. and the Wmen Word, eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (New York: Pantheon, 1990), 301-314. ibid. 308. 44 The band, Metallica, exemplifies the "grooming" of musicians to conforrn to the trends and demands of the popular music industry. ûriginally emerging on the scene as Iong haired heavy metal rockers, with an intense and abrasive sound, Metallica has been reinvented. They now sport short coiffed hair and are more musically "accessible," (Le. watered down). Although these changes might have been personal moves by band members, the fact tbat al1 of them emerged with a similar look, and that their new image and sound coincided with general trends circulating in the popular music industry, is suspicious and is probably more indicative of a push to capture a new audience (this is a my own observation of the metamorphosis of Metallica's stylenook and Sound, as based on music videos, recordings, and photographs in magazines). " Eric Boehlert, "Rock Stolid," Rolling Stone (Issue 779, February 5, 1998): "Just ask Oasis, Blues Traveler, 3 11, Everclear, Live, Seven Mary Three or Collective Soul. Going into 1997, these bands-and others-al1 had platinum-selling smash albums that they hoped to build into superstar careers. instead, their new releases limped to the year-end fuiish lime with weak sales as bord and restless music fans looked elsewhere for new thrills," 17. 46 Chris Mundy's article, "Chumbawamba," Rolling Stone (Issue 779, Febniary 5, 1998), notes that the band Chumbawamba "might be the most unlikely success story of this or any year" due to that the fact that they may be "îhe world's only million-selling anarchists," 48-49. As Mundy notes, "[Chumbawamba] hate the police; they encourage fans to shoplifi their ahums hmlarge mail chains; they've spent much of theucareer living off welfate in order to subven the system," and comments on the band's unforeseen commercial success: Tutter walks on, reminiscing about the days when her group's records were available [in Prague] onty through a smalI underground network. Back then there was order to the universe. Tiie Cold War was a ------constant, as was the fact that Chumbawamba would never be anything but an obscure eight- person collective of anarchi* from Leeds, England. The emergence of the band's Tubthumper- a Top 10 album featuring the sensation "Tubthumping"-was about as likely as jailed playwright Vaclav Havel king elected president of then-Czechoslovakia," 48. 47 Holly Kruse, "Fields of Practice: Musical Production, Public Policy, and the Market" Mapping the Beat, 189. 48 See Lawrence Grossberg's article, "1s There Rock AAer Punk?" in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (New York: Pantheon, 1990), 110-123. 49 Rob Kenner's article, "The Top 5," lists Wamer as currently having ownership of Sup Pop. CHAPTER III: GRRRL REVOLUTION
Riot Grrrl
BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.
BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of al1 our own insecunties, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our banddzinesfetc are the worst in the US and BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn' t.
BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry gml rock revolution which seeks to Save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terrns, not ours,
BECAUSE I believe with my whoieheartmindboây that girls constitute a revolutionary sou1 force that can, and will change the world for rd.-Bikini ~ill'
With the demand for revolution "girl style," Bikini Kill's declacations underwrite the spirit and purpose of riot gml as it came into prominence, and media consciousness, in the early 1990s. As demonstrated by Bikini Kill, bands involved with the riot gml community made an effort not only to spread their revolutionary message through the popular music medium, but also to interact with their audience and encourage participation in their music and their politics in other forums. This case study investigates riot grrrl as a revolutionary movement that utilized popular music as a means for communication, as well as an organizing and mobizing tool. The emergence of riot gml, its role and strategies as a movement, and its eventual co-optation by the popular music industry are explored to illustrate how revolutionary endeavours operate within and as cesistances to power relations. Riot grttI's centralization ofwomen within popular music was translated into an industry venture: women musicians were identified as lucrative 74
. ..-- commodities, while the female popular music consumer was targeted as a new market for the popular music industry. As a movement, riot gml eventually faded from popular view, becoming another submission to the inexorable grasp of capitalism. However, riot gml also chailenged, deconstructed, and resisted gendered social roles, while marking out the feminist battle for a new group of girls and young women, The persistent regeneration of revolutionary movements is considered here as amendrnents to past movements and as
"recovecies" from the recuperative cycle of power. Riot gml partook in a revolutionary process by perpetuating feminist stniggles, whether or not riot plas a movement was itself recuperated.
Punk Music and Feminism
The boundaries or definitions of who or what constituted riot gml are often obscure, largely because most of the bands, and even the girls involved within the movement, rejected the label "riot pl"or refused to be pinned down to generalizations.
Although many writers have cited severai bands as belonging to the movement, the bands themselves have somerimes disagreed and expressed their disappmval or denunciation of this labeling.' Thus, rather than designating specific bands as being exemplary of riot pl,tbey are discussed here according to their relation to the movement: the inspiration or influence they exerted, their involvement in the rnovernent (e.g. perforrning at riot grrrl
shows or conventions), theu overlapping concerns and tactics. However, this study is not
intended to be an overview of the bands nor an investigation into their individuai strategies as it pertained to their personai aspirations. It is the riot grrrl movement as a whole that is of concem, and when bands are cited, it is with the purpose of understanding the factors shaping riot grrrl.
Originating with a group of girls3 inient on reciressing their exclusion from the
(white) male-dominated punk scenes in Olympia Washington and Washington, DC; riot gml evolved into a "movement" fusing feminism and punk music (as well as punk aesthetics and attitude) with revolution as its objective. Relegated to the sidelines as girlfriends, fans, groupies, and "hangers+n"-and fed up with it-these girls staned to form their own bands, as tounded on and inspired by the do-it-yourself (DIY)principle of punk. Aggressive and unapologetically girl-centred, riot grrrl twk a predominantly separatist5stance and supported a community of girls who attended shows, played in bands, and created fanzine^.^ Although fanzines and a community on the intemet still uphold the ideas and aspirations of riot gml, the movement, as identified by its sense of urgency and activism, was deemed over by the mid 1990s as key bands and its members began to disperse.
A definitive moment in the inception of riot grrrl occurred in 1991 when "K
Records of Olympia held the InternationaI Pop Underground Festival, ruid the first night was designated Girls' ~i~ht."Reaiizing the need to address the marginalization of girls within the festival, "Girls' Night" crystallized the idea that girls required a separate faction to deal with their specific concems and exclusion from patriarchal music circles and spaces. Having only one night in the festival designated for women musicians highlighted the fact tbat although women were weii represented as members of the audience, they were minorities when it came to producing and performing music.
Whether or not this particuiar occurrence during the festival was the specific instigator of the emergence of women-Id bands within the punk music scene as a whole, it was a recognition and reflection of a growing sentiment that women bad a right and a desire to be involved as musicians.
Without an assignai leader, doctrine. or set guidelines, riot grrrl eludes easy delineation. Jessica Rosenberg and Gitana Garofalo's article, "Riot Gml: Revolutions fiom Within" (1998). which includes discussions with "memben" of hot gml, comments, "very few self-proclaimed Riot Grrrb would, if asked, like to explain exactly what the tenn means. Many cal1 it punk rock feminism, even though Riot Grrri has moved beyond punk circles." The commercial magazine, Newsweek, describes riot gml as a "network of activist 'girls' hm14 to 25 who are loosely iinked together by a few punk bands, weekly discussion groups, pen-pal fiiendships and more than 50 homemade fanzines.'g kthough this article was heavily crïticized by ciot gmls as seieotyping them and the movement, it also played a role in intrducing riot grrrl to a larger audience that was outside of the punk music scene. ConsequentIy, while king mted in punk, riot pl became a broader movernent encompassing the different backgrounds, interests, and perspectives of various girls. However, despite ciot grrrl's resistance to labels and generalizations, it cm be identifhi, alihough flexibly, as not so much a group, but a corlfmunity of girls (usually ranging in age hmtheir early tans to their mid to laie twenties) who had a common objective of individual and social change through the support of a feminist agenda. Although specik tactics and goals were individuaily defmed by the girls, riot grrr1s were connected through their involvement in the community, whether througb music or fanzines, or their general participation as fans and supporters of riot gml. The coinage of the ten"riot gml" has been attribua to the band Bikini Kill.1°
Re-signifyig the word "girl" and its social connotations of passivity and infantilism, riot grrrl added a "growl" and asserted an aggressive, sexudly aware, and spirited notion of
girlhood. The second issue of the fanzine Bikini Kill, as produced by the band members,
is the first documentai use of "girl power," featuring these words as a rallying slogan.
"Girl powei' became a vital aphorism that signaled a challenge and a cal1 to action for
girls, encouraging them to get involved in playing music and embark on individual
revolutions to activate their potential as girls and to bring about social change. Furthering
these ideas in consequent issues of "Bikini Kill," band members claimed that a "girl
revolution" was at hand and laid out strategies for promoting girl power. Because of these
germinal contributions, Bikini Ki11 established itself as a pivotal, influentid band for the
riot gml movement, despite their refusal to be labeled as a "Rot gml band." Furthemore,
Bikini Ki11 was perceived by observers/critics and upheld by fans to be central to the
movement: Entertainment Weekly (mistakenly) labels Bikini Ki11 as "one of a slew of so-
calied riot-gml bands;"" Glamour cdsthem "a band revered by the ~mls";"Bust
magazine describes Bikini Kül's lead singer, Kathleen Hanna, as "one of the ac~hitects'*~~
of riot pl,whiie Newweek caüs her "the nearest thhg thy have to a founder.""
However, the influence of Bikini Kill on individual girls, inspiring them to become
involved in riot gml, is what makes this band so important to this discussion; as one girl
explains,
1got involved in Riot Gml through hearing a Bikini KiU Song and really liking it and looking for more music like that- When I got on-line, 1found a B.K. Bikini Kill] bulletin board and got sent to a R.G. [Riot Gd]board fom there and somehow went hmasking if there were going to be any conventions on the East Coast that year to heiping organize one in PhiUy a year later.'' Although there were many bands intertwined with riot grrrl, the prominence of Bikini
Kill and theic specific vision of revolution makes them a focus this study.
Riot Gmlas a Movement
Riot plmay have ociginated with the need for girls' inclusion in the punk scene, but it quickly expanded into a feminist cd to action. By aligning itself with feminism, riot gml highlighted not only the issues and thought of past stniggles, but also how they continue into and are stiii relevant to the present. As Simon Reynolds and Joy Press argue, the notion of "post-ferninism," often cited with the pretense that feminism is
"over," cm also be considered as signifjing the "next step"-as not necessarily referring to the succession or usurpation of previous feminist movements but the continuation, the subsequent phase.16 Riot pl.in tbis sense. can be understwd as the inhecitor of past feminist and women's movements, persisting in a struggle that did not begin with it but was now king waged on its own terms and in a different soci~culturdpoliticalclimate.
Sheila Rowbotham's Women, Resistance und Revolutiun (1972) and Olive Banks' Faces of Feminism (198 1) provide historical overviews of women' s movements, while Betty
Friedan's The Ferninine Mystique (1%3) and The Second Stage (1981), and Imelda
Whelehan's Modem Feminist Thoughc (1995) offer delineation of and reflection on the developments of second wave feminism and feminist ideas. These texts are usefül for determinhg the timeline and context hmwhich riot gml emerged. Although it would be beyond this study to offer a detailed account of feminist history, it is acknowledged here that social and ideologicd changes brought upon by past women's stniggles defined and affected the sociaüculturaYpolitical conditions within which riot grrrl operated and that, sül, have an impact on the evetyday lives of individual gids. However, it is not my intention to compare riot grrrl to other women's movements, nor do I suggest that riot gml was somehow unique in its undertakings. Rather, riot grrrl is understd here to be an extension, alihough not iinearly or hiermhicaliy, of feminist stniggles. Riot gml was a spific point of resistance, loçaiized in its own tirne and place, but still linked to a larger continuum of women's resistance.
In order to provide a ftamework for analysis of riot grrri, it is situated within this discussion as a "movement," although proponents and critics of not gml, and individual girls themselves, did not always consider it to be one." But fmt, to clarify, the infusion of popular music with political commentacy and criticism, and the engagement of activist tactics beyond music, were not distinct to riot gml. Riot gml's strategies are not king fowarded here as something "new," or even as particularly inventive. However, not grrrl is understood here as a movernent because it generated and Costered a community of women musicians and supporters who were (inter)activelyinvolved in defining and cultivating the medngs and goals of riot gml individualiy and communaüy. Using popular music to mobilize girls, not gmi was able to organize them, however loosely, to create enough of a collective identity to have specificaüy aarned "riot grrrl shows," "rioi grml fanzines," "riofgml cbapters," or gml conventions." Furthemore, riot gnrl's cdfor a feminist revolution provided its community with a specific social and political vision-to promote and work towards change in the interest of women and girls. And, as a main tactic, riot gml sought the cultural validation and vindication of giris in an aggressive, angry manner that manifested in refusais and iransgressions of established codes of behaviour for girls and women. A musical moment embodying this ciccurs in Bikini Kill's Song, "Liar," where a "little ai''voice singing "ali we are saying is give peace a chanceA is continuidiy intempted and juxtaposed with the screams of a louder, more assertive, and exasperated girl. Riot pl wanted revolution, not peace.
Membership
Not wanting to adhere to a specific set of guidelines and, rather, encouraging the importance of a non-hierarchical vaiuation of individual needs and perspectives, not gml promoted a feminist agenda through popula. music that was flexible and open to interpretation. Succinctly sumrnarized in Bikini Kill's Song "Double Dare Ya," riot grrrl was saying "Hey girlfiend. 1got a proposition [that] goes something like this: Dare you to do what you want. Dare you to be who you will."" With emphasis on an "angry gml rock cevolution which seeks to Save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhece, nccording ro th& own rem, nos ~urs,''~'Bikini Ki11 outlined the intent of riot grrrl without establishing set rules. In the manner of Deleuze's "networks of popular bases,"" riot grrrl allowed for the aspirations and needs of individuai girls to comprise the concerns of ciot grrrl, and ~0~ectedhem lateridiy rather than hierarchically. Riot grrrl as a movement was about creating dlegiances and networks amongst girls, and avoided placing them in particularorders or stratified power structures. Sarah Lucia
Hoagland's autokoenony is vital here in tbat it elucidates how a movement cm be
indhiduaily dehed and, yet, still faater a community commined to common goals.z Riot grrrl employed the notion of autokoenony because it acknowledged that the term "girl" consists of individuals with various, even conflicting, memberships in social groups, but
who stU have the shedexperience of king giris-aamely, of king girls within a patriarchal society. As Bikini KiIl colludes, in their own way, "my girlfriends aren't owned by me BUT have cringing and choking on boy cum in cornmon.'"
However, aithough riot gml may have aspired towards a movement that was "open"
in its membership, there were still Limitations to its appeal and accessibility to girls.
Taking into account that riot grrrl was primarily directed towards girls, despite king both
inclusive and exclusive of boys depending on situations/bands/individuds, and that it was
based in a "youth" culture (i.e. riot gtrrl had gender and age demarcations), membership
to riot grml was aiso circumscribed by the popular music medium it originated in. Punk
was not only predominantly male, it was aiso predominantly white. Although riot grrrl
generaily opposed oppression in various foms, and riot gml conventions, for example,
offered workshops on ta~isrn,~race surfaced as an issue only in its relation to individual
girls. in contrast, lesbianism was addressed and supported by riot grrrl in song lyrics and
"queer bands" like Tribe 8, which was associated with riot ml. Consequently, riot grrrl
is reveaied to have a membership predominantly suppotted by white girls, with lesbians
forming part of the contingent. Although riot grrrl supported the inclusion of al1 girls in
theory, the arena it took place in had a specific audience and, hence, riot gcrrl's issues
were shaped by these girls' perspectives and experiences.
Membership to the riot grrrl movement was also dependent on girls who were
receptive to its music. As Amy Raphael has commented, "Riot Grrrl has excited some,
left others cold. Much of the criticism bas fallen upon the "clumsy" music they make, the
apparent imlevance to rnusiciatl~hi~."~Lydia Lunch, an actist who has pmduced musical
and spoken-word projects, has bitingly noted, "the music is irrelevant-as a matter of
fact, it's pretty sucky so why are they even using music? Get cid of the fucking raunchy bad rock 'n' roll. That's where girls should wake up instead of trying to cop second, third generation rock 'n' roii licks that were temble in the fmt place.'" in order to connect with an audience and incite a reaction, let alone revolutionary desire, music must be compeliing, must "move" the individuals Iistening to it. Although the music itself does not need to be revolutionary (i.e. aesthetically or technically), and does not even need to convey a particular revolutionary or political message, it must be able to appeai to its audience in order for it to have any effect. Although the elementary playing style of many riot gmi bands signified accessibility to sorne girls, indicating that technical proficiency should not hinder them from forming and playing in bands, riot gml was alienating to girls who did not identify with or were not atmted to the music. Furthemore, much of riot gml's activities centred on its music and the particular community that surrounded it.
Hence, girls needed to attend riot grrrl shows and conventions, listen to the bands' music, be able to access fanzines, or be active in the community, in order to have been exposed to and participate in the gmrl revolution. As riot grrrl progressed, it gained wider exposure with commercial magazines featucing articles on the movement. However, aithough the mass media attention brought riot gml outside of its "underground" origins, and introduced it to a bmader spectrum of girls, the movement was still limited to girls with particular interest in the music or scene.
Further difficulties with membership to riot grrrl were the bouts of
"possessiveness" and inclinations toward exciusivity that surfaced whenever riot gml was exposed to larger audiences and gained new supporters. As Kathieen Hanna, lead
singer for Bikini Kill, comments, '4went on the internet one day and 1looked at these
Riot Girl message boards and there wits all this stuff about how 'You can't be a real Riot Girl if you dress like îhat or your hair lmks like this.' It was so pathetic. Girls write me letters and Say, 'Riot Girl at my school is only about what bdof shirt you wear.""
Meanwhile, the major music magazine Rolling Stone documents Courtney Love's editorial on riot grrrl, in the publication Melody Maker,
Though she'd been an early proponent of the scene, she now wrote: "Lately. I've been sickened by the media's handling of dot ***** and their handling of the "media." It's a mutually reciprocal sick relationship-and fascistic. If I'm in Babes in Toyland, I'm "prepolitical." If I'm in L7, I'rn assimilationist; if I'm PJ Harvey or Kim Deal i'm inspirational but not very no^."^^
The sentiment of exclusivity as expressed by some girls, and the cling to certain artifacts
(a specific "kind of shirt") as signifiers of membership to riot pl,was contrary to the lateral inclusiveness forwarded by riot gml. Conflicts within riot gml itself exempiified that the community fostered by riot gml did not necessarily entail a homogenous and cornpliant membership.
The dificulty with establishing a specific membership to riot gml was its elusiveness to king easily classified. Not only did band members and fans refuse or deny the label of "riot gml," but riot grrrl also had no established tenets. Although riot gml did endorse a feminist agenda and a feminist revolution, band members and girls involved in the community only suggested strategies, al1 the while insisting that it was up to individual girls to decide for themselves how they were going to bring revolution to their own iives.
Issue!!?
While not having set niles and guidelines, riot grrrl had certain concems that arose out of its aspirations for a feminist revolution. Beyond simply redressing their exclusion hmthe punk scene, riot gml also established a ferninist voice within popular music by addressing and bringing attention to such issues as "rape, incest, battering, as weli as the self-inflicted violence of eating dis or der^.^'^ Riot gml made a determined effort to inculcate ferninist censure and refusal of the patriarchal and oftentimes rnisogynist structures of punk and the popular music industry, rnanifesting, for example, in the Bikini
Ki11 tactic of "[passing] around a mike in the audience for shared stories of childhood sexual abuse."30 However, riot gml did not enforce pacticularconcerns as king emblematic of the movement. The issues that riot grrrl contended with were often based on what was important to individuai girls and what they defined for themselves. Hence. riot gml conventions held workshops that dealt with varied topics: "eating disorders, rape, abuse, self-mutilation. racisrn, self-defense, and zine production."3' The basic concem of riot gml was to incite and sustain a revolutionary spirit amongst girls, and it did so without forcing a doctrine, while aüowing girls to pursue pertinent issues as they deemed fit: "Riot Gml is about me'*32 Meanwhile, feminism, as it was upheld by riot grrrl, was about resistance to gendered social roles and tiehaviours, but also inclusive of various and overlapping struggles. Refusing to be representative or act as speakers for each other, the centcaiization of individual girls' experiences and voices was the main concern of riot gml-whatever they had to say or wanted to deal with was ultimately up to them.
Holding conventions and shows that were "girls only," and segregating the space in venues so that girls had exclusive rights to be near the stage, riot gml fostered and justified a separatist stance as a means of balanciag the exclusion of girls in male- dominated spaces. During performances, boys were often told to move off to the side or to the back, advocaiing a girl-friendly area near the stage to counteract the physical aggression sometimes exerted by boys in this space, resulting in girls occasionally getting injwed. Despite hecküng and confrontational audience members criticizing this tactic, riot gml sought to create an encouraging environment in which girls could feel comfortable in geiting involved in activities normaüy closed off to them. Furthemore, by creating a safe and accessible space for girls, and placing them together witbin that space. a connection arnongst them al1 was established.
Communicaîing the Revolution
A primary means by wbich riot grrrl communicaied its i&as and revolutionary activism was through Song lyrics. Bands like Bikini Kill delivered their message through their songs, providing lytics that addressed feminist issues or sought to inspire girls into action. Aiong with their printed lyrics, Bikini Ki11 alsu included commentaries and criticisms written by band members in the packaging of their mcorded music; with so much text accompanying their music, Bikini Ki11 asserted that their message was just as, if not more so, important than the music. However, Song lyrics were varied, as much as the topics and issues conceming riot gml and individuai girls were varied, and it would be contrary to riot grrri's practices to uphold any particular lyric or song as being representative of the movement's motives and goals. Within Bikini Kill's own repertoke of lyrics, topics cange hmcelebrations of sisterhood, "Rebel girl. Rebel girl. You are the queen of my wor~d,"~to confrontation, Tour world, wt mine. Your world, not ours. 1 will resist with every inch and every breath. 1will resist îhis psychic death,'" to sociopolitical-feminist commenbry, "Betty's got the back of her dress aii ripped outiMamarsgot her face muffled~)'~~to angry censure "He burnt my diases and he eut my
hair. hused out the tire in my tare.'^ Song lyrics reflected the individualized nature of
topics, while sW baving the commonality of addressing girls and their perspectives.
experiences, and concems.
Madhu Krishnan, one of tbe discussants in Rosenberg and Garafalo's article,
"Riut Gnrl: Revolutions from Within" (1998), describes the Rasons for her participation
in riot grrrl:
It started out as a musical attraction of 'hey! 1cari do this!' and grew from there, as i [sic] acquired more knowleâge of other aspects of riot gml, namely literature. in the fom of fanzines. i think that the main thing about riot gml th& i find so attractive is how it nule me feel connected with al1 these gids fmn hundreds of miles away."
As riot grrri chapters emerged across North America (mainly in the United States), and
even in the United iüngdom,fanzines became an integral means of communication
amongst riot grrrls. Fanzines are homemade "magazines" or publications that were, in
DIY fashion, photocopied, hand-stapled, ruid self-distnbuted. Although comaionly
addressing popular music and popular culture, these fan editorials rire not topicdy
specific and frequently reflect individual inter est^.^^ Exploiting fanzines as a means to
disseminate ideas outside of the popular music reaim (e.g. through Song lyriçs), riot gml
endorsed funesthat were produced by giris and that featured essays, poetry, art, and
rants on topics ibat personally concerned them. The focus of the fanzines was to enable
girls to participate in some form of activism, inciting them to get involved in whatever
means they could-if not as musicians, then as writers, artists, poets-and to bring the
message of revolution to other girls. Documenting riot grrcl events and happenings as
weii as spreading its ideas, the fimines dso pmvided a creative and political outlet for the girls who wrote and produced them. Furthemore, girls were able to establish contacts with each other through the network created by fanzines as they were distributed from one location to another. Fanzines were also a rneans by which girls could form iriendships, by sharing their interests and experiences in the fanzines and then meeting with other girls whose fanzines they had read.
Riot gml also encouraged girls to meet and iorm alliances at shows, or live performances of bands. in their own fanzine, Bikini Ki11 fostered a girl community with the suggestion to "draw stars and hearts on your hands and go to shows like that and see if other girls have them and if another girl has that on her hand you'U know she got this mailing tw and she likes Bikini Ki11 and she likes feminism so go and talk to her."39 in addition, girls could network with each other at riot gml conventions, which were organized in various cities and consisted of discussion groups and workshops as weU as shows put on by bands. The discussions and workshops at these conventions offered girls
the chance to debate and share issues, while also providing a forum where they could challenge each other into thinking about each others' individual perspectives and
opinions, and, yet, come together to work collectively.
Riot gml moved beyond its "underground" status when mainstrearn, commercial
mediums begm to take an interest in their activities. Sassy magazine became involved
with riot gml and even featured a section entitled %ne of the Month" in its iss~es.~
When magazines üke ~ewsweek~'and ~lornour~~also featured articles on riot pl,the
movement became furthet exposed to girls who may not have had access to the punk
circles in which riot ploriginated. Despite the suspicion and anger expressed by some
girls, who felt that riot gml was king exploited and misrepresented by these magazines, riot grrri was introduced to a new and larger audience, further increasing its membership and supporters to be inclusive of girls with more varied backgrounds.
The Intemet provided ria gml a means of aiiowing girls to communicate with each other on a global level. The intemet enabled girls, who were geographically separated and who might not have connected ihrough other means, to produce web pages that functioned as on-line fanzines. Girls put up websites that ranged in content from transcriptions of song lyrics and concert reviews to poetry and personaYpolitica1 commentaries. Furthemore, through message boards and chat groups, girls were able to discuss issues with each other and form allegiances without king limited by their access
to shows or conventions. Similar to the fact that fanzines are still king produced and
distributed, several websites dedicated to riot gml are stiU king rnaintained, suggesting
that, despite the decline of riot gml as an identifiable movement, there are still girls who
care and are keeping the spirit of riot gml dive.
Rebeliion in Music and Against Musical Traditions
Continuing the iineage of refusal and cebellion enacted by 1970s punk in the United
Kingdom, riot grrrl emerged from a neo-resurgence of punk in the 1990s in North
~merica?~Punk's DK ethic of doing things your own way and rebeiiing against
nonnative traditions served femïnïst goals weU. With the imperative of ski11 in
rnusicianship and the intimidation of virtuosity dispelleci, women picked up instruments
and became involved in making punk music. Punk's rebellious nature also allowed for
women to play with taboos of sexuality and constructions of 'Temininity," a main ploy of punk being the fostering of image and bebaviour that would &nt social noms. The linking of punk and feminism is described by Angela McRobbie:
Aithough the stiletto heels. miniskirts, and suspenders will, despite their debunking connotations, rain unpalatable to most feminists ..hoth punk girls and ferninist want to overturn accepted ideas about what constitutes femininity. And they often end up using similar stylish devices used to upset notions of "public propriety-'4
However, despite its pretense of seeking the subversion and transgression of social constructions and constraiats, it was evident that punk was still conditioned and steeped in patriarchai conventions. Reynolds and Press, in The Sex Revofts (1995), discuss the deeply misogynist undertones of punk, with its rebellion against sacial conformity often manifesting in attacks on domesticity as associated with women, while its deviance and shock-value bnitality regularly took form in images and lyrics of violence towards womenP5 Riot grrrl's use af punk style and music was awash with the problematic of king involved in a sphere that was mtagonistic to its own position. However, riot gml aiso manipulated punk's aggression and revolt against conformity, turning them ûgainst the male structuring of punk itself. Noisy, loud, chaotic, and abrasive, riot grrrl's music aimed to subvert, transgress, and break nomof proper "feminine" bebwiour while countering the punk and social construction and treatment of girls with the assertion
"BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Giri=Dumb, Girl=Bad, ~irl=weak,"*
Although lyrics are conventionally the bearers of meaning in songs, riot gml's employment of punk music was also able to make visuaily and audiMy manifest feminist resistance to paradigms of normative gender roles. For example, the music of Bikini Kiu references the traditionai format of punk songs, with the basic instnunentation of drums, bass guitar, guitar, and vocals. Consisting of three fernale mmben and one male (guitar),
Bikini Kiii supportai its caii for cevolution with a musical style that evoked a feeling of urgency and incitement- The fleeting and rapid nature of Bikini Ki11 songs, which are short in lengîh (spanning about two minutes) and punctuated by fast and pronounced 414 beats, signiw being "out of control;" the music itseif is cbaotic and volatile in its speed and detivery, reflecting the anarchic tendencies of punk. Additionaily, with the sonic vernacular of bar chords (a simplified chord structure which emphasizes the root of a chord, often piayed with only two guitar strings), Bikini Ml delivered songs that were designed for impact and aura1 assault, since bar chords produce a low and dense sound.
Using bar chords and plenty of feeàback (distortion of instrument sound wheu amplified ai high volume), Bikini Ki11 asserted strength and aggressioo through their music.
Furthemore, the simplistic structure of theh songs (verse, chorus, verse, chorus), as well as their use of basic chord progressions (usually thme chords played repetitively), invited girls to becorne involved in playing music by demystifying the need for technical proficiency; meanwhile, feedback and distortion (which can be attained through volume as well as guitar "pedals") dso mask imperfections in playing ability. Moreover, the speed and aggression of Bikini Kill's music incites visceral and physical reactions, generating energetic responses from its audience conducive to being harnessed for the revolutionary messages in their lyrics. Simultaneously, the noisy and loud nature of punk music presented an image of girls th& was powerN and commanded attention. Kathieen
Hama's use of screaming, althougb a convention for maie punk singers, was subversive for a woman musician, given that screaming is normatively an "deminine'* means of expression? As evidenced in the aggressive vocal style of Hanna, screamiag chaiîenged and confronted the social conditionhg of girls-to be docile, submissive, rehed-while asserthg Hua's strength and seif-possession as a woman. Furthemore, Ioanne Gottlieb and Gayle Wald have discussed the "strategic use of the scream [as] a radicaliy polysemous nonverbal articulation which can simultaneously and ambiguously evoke rage, terror, pleapure andor prima1 self-ass~ction.'~They fucther suggest ttut
screarns are also etnotional ejaculations bearing specific associations with highly charged events-lie rape. orgasm or childbirth. Often associated with femininity at its most vulnerable, the scream in its punk context can effect a shocking juxtaposition of sex and rage, including the cultural terrors of the open expression of femaie sexuality, or feminist rage at the sexual uses and abuses of womenP9
In this context, rather than king a mimicry of male punk vocal conventions, Hanna's screams carry feminist meanings while also playing with and challenging the normative associations with women's screaming, such as hysterics, victimization, or "bitchiness," and re-inscribing them with aggression, confrontation, and anger.
A further source of rebellion enacted by riot grrrl through the popular music
medium was the rejection of the traditional industry means of disseminating music.
Although bands recorded and sold their music, rnany refused to sign to corporate or major
record labelso Hence, these bands were technically not answerable to labels that had
advertisers and financial backers to consider when confronted with music or lyrics
deemed commercially "inappropriate" or inaccessible to mainstream audiences-thus, not
tikely to gamet rnuch profit. Either seif-producing and self-distributing their music in the
fonof homemade recordings, or signing with independent labels, bands involved with
riot plwere, in general, more concerned with playing music and spreading their
message thaa making a profit. Fucther asserting an "anti-greed" stance, bands did not
participate in the common practice of selling merchandise, like t-shirts, to generate
auxiliary profit at their shows. The refusal to cooperate and interact with "mainstream"
publications was also another tactic of riot gml to avoid pmtocols of the popular music industry?' Moreover, by rejecting tbe production of music videos, bands not only did not participate in the conventional use of videos to "seli" music, but they avoided the specific enaapments for women of this visudy centred medium." Fusing music and image*the music video is susceptible to, and is frequently used for, the objectification of women and their bodies. This is not to Say that the music video is not capable of objectifjing men and their Mies, but that, historically and socially, women's bodies have ken cmedwith male desire and have served as forms of "entertainment" (e.g. sîrippem). Riot grrrl was able to sidestep this aspect of the popular music industry and allowed for women musicians to concentrate on their music and their goals, mther than on how they louked.
However, riot gmi was notable to completely elude the trappings of visual representation attogether.
Rebellion in Image and Peflormance
In their analysis of the riot grrrl movement, Joanne Gottiieb and Gayle Wald
position riot gml's problematization of notions of femininity, gender, and sexuality as
feminist intervention in the paciiarchal conventions of popular music:3 in addition to the
use of the scream and demonstrations of aggression, Gottlieb and Wald argue that dot
pl's ironic and self-conscious '"putting on' [of] guises of conventional female sexuality
and femininity.. .by acting alternately or simultaneously 'giriish' and 'slutty "" wece
effective tactics in exposing and chalIenging social consmctions of 'Ternaiehood" or
"girIhood." Toying with "guises*' of sexuality, riot grrrl assumed stereotypical images of
women and destabilized their Mpiicit and naturalized meanings by re-simiifving them to
challenge social nom. Riot plfused sigas of girihood @mettes, 'kby doii" dresses) with an assertive, independent sexuality that was also instilled with anger and aggression.
Overturning the submissive mode1 of girihood through its sarcastic, mocking, and taunting display of innocence and sexuality, riot gml highiighted the confiicting good girUbad girl dichotomy imposed on girls while coafronting the objectification and fetishization of women's bodies and images. This tactic of riot gml can be paraiieled to the musician Liz Phair's explanation of her "sexually explicit" lyrics that were
"intentionaliy about using a little-girlish voice to Say reaily dirty things and play with pedophilia ...At the same time [I was] titillûting them, [I was also trying] to bring them close enough so 1 [could] smack bem."55Riot gml undedined the ways in which girls taught to become women-whose sexuality is often constnicted to serve a male gaze more so than king a source of self-fulfillment-while castigating the disciplining and, yet, covetous patriarchal eye.
A distinct trait of Hanna's vocal delivery of Bikini Kiii songs is the emotional energy she conveys. And when Hanna's lyrics are visually manifested in live shows, there is an added dimension to Bikini Kill's message of "revolution girl style now" that cornrnunicates urgency and inspires action. Gottiieb and Wald describe Hanna's performance during a Bikini Ki11 show:
In "Suck My Left One," a Song abut father-daughter incest, Hanna grabs her bared breast and taunts her audience. Ventriloquizing a matemal voice which speaks for patriarchy, she sings, "Show a linle respect for your fatherwait until your father gets home" and then ends the song with a line chat consolidates rage, disobedience, sarcasm and (even ambiguously pleasurabIe) submission: "Fine fine Fine fine Fine fine Fine ~ine."~~
As a parallel, perhaps more extreme, demonstration of how performance can amplify the meaning of women's music and lyrics, Cynthia Fuchs discusses the "queer punk" band Trii 8, focusing on the singer, Lynn Breedlove, and her transgression of noms of sexuality and gender in performance:
Shirtless to expose her long torso, wearing sunglasses, blue or pink hair, baggy jeans, and her baseball cap backwards when she sings..,from the back she mi& pass for a guy. And then she tums around, displaying the A for Anarchy written on her belly, her breasts and nipple-ring, and her dildo."
Furthermore, as Evelyn McDonneU notes, Breedlove would eventuaîly take a knife (or chainsaw) to the dildo and then throw the disrnembered rnernber to the audience while singing, "It's called gang rapeWe've got a game called gang ca~trate."~~Tribe 8, a band often associated with riot grrrl, exploit the potential of performance to deliver its feminist message through shock imagery-driving home the violence of rape with the visual anaiogy of a violent act of castration. Hanna's own performance, with her rage apparent in the image of her screaming into a microphone, extends the subversiveness of her lycics by providing a visual reference îhat is confrontational and disconcerting. As in the case of
"Suck My Left One," Hanna, taking on the role of the rebellious daughter told to "wait until her father cornes home," gives incest a face and personality. Embodying the child of her song, Hanna gives her a voice that is angry, derisive, "knowing." Consequently,
Hanna offers an image of strength in a setting of ''victimization." Furthermore, Hanna's
baring of her breasts and her goad of "suck my left one" as directed at audience members, censures their gaze by aligning them with the abusive father of the song.
The Pmblematics of Women's RebeUion
Despite the transgressive qualities of riot grrrl's rebellious acts, there were acute
drawbacks to their tactics, as the popular music industry thrives on image and, more
insidiously, is steeped in a tradition of the objectification of women and their bodies. Riot grrrl trespasses on this volatile territory, dangerously playing with image and performance that teeter on serving the interests of a capitalist popular music industry and the male gaze. Within the popular music industry, musicians must contend with the cornmodification of their physical selves as much as their music, this visual emphrisis taking form in CD packaging, magazine photographs, and music videos. For women musicians (not to mention the nameless women who function as sexuaiized wailpaper in
(male) music videos and advertisements), ttiis is especially problematic given that the femaie body has been historically exploited and controlled for male pleasure and domination. How can women musicians represent themselves and express their sexuality without perpetuating the use of their bodies as commodities? Riot gml was caught in the conflict between "perfodng" sexuality or stereotypes and king complicit with the very conventions it was trying to dismanfie.
As Gayle Wald has noted, Ernest Laclau's concept of "'disarticulation- rearticulation,' or the process of symbolic struggle thmugh which social groups reformulate dominant codes as a means of negotiating political-cultural agency.'Jg can be applied to riot grrrl strategies. When Kathleen Hanna perfomed displaying the word
"slut" written on her belly, she engaged in this re-foding of tems used to label and ümit women. However, as Hama has come to realize, there are problematics with personwng stereotypes that are profoundly coded with dominant meaning:
1 was ying to take power away hmcertain words by ridiculously over-using them. 1sort of anticipated guys thinking, "Oh she's showing skin, therefore she's a slut." So 1wrote "slut" on myself as a way to beat them to the punch. At the time it seemed interesting and confrontaiional. Now it seems sort of sad in a way, Iie if 1thought someone was gonna punch me in the face, wouId 1kat them to it by punching myself! 1mean, 1 was trying to comment on the male gaze which 1still think is cool, there's just a really fine line between 'hclaiming" derogatory slang and glamonzing it, and 1don? think 1was as hip to that then as 1am no^.^ As Fuchs, McDonnell, Gottlieb and Wald demonstrate in their enthusiastic support of musicians Like Hanna or Breedove, they seem content simply to read acts as feminist interventions when women show anger or rage or pcovide something unexpected and
"aeminine" in their perfomances. But what does it mean for a female musician to bare her breasts during her performances and for those performances, her records, to be sold on that prernise? It would seem that these women and their music mn the cisk of becoming popularized because of their transgressions. Meanwt.de, these rebellious moments can be read tw strongly as feminist upheaval in popular music, ignoring the fact that transgression can often be commodified and serve to re-inscribe dominant codes. The potential "re-objectification" that some women musicians may participate in through their images of sexuality that are bbgirlish"and "slutty" are not questioned in Gottlieb and
Wald's andysis of riot grrrl. For an audience that is not receptive to the feminist intent of these images, these women could be interpreted as having embodied the very stereotypes th they were trying to resist. What is the irony of these images when (male) audience mernbers come specifically to "gawk" at these women, as evidenced in the Erequently heard taunt, "tala off your clothesf' during shows? Hu women's performance once again ken reduced to king merely spectacle? Kathleen Hanna has comrnented, "A lot of men come with same exact attitudes that guys do that come to a strip bar. They think,
'Oh, it's a girl band, we'li go and watch their butts and their tits or something ike that.'
They don't think of us as performers they just think of us sorta like seals that jump through hoops and have titst" Similar to Gonlieb and Wald, Fuchs or McDonneil do not examine the potentid that Breedlove's audience rnay miss the point of her castration performance and simply revel in its display of transgressive violence as equivdent to a titillating sideshow.
Despite the very reai anger that woman musicians may express in their music and performance, it is oftentimes not the cause or content of that anger, but the anger itself, which sells their records or tickets to their shows. Hence, these women rwi the danger of being mere stimuli, novelties in a market where their music, their anger, their bodies and tbernselves are commodities. And while they are being sold and exploited, their message of tevolution dissipates.
Additionally, the rebellious tactics engaged in by women musicians can be alienating to their audience, or cm become the source for dismissal of the messages behind the screams and displays of aggression. As Kathleen Hanna cornplains,
Another ihing 1 had to face up to was just how conservative people are, even kids who go to shows. Like people were reatly, really, angry about Riot Grrl, their perceptions of it, or whatever. Sometirnes people had cornpletely valid critiques, but for the most part people were just freaked out that girls were organizing md calling things into question, It was like I fell asleep and woke up in the Stone age or something. I mean, it's really weird to have sorneone corne up and tell you you're too angry, you're too militant, blah blah blah, you should chill out and becorne a more peaceful persan. etc., when you're just standing there and you have no idea who they are. 1 mean, 1was in a band and I was part of a woman's group for a while, what's the big fucking deal?'
Hama's play with sexudgender desand socid noms of female behaviour is fixated on as king acts of "anger" or "militancy*'/ Hanna's questioning of these desand noms is lost in the audience reaction towards ber transgressions. However, 1would be reluctant to dismiss women musicians' acts of cebellion as ineffectual and too problem-ridden to have been useful. Although these women ernployed tactics that were problernaiic, they were stïU successfd in confionting and exposing the taboos and conventions that insidiously shape and bitgirls' Lives. The successes and failures of these women musicians can be leamed from, and used to inform and improve future rebellions and strategies in the ongoing feminist struggle.
Revolution Inc.
Just as riot gml was receiving attention outside of its community from the mass popular media, "women musicians" became a category in the popular music industryP<
And as the Lilith Fair demonstrated with its reign over the festival circuit" women musicians were big-ticket draws by the mid 1990s. With the "ungry women in rock" moniker atuibuted to bands which were part of the initial wave of women musicisuis to gain industry recognition in the early IWs, the insertion of women in popular music consciousness was penneated with feminist rebellion. However, corporate labels predictably CO-optedand took advantage of this "new market" and started to shape their own commodified versions of women musicians homogenized by their gender. With the likes of the Spice Girls, Jewel, and Britney Spears, women musicians (i.e. women singers) were signed to major labels and mass marketed. Owing to corporate support, these anists were exposed to comparatively larger audiences and were able to make the notion of "women musicians" familiar within the industry. However, the original feminist spirit inflecting the music of womn who fmt had impact on the indusuy was ovemn by tamed adaptations that relapsed to conventional images and attitudes of socially accepted femininity and sexuality: teenage singer, Britney Spears, sports a "schoolgirI" uniform, wbile singing the sexually submissive lyrks, "baby, give it to me one more tirne.*& The diffusion of riot grrrl, while bringing it to the attention of girls outside of the punk scene, has also ken blarned for its demise. Despite striviag to rernain
"underground," refusing to cooperate with and be interviewed by corporate magazines and aewspapers, riot gml was constructed and publicized as a "sassy new breed of feminists for the MTV age."67 Concurrently, the popular music markets were inundated with major label supported women musicians while the major magazines foiiowed suit, with Spin hyping its "Girl Issue" and Rolling Stone celebrating its thiriieth anniversary issue with a tribute to "Women of ~ock."~'Riot gml's emphasis on women musicians and "girl power" was CO-optedand repackaged as a marketing strategy, just as its feminist concerns were diluted to mere novelty and personal agendas.
Ulustrating that the popular music industry was not suddenly experiencing an anomalous giut of women musicians during the 1990s but, rather, hiid identifieci women musicians as a profitable venture and was merely marketing them as a "new phenornenon," Courtney Love from the band Hole describes the climate a iew years before women "broke into the mainstream:"
in 1985-a time when you'd go out to look for girl music and wou1d be lucky to mybe find a Throwing Musa record4 was in this band. We were al1 womn, except I'II admit we hod to get a male drurnrner. We were cute, we wroie eight immaculate pop songs, put four of them out there, and no one gave a fuck. How in the hell, when there was a vacuum that desperately needed to be fillecl, could three women, who are hot, put out four immaculate pop songs and have them be ig~ored?~~
The three women of tbis band, Sugar Baby Doii, went on to form Hole (Love), Babes in
Toyland (Kat Bjeliand) and L7 (Jennifer Finch)-bands that achieved varying degrees of commercial success and attention once women musicians became "popular" in the industry. Aithough the present command that women musicians bave over the popular
music industry has been construed as merely another "trend" that will eventudy become over-exploited and discarded, industry support of these women has allowed them to gain iatluential positions as popular icons. And the suggestion that women are current novelties in the industry that wiii disappear once the interest in them has diminished overlooks the fact that women have always kninvolved in popular music whether or not the industry acknowledges them. The commercial success and, arguably, unparalleled proliferation of women musicians accepted in the popular music industry in the 1990s, at the least, have the potential and influence to inspire girls to become musicians and seek new avenues, new images for themselves. The sheer number of women musicians present in the industry due to marketing and commercialization is enough to leave a lasting impact, signaling to forthcoming girls that they can be musicians and not just groupies.
Furthemore, with the increased visibility of women musicians in the 1990s, the "lineage" of women in popular music has received much exposure, as currently popular women musicians regularly cite those of the past as influential and inspirationai sources?0
Although the commercial gains of women musicians can be considered a positive advance on women's positions and opprtunities within the popular music industry, from the perspective of riot grrrl the anger and social relevance of the feminist revolution it had sought has ken compromised and diffked. Riot grrrl had not wanted corporate and industry approval. Riot gml had been about chmghg the patriarchai structures, attitudes, and centrality overriding the punk scene, the popular music industry, and society in general. Instead, their message of girl pwer and revolution became ingrained within industry jargon. As the Lilith Fair advertised, it was (Frnancially) supported by Tommy
Hifjiger's "tommy girl cologne, the fragrance that captures the spint of the American woman [and] icprcsents the spirit of Lilith Fair in 1999.'"' Riot grrri's goals for feminist restnicturing was replaced/displaced with a simple '%elebrationV'of women musicians- the women musicians with industry support were once again playing the role of "pretty faces" with nothing to say. Courtney Lave has observed,
There's a huge futility here, because my pers have failed. How they are rernembered historically is up for discussion, but there's no denying that they failed. The only people who've really succeeded in my gender are the polished pros-the whole idea of DIY, get a guitar, start a band is, for girls, bitterly a lie ...1 look at those girls in Olympia, those girls in L.A., those girls in Minneapolis, those girls in New York, those girls in London. and think, "Where the fuck iue the^?"^ Wby, as Love declares, did riot gml "faii"? What happened to its revolutionary fervour?
The demise of riot plas a movement, as well as the recuperation of its girl revolution by the popular music industry, were not necessarily signs that riot pl's efforts were in vain. Although riot gml was Lirnited by its membership and scope, there were still gids who were proioundly affected by the message of revolution and activism of riot grrrl. Sirnilarly, the CO-optationof the revolutionary spirit of not plby the popular music industry could be considered the inevitable fate of any movement that works within popular culture and the capital systems that govem it. The value of riot pl is that it continued the ieminist stniggle and introduced the fight for revolution to a new audience, Even if riot plhas passed as a movement, the girls who participated in its cd to action still cqthe potentiai as individuais to begin another movement and carry on the stniggle, as developed hmtheir experiences within riot gml. Notes
CHAPTER IIk GRRRL PûWER Excerpt from Bikini Ki11 (Zine #2, n.d.). 2 See introduction, note 6, for Bikini Kill's rejection of the label "riot grrrl," but not necessarily what it stood for. ' 1 use 'girl' as a generai tenn to indicate teenage girls and young women. 4 Jessica Rosenberg and Gitana Gmfalo, "Riot hl:Revolutions from Within," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Volume 23. Number 3. Spring 1988). 809. Separatism is not original or unique to riot pl.Lesbian separatism. for exarnple. is the subject of the extensive separatist anthology. For Lesbians Only, eds. Sarah Lucia-Hoagland and Julia Penelope, (London: Onlywornen Press, 1988). Fanzines are homemade publications. See the section, Tomrnunicating the Revolution." ' Rosenberg and Garofalo, "Riot Gml," 8W. K Records is an independent record label based in Olympia, Washington. Ibid, 809. 9 Farai Chideya, Melissa Rossi, and Dogen Hannah, "Revolution, Girl Style," Newsweek (Volume 120, Issue 21, November 1992). 84. 10 "Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail coined the cenn grrrl as o @y of how one faction of ferninists called thernselves womyn," EveIyn McDonneIl, "Rebei Gmls," in Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, ed. Barbara O'Dair (New York: Random House, 1997), 458. 11 David Browne, "Go On, Gmls," Entertainment Weekly (Issue 207, 1994). 52. " "Gml Talk," Glamour (Vol. 91, Issue 5, May 1993), 134. 13 Betty Boob, "interview With Kathleen Hanna" Busr (Issue 12, Spring 1999), 61. 14 Chideya, Rossi, and Hannah, "Revolution, Girl Style," 85. l5 Jake Greenberg, as quoted in Rosenberg and Garofaio. "Riot Grrrl," 8 14. Ib Simon Reynolds and Joy Press, The Sex Revolrs: Gender. Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19951, 3 17. " Kim France's article, "Grrrls at War," in Rolling Stone (July 8-22, 1993) lists "five assurnptions about riot grrrl" with the last one being 'They aren't reaily a movement," 23. '' From The CD Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Kill. l9 Fmm The CD Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Kill. " Bikini Ki11 (Zine #2, n.d.), my italics. " Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, "The Intellectuals and Power: A Discussion between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, Telos, uans. Mark Seem (Number 16, Sumrner, 1973), 107. "Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Lesbian Ethicsr Toward New Value (Palo Alto: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1988), 145. '3 "A Color and Activity Book," Bikini Kill (Zine#i, n.d.). 24 Rosenberg and Garofalo, "Riot Grrrl," 8 10. ?S Amy Raphael, Never Mind the Bul[ocks: Women Rewrite Rock (London: Virago, 19961,148. 26 AS quoted in Raphael, 148. " Interview with Daniel Sinker in Punk Planet (Issue 27, SeptemberIOctober 1998), 42. 28 Kim France, "Gmls at War," Rolling Stone (July 8-22, 1993), 24. 29 Joanne Gonlieb and Gayle Wald, "Srneiis Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grnls, Revolution and Women in independent Rock," in Microphone Fiends: Youth M~icand Youth Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994). 267. " France, "Grrrls at War," 23. 31 Rosenberg and Garofalo, "Riot Grrrl." 8 10. 32 Lailah Hanit Bragin quoted in Rosenberg and Garofalo, 817. 33 "Rebel Girl," from the album The CD Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Kill. 34 "Resist the Psychic Death," ibid. 3s "Li&* ibid. "Rab! Rah! Replica!" from the album The Singles. " Rosenberg and Garofalo, "Riot Gml," 815. Margot Mifflin in 'These Magazines Offer More Than Just Girl Talk," The New York Times, Late Edition (November 12, 1995). observes: "with titles like Bust, Cupsize and Fat Girl, and articles covering issues from nosy mothers to rape in Bosnia, girlzines have becorne as popular as babydoll dresses and combat boots. These self-published, low-fi magazines filled with ptry, essays, reviews and comic have become the mouthpiece for a new breed of feminists," 53. 39 "Bikini Kill" fanzine quoted in Bust, 6 1. .la "Zine of the Month," in Sassy (January 1996), 18, looks at the fanzine Girlie Jones. while "Zines of the Month," in Sassy (December 1993). 50, reviews several zines like Plume and Noisy Jewelry. 4 1 Chideya, Rossi, and Hannah, "Revolution, Girl Style," 84-86. ""Grrrl Talk," 134. See Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1979) and Hiding in the Light (London: Routledge, 1988). "Neo-punk" bands like Green Day came into popular focus in the 1990s in North Amenca. Angela McRobbie, "Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique," On Record: Rock Pop. and the Written Word (New York: Pantheon, 1990), 79. 4s in the chapter, "Careers in Misogyny," Reynolds and Press document several "musings" by mernbers of the punk band, the Stranglers: "women's place in the scheme of things can be best judged by sampling some of the Stranglers' sniggering humour. On the Women's Movement: '1 like women to move when I'm on top of them.' Or their comment about an incident in hsing, Michigan, where their appearance was greeted by a demonstration by forty feminists: 'So we tried to kidnap one and kinda manhandled her into the coach whilst king fought off by these women with their big placards and banners. There was a big fracas and she got away, unfortunately. ..but 1 bet she was really excited and tumed on by if,"' 37, Bikini Ki11 (Zine #2, n.d.). "~ottlieb and Wald in "Smells Like Teen Spirit," 267, discuss riot gml's tactics as resisting and deconsvucting normative constructions of proper "feminine" behaviour. a ibid. 261.
@ Ibid. This was a stance that most bands took, with the independent label dismbuting Bikini Kill's music named Ki11 Rock Stars. '' See "Methodology" section in the introduction of this thesis: Tobi Vail explains why Bikini Ki11 refused to speak with commercial publications. "Kathleen Hanna appeared in the Sonic Youth video for the Song "Bull in the Heather," but did not produce a video to accompany any Bikini Ki11 songs. " See Gottlieb and Wald, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," 250-273. IJ Ibid. 267. 5s AS quoted in Lorraine Ali's 'Ziz Phair," Trouble Girls, 538. '15 '15 Gottlieb and Wald, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," 267. "Cynthia Fuchs, "If1Had a Dick: Queers, Punks and Altemative Acts," Mapping the Beat (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). 107. " McDonneii, "Rebel Gmls," 463. - - 59 Gayle Wald, "Just a Girl? Rock Music, Ferninism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Volume 23, No. 3 1. 1998). 59 1. 60 interview with But, 62. 6' Will Dandy's interview with Bikini Kill in Punk Planer (Issue 5, Sanuary/Febnwy 1995) makes note of male audience members dismpting the show with this taunt. niese commis, however, are not isolaied to Bikini Kill or riot gml shows, as noted in Ann Powers' article "A Surge of Senism On the Rock Scene," New York Times. Lare Edition (August 2. 1999): male audience members "shouted at female performers like Sheryl Crow to expose their breasts onstage," E 1. 62 Interview with Punk Planet, (Issue 5. JanuaryFebruary 1995). interview with Busr, 62. M 1 state this facetiously to indicate the popular music industry's "acknowledgement" of wornen musicians only afier they becma marketable "genre." 65 According to Pollstar (December 3 1, 1999). 4. 66 rom the dbum, hby One Mure Time. '' Chideya. Rossi, and Hannah, "Revolution, Girl Style," 84. ML Spin (November 1997) and Rolling Stone (November 13,1997). Strangely enough (or perhaps not so strangely), both these issues contain subtexts that seem to "assure" its male readecs: the Spin issue features articles on girlthild pornography and Rolling Stone superimposed upon the three divas on the cover-Xourtney Love, Tina Turner, and MadonnAe pornographie reference XXX (to indicate iw 3@ annivemary).
@ Courmey Love as quoted by Mike Usinger in "Love Talks," The Georgia Stmight (July 8- 15, 1999). K. 'O All-women punk bands €rom the 1970s Iike The Slits and The Raincoats have been "resurrected" in popular music consciousness by women musicians citing thern ris influences. loy Press's "Shouting Out Loud: Women in U.K. Punk," Trouble Girls, notes: "Hole covered a Raincoats sang in concert, and Kim Gordon [of Sonic Youth] and Kurt Cobain [of Nirvana] wrote worship liner notes to newly rereleased Raincoats records. And in 1995, Luscious Jackson singer Jill Cunniff pniclaimed, 'There was a time in my Iife when the Slits were the epitome, the ultimate, the coolest of the cool. They were everything 1 wmted hmlife,"' 300. " Press release for Litith Fair News (www.lilithfair.com). R As quoted in Mike Usinger's "Love Talks," The Georgia Straigk (July 8-15, 1999). 17. CONCLUSION
Continuing the Revolution
There are a lot of times when people think that in order to create something, you have to destroy something and sometimes you do. Sometimes things have to be completely destroyed in order to change. But 1don't think that in order to create a new happening or movement, people have to destroy what happened in the past. We need to build on the foundations that these past movements have provided. -Kathleen Hanna'
With the cal1 for a girl revolution, women musicians involved with riot grrrl engaged in a consciously and conscientiously feminist dialogue and debate, daring their
fans and audience to shape theu own lives and initiate social change. Additionally, they used other mediums, like the fanzine, to further spread their ideas and extend their form and range of influence. Eventually, the interaction and communication between bands and their fans, as part of riot gml's feminist strategy, fostered a community that was rooted
in, but not limited to, its music. Regardless of evaluations of its effectiveness or
ineffectiveness as a movement, riot gml nonetheless affected and inspired individual girls. And, aithough king a freshly disassembled movement nquiring time and hindsight
to determine its impact, the revolutionary process that riot grrrl contributed to, is still ongoing. Considering that riot gml developed fiom and continued previous feminist and
women's movements, the evaluation of riot gml as a movement unto itself is
misdirected-it is the continuum of struggle that riot gml was invohed in that is
revolutionary. By playing a role in keeping the desire for revolution alive and delivering
this hope to a group of (new, younger) girls, riot grrrl may become the predecessor to
future, perhaps more radical, feminïst movements as founded upon its efforts. The need for this hope is made more profound in Light of the harrowing events that occurred at Woodstock '99, where severai incidents of molestation and rape were repocted as having occurred during the music festivai. Particdarly disturbing is that, in some cases, girls were forcefuliy pulled into the area in front of the stage, stripped of their clothes, molested, and raped within the mosh pif as bands continued to play.2Molestation and rape took place in public areas, with iiterdly thousands of witnesses, and, yet, there was a frightening complicity, even apathy, mongst the festival audience and bands:
There was little pity for those who were unprepared for what they found in the front rows. "If you didn't want to be in a rough situation there, you shouldn't have been in the mosh pit, " said reveler Doug Calahan. "I'm tireci of people making excuses for their own fucking stupidity.'"
Schneider saw a crowd-surfing wornan get swallowed up by the pit; when she reemerged, two men had clamped her arrns to her sides. "She was giving a struggle," said Schneider. "Her clothes were physically and forcibly being rernoved." Yet no one nearby seemed to react. Schneider said that the wornan and one of the men fell to the ground for about 20 seconds; then, he said, she was passed to his friend who raped her."
Even the reports of these incidents are sttangely void of outrage and, at the least, critical
comrnentary. The commercial magazine, Spin, in its account of Woodstock, refers to the
assaults as just another event in their festival diw? In fact. the fmt mention of these
incidents does not occur untii three pages into the article, foliowing descriptions of rhe
weather, the venue, and the dnig scene. The titie of the article itself, "Don? Dnnk the
Brown Water," lacks any indication of what was going to be described within its report,
let aione providing some fomof censuring of the assauits.
The fact that the incidents at Woodstock could occur after the so-caiied
achievements of women musicians, when women were considered to have gained ground
and respect within the popuiar music industry, cornes suspiciously close to what Susan Faludi has called "backiash." Whenever women have come close to attaining some form of feminist objective, Faludi argues that a backlash materiaiizes to whip them back into place, that reactionary measures are taken to reassert the dominant ~rder.~Ann Powers
States, "The moment when women confronted male rockers on their own terms, displayhg a sexual forcefulness and self-respect that threw the genre's histock chauvinism into question, has faded."' Lilith Fair, the other music festival of 1999, which focused on women musicians, has been "retired" by its founder, Sarah McLachlan.
Meanwh.de, boy bands are re-emerging in fierce incarnations, taking form in bands such as Korn or Limp Bizkit whose aggressive revelry is labeled as '?rash rock."8 Tt is not just that boy bands are "back," since this is a common and expected maneuver of the popular music industry to keep its markets revitalized, but that their specific manifestations are violent, with a "boy-centricity" that is underwritten with misogyny:
At the Warped Tour ...numerous perforrners shouted nasty remiirks at the "ladies" in the crowd, culrninating in ri suggestion by Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 that fernale fans come up to the stage and sexually service his band mates?
The energy feeding these boy bands, their music and their performances, is notably simiiar to the energy of 'Trac boys," who patïally comprise the target demographic of these bands, and whose notoriety for gang rapes and attacks on women were the
"inspiration" for the castration performance that accompanied Tribe 8's song, 'Rat Pig."
Yes, riot pisparticipated in paraiiel dispiays of aggression and girl-centricity, but theirs was an owning of emotions and actions traditionaiiy denied them. Whereas male violence against women is a social reaiity, the potentiai "threat" that riot gml had on men and maie audience members was not sociaiiy based. The riot gml insistence on the spatial segregation of their audiences becomes ominously poignant when considered withh the context of Woodstock, especially considering that bands had simply intended to give their girl audience some unfettered room near the stage-not baving to protect them hmking raped. Riot gml may have been considered exclusive, musicaliy pus?, and unsuccessful as a revolutionary movement by some, but in the face of the vioIent alternative offered at Woodstock, at the least, girls had a positive, promising option with riot pl.Encouraged to be actively involved in the bettement of their individuai lives, and then to partake in a feminist struggle as a cornmunity, girls were offered a means of resistance and refusal of patriarchal exclusion and vilification, and were given an assertion and validation of their own worth and capabilities through riot grrrl.
To presume riot grrrl failed as is avolution because a "deposition" or grand upheavai of the popular music industry did not occur as a direct result, allows its endeavours to be dismissed and forgotten. Revolution does not need to be the product, the culmination, of one movement. Rather, the revolution~work, the revolutionary desire, can be kept alive through the persistent resurfacing of cesistances and movements. With
an emphasis on individual determination of the reasons and means for resistance, while
still committed to workuig towards a larger, communal objective of resisting injustices in
ail its manifestations, riot grrrl exposed and disnipted power relations as manifested in
paradigrnatic gender desand behaviours. Through its confrontation, deconstruction, and
transgression of the patriarchai noms, dehnitions, and limitations imposed on women,
riot grrrl revealed the, ofien insidiou, pahiarchal constructions of what it means to be a "woman" or a "girl," wMe demonstmting that women could resist and refuse these constructions.
Riot gml is not upheld here as a movement that was definitive of feminist sûuggle and complete as a revolutionary endeavour or, even, as an expression of resistance. The problematics of riot gml strategies and the conflicts within the movement itself demonstrate that totalizing notions of revolution are ineffective. Riot gml was a movement that engaged in a localized resistance and that, within its own comunity, manifested as the pluralized resistances of the individual girls who were involved with it.
Furthemore, riot gml as a ferninist undertaking contnbuted to a continuum of the multiple resistances made, and are king made, by women. This is the revolutionary process that riot grrrl was a part of. Although riot gml was one manifestation of a feminist resistance, it was linked to a collectivity of feminist resistances that, ultimately, are linked to infinities of varied resistances. The fact that many girls who were involved in ciot gml are still actively playing in bands, producing fanzines, and connecting on the intemet, is assurance that the revolution is ongoing.
The Shape of Revolution to Corne
The oppressors do not always appear in the same rnask. The rnasks cannot always be stripped off in the sarne way. There are so rnany tricks for dodging the rnirror that is held out.. .What wiîs pupular yesierday is no longer so today, for the people of yesterday were not the people as it is toâay, -Bertolt ~recht''
If the oppressors' masks are constantly changing then, as Brecht contends, the
means by which to strip these masks must also change-revolutionary action must keep
up with the challenge of the ever-shifting recuperative cycles of power. By also working
as a pmcess, revolution as a continuum of multiple resistances is able to rebound hm recuperation and not Mysubmit to it. Building upon past resistances, improving on the strategies engaged by these resistances, while amending them to be ceflective of the specific conditions of present resistances, revolution as a process does not end with recuperation. Instead, the revolutionary process consists of continuaily cesurking and regenerative attacks that come from different levels, with dierent tactics, in different contexts, spaces, and times. Meanwhile, the use of popular mediums, like popular music, is an expedient means of inspiring and spreading revolutionary stmggle.
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison cootend that "after movements fade as political forces, music remains as a memory and potentiai to inspire new waves of mobilization."" The use of popular music as a means to cary the message of a movement is iiluminated in this context. Eyerman and Jarnison's recognition of
"memory," as a vital aspect of the social significance of populac music, elucidates how riot grrrl could "end" as a movement, but continue in the lives of individual girls.
Remaining in popular memory, riot pl's use of popular music to articulate its girl revolution allows it to transcend the limitations of a movement subject to trends and recuperation or fluctuations and decline in mernbership and interest. Contrary to Gceil
Marcus' critique that "Music seeks to change life; life goes on; the music is left behind; that is what is left to talk about,"12 music cmcontinue as a "reminder" of a movement.
Granted, some forms of popular music cm fdi into obscurity, but this generally happens to individuai songs, musicians, or bands. Popular music that accompanies a movement usually is remembered, if not for the music itself, then for the politics, or outrage, or media attention, or inspiration generated by the movement. Furthemore, for anyone who is "moved" by the music, the music becomes fixed in memory-signüicant moments and emotions in Our lives become attached to and associated with particulas songs.
Consequently, because the music is remembered, so the tactics and issues of the movement it accompanied are also remembered. Marcus observes that once a movement passes, the music passes as well, it is lep behind. 1would concur tbat the music of a movement can (and usually does) become less socially relevant, that its spotlight fades or is pointed somewhere else. But even Marcus unwittingly contradicts his own assertion
with the concluding sentence, "that is what is left to talk about." In 1989, roughly fifteen
years later, Marcus is still talking about punk (in 2000.1 am still talking about punk).
And, aithough the music itself is no longer in popular circulation, is no longer incessantly on the radio, or is playing constantly on stereos, it is still dive in discussion at the least.
And as riot grrrl exemplified, punk became a living memory, its rebellions and tactics
regenerated for another time and another place, with new agents and new articulations.
As a sign that the end of a movement cannot be equated with the end of individual
stniggles for revolution, Kathleen Hanna has already completed her pst-Bikini Ki11
project, "Julie Ruin," and formed the new %girl band, Le Tigre.
The banner on the Street reads: This Revolution is ~ternal.'~ Notes
CONCLUSION Interview with Daniel Sinker, in Punk Planet (Issue 27, Septemberlûctober 1998). 43. As Ann Powers notes in "A Surge of Sexism On the Rock Scene," New York Times, Lare Edition (August 2, 1999). "Four capes have been reported at the festival, including one said to have occurred near the stage during Limp Bizkit's set," El. ' As quoted in David Moodie and Maureen Cdahan's "Don't Drink the Brown Water." Spin (Vol. 15, No. 10, ûctober 1999), 106. As quoted by Moodie and Callahan, 103. Ibid. As argued by Susan Faludi throughout Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Doubleday, 199 1). ' Powers, E 1. Spin (Volume 16, Number 4, April2000), 82. 9 Powers, E 1. 'O Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre [tg] (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964). 1 10. " Eyerman and Jarnison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Cenrury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 2. '* Gnil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 3. See opening quotation of Chapter 1of this thesis. l3 One of the final shots in Buena Vista Social Club, a documentary film on Cuban musicims, is a banner on a Street that reads: ESTA REVULUCION ES ETERNIA. GLOSSARY
Alternative Music
Originally indicating an "anti-coprate music" stance, the term "alternative music" is now a genre of the popular music industry. Alternative music has ken typified as music that is more "experimental" than "mainsüeam" music. See Mainstream Music.
Corporate Record Label
Also, Major Record Label. A record label that is owned by a major corporation. There are
currently only five major record labels: EMI, Warner, BMG, Sony, and Universai. The
transnational and multimedia corporations that own these labels may aiso own several
subsidiary record labels that function as divisions of the parent label. Furthemore, these
corporations also have ownership over various sectors of the culture industries, from
television to magazines.
Independent Record Label (Indk Record Label)
A record label that is "independent" of major corporate support, However, some
independent record labels have ken bought-out by the corporations that own the major
record labels, while retaining, either by use or by association, their status as
"independent" record labels. Internet
The emergent information medium that connects cornputers globaiiy as a network of databases stored on computer servers, aiiowing for the dissemination of multi-media information.
MainStream Music
Music that is generated by corporate record labels and marketed in the interests of capital.
In general, this music is considered to be standardized and codified for popular consumption.
WorRecord Label
See Corporate Record Inbel.
Popular Music
An inclusive term referring to music that is both produced by the popular music indusy for consumption (the "mass popular") as weU as music that is produced in the inierests of
"the people*' (the "unpopular popular"). As music that functions as a commodity of the popular music industry, popular music is associated with "mainstream music." See
Mainstream Music. As music that functions "popularly," popular music can be hmessed by individuals as part of resistant strategies. Bikini Kill.
Bikini Kill. Ki11 Rock Stars, 199 1.
The CD Version of the First Two Albums by Bikini Kill. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1994.
Pussy Whipped. Kili Rock Stars, 1993.
Reject All-American. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1996.
The Singles. Ki11 Rack Stars, 1998.
Kathleen Hama related projects.
Julie Ruin. Julie Ruin. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1998.
Le Tigre. Le Tigre. K Records, 1999.
Le Tigre. Hot Topic. Domino Records, 2000.
Riot grrrl related bands.
Bratmobile. Pottymouth. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1993.
Braunobile. The Real Janelle. Kili Rock Stars, 1994.
Heavens to Betsy. Calculated. Kiil Rock Stars, 1994.
Lois. Butrerfly Kiss. K Records, 1992.
Lois. Strumpet. K Records, 1993.
Lois. Ber The Sky. K Records, 1995.
Lois. Infinity Plus. K Records, 1997.
Lois. The Union Themes. K Records, 2000. Sleater bey.Sleater Kinney. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1995.
Sleater Kinaey. Call the Doctor. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1996.
Sleater Kinaey. Dig Me Out. Ki11 Rock Stars, 1997.
Sleater Kinney. The Hot Rock. Kili Rock Stars, 1999.
Team Dresch. Persona1 Best. Chainsaw Records, 1995.
Team Dresch. Captain My Captain. Chainsaw Records, 1996.
Tiger Trap. Tiger Trap. K Records, 1993.
Tiger Trap. Sour Grass. K Records, 1993.
Tribe 8. Fist City. Alternative Tentacles, 1995.
Tnbe 8. Roadkill Cafe. Alternative Tentacles, 1995.
Tribe 8. Role Models for Amerika, Alternative Tentacles, 1998.
Tribe 8. Snarkism, Alternative Tentacles, 1996.
Cited Recoidings and Bands.
The Beatles. The White Album. Apple Records, 1968.
The Beatles. Revolver. Apple Records, 1966.
Coldcut. Let Us Replay. Ninja Tune, 1999.
Dare to be Aware. A WOT Production, 1994.
The Refused. The Shape of Punk to Corne. Broken Heart Records, 1998.
Spears, Britaey. Baby, One More Time. Jive Records, 1999.
Spiritualized. Ladies anà Gentlemen We are Floating In Space. BMG Records, 1997. Adorno, Theodor. "On Popular Music." in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Wntren Word. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, eds. New York: Pantheon, 1990,301-314.
Agnew, Vijay. Resisting Discrimination: Womenfiom Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and the Women 's Movement in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Ali, Lorraine. "Liz Phair." Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rd Barbara O'Dair, ed. New York: Random House, 1997,537-541.
Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Brian Massumi, trans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
Azam, Sharlene. "Going Beyond HipHop's Bad Rap." The Toronto Star. Sunday, June 20,1999, D16-D17.
Banks, Olive. Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement. Oxford: Martin Robertson and Company, 198 1.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologze~~London: Paladin, 1957.
Baudrillard, Jean. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: Sage Publications, 1970.
Becker, Audrey. "New Lyrics by Women: A Ferninist Alternative- " Journal of Popular Culture 24, Summer, 1990,122.
Bikini Kill. Zine #1, n.d.
Bikini Ml. Zine #2, n.d.
Billboard. August 2 1,1999.
Eric Boehiert, "Rock Stolid," Rolling S'one. Issue 779, February 5, 1998, 17-18.
Boob, Betty. "interview With Kathleen Hanna." Bust. Issue 12, Spring 1999,61-62.
Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Cntque of the Judgment of Taste. Richard Nice, trans. London: Routledge, 1984. Brecnt, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. John Wülctt, trans. New York: HiU and Wang, 1964.
Browne, David. "Go On, Grrrls." Entertainment Weekly. Issue 207, 199452-54.
Bump N' Grind 2.One-sheet from Universal Music, 1999.
Cary, Tristram. Zllustrated Compendium of Musical Technology. London: Faber and Faber, 1992.
Certeau, Michel de. Culture in the Plural. Tom Conley, trans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974.
Chideya, Farai, Melissa Rossi and Dogen Hannah. "Revolution, Girl Style: Meet the Riot Grrrls-A Sassy New Breed of Feminists for the MWAge." Newsweek Vol. 120, issue 2 1, 1992,8486.
Clarke, Gary. "Defending Ski-Jurnpers: A Critique of Theories of Youth Subcultures." In On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. Simon Frith and Andrew Godwin, eds. New York: Pantheon, 1990,81-96.
Clarke, John. "Pessimism Versus Populism: The Problematic Politics of Popular Culture." In For Fun and Profit= The Transformation of Leisure info Consumption. Richard Butsch, ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990, 28-44.
Coates, Norma. "Can't We Just Talk About Music? Rock and Gender on the internet." in Mapping the Beat. Thomas Swiss, John Sloop and Andrew Herman, eds. Massachusetts: Blacheii Publishers, 1998,76-99.
Cohen, Stanley and Laurie Taylor. Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Lge. 2" ed. London: Rou tledge, 1992.
Dandy, Will. Interview with Bikini Kill, Punk Planet. issue 5, JanuarylFebruary 1995.
Decker, Jeffrey Louis. 'The State of Rap: Time and Place in Hip Hop Nationalismi' In Microphone Fiendr: Youth Music and Yourh Culture. Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose, eds. New York: Routledge, 1994,99-121. de Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gendec Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
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