Notes, Sep 10

Book Reviews 103 tioned, but not indexed, although Naser is study of popular music genres including also included in a footnote on that page. gender and queer theory, performance Are these artists and groups just too periph - studies, and vocal semiotics, and Hawkins’ eral to be indexed? (Ironically, are they book engages these disciplines while situat- B-sides?) Assuming that is the case, how ing his subject in a convincing historical about Dizzie [sic] Gillespie, Stan Getz, and and cultural context. His study follows a re- Earl Hines? They are mentioned on page cent trend in scholarship examining repre- 93, but also do not appear in the index. sentations of masculinity in popular music, Debbie Allen, mentioned on page 125, also including the essay collections Queering the is not listed in the index. More evidence of Popular Pitch (ed. Sheila Whitely and editors asleep at the wheel. Jennifer Rycenga [London: Routledge, This work fills a niche in the literature 2006]), and Oh Boy!: Masculinities in Popular about popular music in the latter half of Music (ed. Freya Jarman-Ivens [London: the twentieth century by the very nature of Routledge, 2007]). Though Hawkins sur- its topic; it examines what we overlook, veys several decades of popular music what has not been the subject of previous styles, applying a wide palette of analytical examinations. The author is knowledgeable methods to his chosen musical texts, he re- about the subject and writes with authority minds us that the ultimate role of the and eloquence when he chooses not to British pop dandy is to entertain. overdo the alliteration. The subjects of the After tracing the etymology of the word chapters illustrate the concept very well “dandy” itself, Hawkins begins his study by and the book is accessible to the lay reader. locating this problematic and politicized The price tag seems excessive for a 209- figure in a historical lineage beginning with page book; for a hundred bucks, it would eighteenth- and nineteenth-century have been nice to have an accompanying dandies such as Lord Byron, Charles DVD with excerpts of the little-known mu- Baudelaire, George Bryan “Beau” sic and video discussed in some chapters Brummel, and Barbey D’Aurevilly, pro- of the text (e.g., the Langley Project and gressing through Oscar Wilde, Noël “Cop Rock”). A few musical and visual ex- Coward, and Cecil Beaton, and finally ad- amples from an accompanying recording dressing contemporary pop figures includ- would amplify the author’s viewpoint ing, but not limited to, David Bowie, Adam and add to the reader’s enjoyment of this Ant, Robbie Williams, Pete Doherty, Bryan book. Recommended for general and spe- Ferry, Morrissey, and The Kinks. Hawkins cial collections about popular and world argues that in all these cases the dandy is a music that attempt to be inclusive and product of intricate social, political, and comprehensive. cultural mechanisms, one that redefines Shelley L. Smith gender norms through vocal style, fashion, University of West Georgia public display, camp, and theatricality. He also contests that pop—with its emphasis on spectacle and the visual display of the The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, body—is the only musical genre through Popular Music and Culture. By Stan which the dandy can be described or de- Hawkins. (Ashgate Popular and Folk fined. “Dandy” is a nebulous and malleable Music Series.) Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, term, Hawkins admits. The artists he 2009. [xxi, 222 p. ISBN chooses to address embody the categories 9780754658580. $99.95.] Music exam- that contextualize them, and are often per- ples, illustrations, discography, bibliog- formers who exhibit instability and create raphy, index. paradox. Hawkins ambitiously engages and analyzes vocal timbre, moments of agency, Stan Hawkins is perhaps best known for production techniques, fashion, ethnicity, his scholarship on queer theory, identity, gender, sexuality, class, image, and semi- and expressions of masculinity in popular otics in describing and defining the British music, and his new book continues this line pop dandy. of inquiry to address the British pop dandy. Building on the pathbreaking work of The field of musicology in general is gender and queer theorist Judith Butler rapidly expanding to include new multidis- and feminist musicologist Susan McClary, ciplinary methodologies particular to the Hawkins continues his discussion to matters 104 Notes, September 2010 of style and subversion in chapter 2, fram- pop performance is delineated through the ing the dandy as a spectacular persona subversion of or compliance with hetero- through iconographic trends in British normative ideals. Hawkins examines, fashion and music. Fashion, gesture, through the songs and queer performativ- recording technology, genre, music video, ity of Pete Doherty, Marc Almond, and live concert performances, television ap- David Sylvian, how masculinity is reconfig- pearances, and other “audio-visual texts” ured through kitsch, melodrama, camp, hold clues as to how pop identities are and other transgressive behaviors. Hawkins formed. It is in this section that Hawkins analyzes specific performances, iconogra- asks the important question: “How is phy, mannerisms, vocal timbre, and the British pop dandyism framed by traditions public personae of the artists before con- that raise questions of subjectivity and spec- cluding that every performance is an op- tacularity?” (p. 42). The dandy constructs portunity for the dandy to depict identity— himself for the enjoyment of others and, from Babyshambles’ simple but according to Baudelaire, through tempera- overproduced “La Belle et la Bête,” to Marc ment. Beginning with 1960s British Mod Almond’s satirical and hyperbolic vocal culture and fashion as paralleled in the mu- style in “Kitsch.” Defining queerness is elu- sic of The Kinks, Hawkins quickly pro- sive, Hawkins asserts; however, the singers gresses to 1970s Glam rock and culture, an- he analyzes in this chapter all exhibit vari- alyzing the powerful music video for David ous degrees of theatricality, camp, and Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes.” Hawkins suc- irony. cinctly likens the dandy to dissident mas- The musicological crux of Hawkins’ ar- culinity, a construction that articulates gen- gument occurs in chapter 5, wherein he der through nonverbal aural and visual addresses vocality, technology, and the signifiers. dandy’s different modes of performance. Continuing his discussion in chapter 2 Hawkins asks perhaps the most compelling from another vantage point, chapter 3 question of his entire study: “what makes a again profiles the dandy according to spec- performance dandified through singing?” tacularity by analyzing both songs and mu- (p. 151). For Hawkins, it is the voice that sic videos. Here Hawkins introduces a sub- may possibly be the most powerful element ject he will later take up in earnest in of the pop performance. He asserts that the chapter 5—the voice. Voices are gendered, voice communicates subjectivity through and part of the allure of the pop singer is not only timbre but also recording tech- the perception that, as Hawkins states, “the niques. British pop in particular is rife voice is always vulnerable, offering the with queer sensibilities, and defining camp promise of intimacy” (p. 85). This chapter plays a large role in locating the dandy. explores issues of naturalness, authenticity, Hawkins believes “camp takes something and sincerity in the pop dandy’s perfor- ordinary—an object, a phrase, a person or mance through lyrical, visual, and aural a situation—and turns it into something conceits of hyperbole, extravagance, excess, ironic, exaggerated and seriously defen- and contradiction. Performances by sive” (pp. 146–47). From the standpoint of Morrissey, the Pet Shop Boys, Adam Ant, the dandy’s performance, camp is articu- Robert Palmer, and Jay Kay of Jamiroquai lated in a number of ways, including word- form the analytical backbone of the chap- play, elongated vowels, and affected intona- ter. However, Hawkins’ analyses of specific tion. Hawkins again analyzes specific pop musical texts including Robbie Williams’ performances including The Darkness’s “Rock DJ” and The Cure’s “Just Like “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” Baby- Heaven” are particularly efficacious in shambles’s “Albion,” David Bowie’s “Slip demonstrating how the dandy can present Away,” Morrissey’s “At Last I Am Born,” a “real” self—though constantly in flux—to and Robbie Williams’s “Millennium.” These the listener through both vocal styling and examples illustrate the close connection be- visual signifiers. tween performer and producer, voice and Chapter 4 analyzes the dandy through technology. Stylization of the voice— the lens of queer theory and the means through, in this case, the mask of camp— through which masculinity is put on display exposes contradictions, complicates gender in the masquerade of pop. Queerness in positioning, and transmits subjectivity. Book Reviews 105 Hawkins’ final chapter examines the role David Stubbs has undertaken a gargan- of camp and strategies of masking and tuan task in this slim volume, that of asking role-playing in British pop. Adding artificial and addressing a simple question: “Why has operations to the recorded voice— avant garde music failed to attain the audi- compressing the sound, close-miking, or ence, the cachet, the legitimacy of its visual other post-production techniques such as equivalent?” (p. 1) In the process, the book reverberation—creates a compelling para- also tersely summarizes the major ideas dox wherein the dandy must reinvent him- and developments in music and visual art self as sincere and “real.” The ways in which over the course of the twentieth century, the artist articulates this paradox through no small undertaking. Fear of Music is, of performance illustrate the flexibility and course, the title of the third studio album appeal of the dandy. Hawkins looks gener- by the (appropriately) art rock band ally at the cover song phenomenon and Talking Heads, whose members were them- more specifically at the album of standards selves visual artists turned musicians.

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