New book from Routledge, sounds terrific: Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music: Performance, Authority, Authenticity, Edited by Jacqueline Warwick and Allison Adrian
Contents:
Introduction Jacqueline Warwick and Allison Adrian
Part I. Voice and Activism
1. I’m with the Band: Redefining Young Feminism Lucy O’Brien
2. Girl Activists Talk Beyoncé, Pussy Riot … Lyn Mikel Brown
3. To Them I am Just Some Girl Marion Leonard
Part II. Voice and Singing
4. Valuing and Vilifying the New Girl Voice Diane Pecknold
5. Girls and Puberty: The Voice, it is a-Changin’ Barbara Caprilli
Part III. Voice and Audience
6. The Curse of "O Mio Bambino Caro" Dana Gorzelany-Mostak
7. Nowhere to Run: Girl Group Transnationalism Gayle Wald
Part IV. Voice, Body, Authenticity
8. Performing Pop Girlhood on the Disney Channel Morgan Blue
9. Girls Who Twerk on YouTube Kyra Gaunt
10. When Loud Means Real Sarah Dougher
Part V. Voice and Narrative
11. Listen to the Mockingjay Robynn Stilwell
12. Struggling to Become Women Lori Burns and Alyssa Woods
And, the description:
This interdisciplinary volume explores the girl’s voice and the construction of girlhood in contemporary popular music, visiting girls as musicians, activists, and performers through topics that range from female vocal development during adolescence to girls’ online media culture. While girls’ voices are more prominent than ever in popular music culture, the specific sonic character of the young female voice is routinely denied authority. Decades old clichés of girls as frivolous, silly, and deserving of contempt prevail in mainstream popular image and sound. Nevertheless, girls find ways to raise their voices and make themselves heard. This volume explores the contemporary girl’s voice to illuminate the way ideals of girlhood are historically specific, and the way adults frame and construct girlhood to both valorize and vilify girls and women. Interrogating popular music, childhood, and gender, it analyzes the history of the all-girl band from the Runaways to the present; the changing anatomy of a girl’s voice throughout adolescence; girl’s participatory culture via youtube and rock camps, and representations of the girl’s voice in other media like audiobooks, film, and television. Essays consider girl performers like Jackie Evancho and Lorde, and all-girl bands like Sleater Kinney, The Slits and Warpaint, as well as performative 'girlishness' in the voices of female vocalists like Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Kathleen Hanna, and Rebecca Black. Participating in girl studies within and beyond the field of music, this book unites scholarly perspectives from disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, women’s and gender studies, media studies, and education to investigate the importance of girls’ voices in popular music, and to help unravel the complexities bound up in music and girlhood in the contemporary contexts of North America and the United Kingdom.
