Charting Gender: The Success of Female Acts in the U.S. Mainstream Recording Market, 1940 to 1990 (original) (raw)
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Through a sequence of empirical studies, Paula Wolfe demonstrates how the patriarchal structure of our industry isolates women in music production. As an artist-producer-researcher, she spotlights the life experiences of women artists-producers who stay the course despite all the blocks. Giving a tribute to women singer-songwriters who have developed their production and promotion skills alone in their home studio, her book elaborates on the new opportunities that the digital industry offers to marginalized producers, apart from major labels. From the perspectives of an insider, researcher, and educator, I propose to also consider collective empowerment, feminist approaches of creation, and improvisation processes to preserve our inner power and stand against the status quo. Eventually, I call for 'the female gaze' inspiration that would benefit the industry at large because our globalized world needs more diversity to keep our listeners interested.
This dissertation will discuss the tendency for the music industry to reflect a patriarchal structure, which has limited the progression of women in technical roles. In particular, I will be discussing music production, electronic music, and DJ culture. The first section of this paper will analyse early female pioneers of music technology and electronic music, and the disproportional amount of credit and compensation they received for their work in comparison to their male counterparts, who often received the majority of documented credit for early work in music technology. This will be followed by an examination of the possible causes for this gender imbalance, including the statistics of subject take-up in education, from music production to computing. Following this will be an exploration of what is being done to subvert gender stereotypes, including the rise of female role models in music technology.
Popular Musicology and Identity: essays in honour of Stan Hawkins, eds.Kai Arne Hansen, Eirik Askerøi, Freya Jarman, 2020
Far from the 'Perfect Duet' sung by Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran in 2017, a quantification of gender on the annual Billboard charts from 1955 to 2017 shows that the 21st century has seen a reversal of the gains made by women in the latter decades of the 20th. However, the figures also show that in periods when female acts have declined, mixed-gender acts have risen in number. A social exploration of male-female groupings over the same period shows a shift away from 'family' groups to a kaleidoscope of 'collaborations' between individuals in recent years. This process also involves the increased prominence of the producer of a song as a named performer, with singers being reduced to 'featured' vocalists. This shift in song attribution is related to the way in which men form 'fratriarchal' networks around song composition and production, leaving women as outsiders to be invited in.
2012 Crossover Fatigue: The Persistence of Gender at Motown Records
Feminist Media Studies, 2012
This article examines the cultural politics of “crossover” at Motown Records, focusing on the relationship between genre, gender, and career longevity. Beginning with the Supremes’ covers albums in the mid-1960s, the article links notions of musical originality to commercial logics of publishing, gendered divisions of labour, and racialised channels of record distribution. It also traces the rise of the celebrity songwriter-producer in soul, including artists like Isaac Hayes, Norman Whitfield, and Stevie Wonder, who fit a new mould of artistic authenticity that clashed with the carefully manicured performances of 1960s “girl pop.” The professional mobility afforded to men in both rock and r&b should prompt media scholars to consider the temporal dimensions of artist trajectories in the music industry, and taking the constraints on girl group singers seriously allows for reflection on (gendered) music industry knowledge about which audiences matter and for how long.
Counting the Music Industry: The Gender Gap. A study of gender inequality in the UK Music Industry
Counting the Music Industry, 2019
This research reveals that in the UK just over 14% of those currently signed to 106 music publishers and just under 20% of those signed to 219 record labels are female. This uncovers how the UK music industry professionally supports female musicians compared to male musicians and shows there is a deficit of women; the gender gap in music. The musicians who are signed to publishing companies and record labels are the ones who receive professional and economic support and investment to nourish and support their careers, and to earn money. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Global Music Report 2019, ‘Record companies are investing more than onethird of their global revenues, or US$5.8 billion, in Artists & Repertoire (A&R) and marketing each year, to break, develop and support artists’. This research reveals how many men compared to women are benefitting from these structures and investment in the UK right now. This report also looks at the entry routes into music, particularly by participation of boys and girls, young men and women at various stages of education, from GCSEs to A levels and, from the Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA), to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. There has been increasing participation by girls and women in music education at all levels, to near equality, often gaining better grades than their male counterparts. This report looks at 12 barriers to entry for women wishing to become professional musicians and songwriter/composers. And finally, this report identifies opportunities for further research and concludes with a range of practical recommendations for government, education and the music industry to implement, improve and ultimately close the gender gap in music.