TAKING CONTROL: FEMINISM & POPULAR MUSIC CULTURE

ACM SYMPOSIUM – 20 Jul 2023

Slides 

1. Opening page
2. MY MANIFESTO 
3. She’s at the Controls cover
4. Reddington quote p 122
5. Images of three artists 
6. Lyrics for Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, ‘Miracle’/Lyrics for Jazzy ‘Giving Me’/Lyrics for Kylie Minogue ‘Padam Padam’ 
7. Reddington’s quote about gender ventriloquism p 125
8. Musical extract of ‘Padam Padam’ 
9. Hearing Sexism Cover
10. Women in the Studio cover 
11. Wolfe quote p 86-89
12. Statistics
13. Saffron Event
14. Reddington quote p 135
15. Charlotte Carpenter, ‘Spinning Plates’ 

Slides, 12,13,14 for Q/A – if needed

Dance, Hip Hop & Neo-Soul 

AI statistics re implications for producers

Diagram of the lifecycle of a Female Pop Star (Lieb) 

START

The reason I started my journey as a champion of women in music in my role as a music critic for the weekly print music paper, Melody Maker, was because I was searching for authenticity in songwriting. Essentially, I was looking for my tribe. Just accepting that pop music, by its very nature, was inauthentic was not enough for me, as a young writer who paid a lot of attention to word choice. 

Slide 2

I wrote my own five-point manifesto which included: Is this a traditional narrative or something alternative to the hegemonic norm of female experience and/or relationships? In short, to quote feminist academic Joanne Hollows, I was searching for “…more progressive modes of femininity… which challenge or resist existing gender relations.” (2000:8)  Reddington reference, (p 120)

Before that, as a consumer of popular music, I was seeing women as accessories, not the makers of meaning. I turned to vintage blues and soul records, where songs like Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ and ‘Natural Woman’ I believed represented the formidable women who sang them and were a more realistic framework for the female experience for this single mother when just a girl. 

However, feminist theorist Judith Butler argues that Aretha’s 1967  recording of ‘Natural Woman’ is 

“… a male-constructed fantasy. The music was written by Carole King, lyrics by Gerry Goffin, and the title was suggested by Jerry Wexler. Butler sees the artificiality of the way that the track was created as an inauthentic attempt to control perceptions of womanhood.” 

(Judith Butler, 1993, pp 307-20)

Slide 3

The Butler reference is included in academic feminist, musician and artist Helen Reddington, in her 2021 book, She’s At The Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century.  

Slide 4

“As audiences, we are complicit in the acceptance of women artists as being powerful, even when their agency depends on traditional stereotypes,”. (p 122)

Thank heavens, it wasn’t just me. 

In this book Reddington introduces the concept of gender ventriloquism, where men control the sound, and often the lyrics, of songs that are supposedly empowering for women and girls. Reddington takes Butler’s theory one step further: Aretha is a Black woman and the creation of a white production team. That team is effectively offering a false representation of a Black woman’s sexuality. 

You may be thinking, it’s not like that now. 

Slide 5 

However, a quick peek at the top ten in the Official Charts in the week beginning 19 June 2023, featured three women artists all co-written with male producers: Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding with ‘Miracle’ Jazzy, and ‘Giving Me’, and wonderful Kylie Minogue made an entry at 9 with ‘Padam Padam’ The single is off her 16^th studio album, Tension, due for release this September via BMG.

Slide 6

“…more progressive modes of femininity… which challenge or resist existing gender relations.”? You decide. 

I don’t want to out female pop artists as frauds because they don’t write their own songs.  ‘Padam Padam’ means nothing without Kylie’s name in the credits; the same as Beyonce deserves a songwriting credit just for being … Beyonce. 

However, take note: a 2023 survey by the Annenberg Institute of Research discovered that in total, women comprised only 12.8% of the songwriters evaluated from the past 11 years – a ratio of 6.8 men to every 1 woman songwriter.”

Co-writing doesn’t always have to relate to the writing of lyrics to be evidence of gender ventriloquism. 

I would like to move on to other aspects that are further explored in terms of production and the mediation of voices in She’s At The Controls with reference to ‘Padam Padam’, by Kylie Minogue.

Slide 7

Reddington clarifies: 

“Once a singer engages with a microphone, technological mediation begins to shift control along a change of command that detaches their voice ever further from the sound source, becoming less and less real,” (p 125)

Reddington introduces the research of feminist academic Helen Davies who studied tensions between passivity and agency in female artists (2020, pp 29-44) and noted Minogue’s attempts to become a more credible artist in the perception of the public as her career progressed. She argued that our approval of Kylie, which rose her to Kristin Lieb’s DIVA status, in her Diagram Of The Lifecycle of a Female Pop Star (p 112 ) stems from the perception that she wanted to seize more control over her music. 

Hesitate. Curious. 

Slide 8 Music Video extract of the single (30 secs) 

In ‘Padam Padam’ Minogue’s voice is barely recognisable. Hard on the auto-tune, pushy with fader …. She could be anybody, and this is the concern. What value does the female vocalist have in the 21st Century? The disembodiment of the voice in the recording results in a career role for female vocalists that reflects “disposability and interchangeability” unless you’re already famous. Jazzy can do it because she’s a survivor which is a typology of the female pop star Kristin Lieb, Lifecycle Of A Female Pop Star, (p 112). 

Peter Rycroft aka Lostboy is credited for production on both Ellie Goulding’s and Calvin Harris’ ‘Miracle’ as well as ‘Padam Padam’, which includes co-writer. 

“It  feels safer sometimes for gatekeepers to employ the same people but if women are not being employed, they can’t build up the credits that would make to  ensure they can be employed.” noted producer Marta Salgoni, (The Guardian, April 2023)

In an interview with Sound on Sound magazine, producer of ‘Padam Padam’, Peter Rycroft says that “…how pop music is made and consumed has changed radically in the last few years,” before launching into the value of Pro Tools over Logic. Journalist Tom Doyle champions Rycroft as “producing pop for the 21^st century”. 

“What I do day‑to‑day is writing‑slash‑production. So, I’m kind of just straddling that line of being the guy who has their back to the artist and the person who’s writing the song,” says Lostboy.

The guy who has his back to the artist and the person who’s writing the song? (Repeated quietly and more slowly.) 

A good music producer facilitates a studio environment. A lousy producer can ruin an artist’s career before it begins. 

The relationship between auteur producers and female vocalists is an interesting discussion in which Reddington introduces important background material, which reflects on the historical concept of the producer as the star and all-powerful agent. We don’t have to look at history to find this. We just heard it. 

Slide 9 

Another recent academic book that I’ve reviewed  includes a  book published in 2022 by LJ Muller translated by Manu Reyes, Hearing Sexism: Gender in the Sound of Popular Music, Popular Music.

This book won the IASPM prize in 2019 and is just published in the UK. The book’s quest, her doctorate, is to explore “a musical-aesthetic field outside of the real voice”; a concept highlighted as a hegemonic ideological assumption by a string of feminist theorists and musicologists. 

“…the real voice… suggests authenticity by seemingly establishing an immediate connection to the somatic interior of the singer.” (p 44)

The concept that the “real voice” is male adds to the culturally embedded assumptions that the female voice is disposable and interchangeable.

At the online launch meeting a few weeks ago, for the new Society of Music Production, Helen Reddington spoke about the word “Control” as being a significant word choice in her book’s title. Academic, producer, songwriter and singer, Paula Wolfe, used the word control in the title of her 2020 publication (Routledge): Women In The Studio: Creativity, Control And Gender In Popular Music Sound Production.  

It’s the root of feminism: taking control of our narrative, our bodies, our ideas… 

Slide 10

Wolfe’s chapter titled A Studio Of One’s Own: Self-production, Music Technology and Gender, (a take on Virginia Wolfe’s 1929 essay, A Room Of One’s Own) is an in-depth dialogue on the practical issues of self-production. which comes from her 2021 doctoral research in which she interviewed 14 self-produced singer-songwriters including Kate Bush. Wolfe notes that self-production is a practice that  “… combines music composition and music production often enacted within a domestic environment.” (p 96) 

Interestingly the number of music producers in the UK who were women went down from 5% to 2% in 2019 during the COVID pandemic and lockdowns. Overall, It turned out that the role of teacher and carer was taken over by the women in the family during this period, including professionals who had previously used elderly parents, had a live-in nanny or a child carer or nursery place for their children. They were still maintaining their working life via technology, such as Zoom. This correlates to findings in the UK Music Diversity Report, which is a good source for its intersectional approach in which gender is just one consideration. The latest survey by the Annenberg Institute noted 65%  of all underrepresented artists were underrepresented women.

Slide 11 

Wolfe concludes that “…the self-produced creative artist or vocalist is producing revolutionary art

 “… because her work in composition, engineering and production disrupts the gendering of those practices by the music industry (quoting a term used by academic A. McCartney) 

Wofle’s book clarifies, for me, that technology itself is gendered. That said like Reddington’s chapter on EDM, the topic of women in production is more positive and I see this myself at ACM and in student dissertations. But these are still the statistics. 

Slide 12

According to a recent survey by FixMix, women and non-binary people claimed less than 5% of producer and engineer credits across the top 50 streamed songs of last year (2022). Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, 2022, found that 0.7% of production credits went to women of colour across 1,100 popular songs from 2012 to 2022. Bose (Turn The Dial Campaign), noted that in the last 11 years,  only 2.8 % of popular songs had been produced by women. Women currently make up 18% of members of the traditional Music Producers Guild. 

What concerns me, as a tutor of ACM undergraduates is that we’re not arming them with the background subject knowledge, research and context they need to go out into the world as creative practitioners to be these revolutionary creatives. Are we sharing “ways of seeing” so elements of culture in songwriting and production, which are perceived as natural, but are constructed and reinforced over time, in multiple ways, are exposed as the barrier to creativity that they are? Are we applying feminist readings to the pedagogy? 

Like Reddington, Wolfe re-iterates the historically gendered culture that accompanies music production and how it has influenced existing routes into music production.” (p 93) 

Sometimes attempts by academics to solve this problem shy away from the direct acknowledgement of the entrenched misogyny in studio culture. This was exemplified by my exchange of comments with an author during a recent online discussion and launch of the Society of Music Production, mentioned earlier, one author and producer introduced his new book relating to pedagogy in production, trumpeting his great plan to move away from teaching the functionality of technology independently, incorporating a socio-political and socio-cultural perspective. When I asked, with genuine interest (our students at the heart of my query): After reflecting on these areas with students how did you respond so that the outcomes were intersectional?  His reply was a jumble of big words which said nothing, in particular, to answer my question, although the word collaboration hung in the air, waiting for more explanation, (not forthcoming).  He asked: “Does that answer your question? “No,” it does not. However, I politely answered “Yes”. But, that moment has given me the confidence to be here today. 

I’m proud to say that at ACM, thanks to the work of Poppy Joseph and tutor Gwen Howard, we have started to address this issue in the form of production workshops for women on all pathways, available at every campus, both online discussion sessions and in the studio. The outcomes are exciting, not just promising. Saffron events are also worth following. 

Slide 13- 25 July event by Saffron at Fabric 

Slide 14

Reddington warns:

“Women who wish to assert themselves as producers within this hectic ethos need to manage, or be managed, extremely smartly in order to survive in the long term: we still watch the male gaze and we listen with the male ear, even in the 21^st Century.” (p 135)

My topic today could lead you astray onto a slippery slope of binary assumptions about gender. The French feminists took me up there and left me stranded back in the 90s. It’s a cold and windy place, Hegemony Heights. But I hope this talk has gone some way to open up a can of worms that needs to be addressed by all of us who are playing a part in supporting the future of our students, and the music industry. 

I’m going to leave you with something humorous and poignant, a music video of the new single by a singer-songwriter called Charlotte Carpenter with ‘Spinning Plates’. Thank you for your time. 

Slide 15 Charlotte Carpenter music video 

Reference List 

Annenberg Institute Of Research htpps/annenberg.usc.edu/news/research/women-music-climbing-charts-equality-slow-process [Accessed July 2023]

Joe Bennet, 2015, Creative Processes in Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ http://joebennet.net/2015/02/27/saw-kylie-lucky/more-4305 [Accessed July 2023]

Judith Butler, 1993, Imitation and Gender Subordination, Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, eds., Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale and David Halperin, New York: Routledge pp 307-320

Helen Davies, 2020, Preparing For the Real World: Exploring Gender Issues In The Music Industry And The Role Of Vocational Popular Music Education In The UK, in  Towards Gender Equality In The Music Industry: Education, Practice And Strategies For Change, eds., Catherine Strong and Sarah Rainem, London & New York: Bloomsbury, pp 29-44 

FixTheMix https://www.wearemovingtheneedle.org/fix-the-mix [Accessed July 2023]

Charlotte Grieg, 1989, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Girl Groups From The 50s, London: Virago. 

Joanne Hollows, 2000, Feminism, Feminity and Popular Culture, Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, p 8

Rhian Jones, 2023, A male-dominated team does not reflect society’: why are only 5% of music producers women? The Guardian, 25 April 2023 https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/25/a-male-dominated-team-does-not-reflect-society-why-are-only-5-of-music-producers-women&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1688472769300865&usg=AOvVaw2-UlIu6J0daLQGhozAoZ3H [Accessed July 2023]

Kirstin Lieb, 2016, Gender, Branding and the Modern  Music Industry, UK: Routledge, Diagram of the Lifecycle of a Female Pop Star, p 112 

A. McCartney, 2002, In And Out Of The Sound Studio (2002, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 89-86. 

LJ Muller with translation by Manu Reyes, 2022, Hearing Hearing Sexism: Gender in the Sound of Popular Music, Popular Music, Women In The Studio: Creativity, Control And Gender In Popular Music Sound Production, UK: Transcript, p 44

Helen Reddington (2021) She’s At The Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century, London: Equinox, pp 120, 122, 125

UK Music Diversity Report

https://www.ukmusic.org/equality-diversity/uk-music-diversity-report-2022/ [Accessed July 2023]

Paula Wolfe, 2020, Women In The Studio: Creativity, Control And Gender In Popular Music Sound Production, London & New York: Routledge, pp 93, 96