As Carrie Brownstein of punk-indie trio Sleater- Kinney rightly points out in her memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, rock stars are made, not born. Musicians are not anointed with talent from on high and bequeathed their first guitar thanks to a hallowed wandering minstrel; mostly, they are brought to the nearest suburban, carpet-smelling guitar shop by their parents.
This truism flies in the face of most rock’n’roll hagiography – created, perpetuated and devoured largely by men – but it is true nonetheless. Everyone had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was usually as a fan, creating other worlds in teenage bedrooms.
A universal experience, certainly, but we have come to observe a difference in boys and girls who love music. Boys pore over vinyl, screening for the subliminal, the semiotic and the subtext. They “get it”. They are drawn to the idea that many bands perpetuate: that of being in a gang. And, as with most young male gangs, there are no girls allowed.
Young female fans, on the other hand, are routinely painted as hysterical, knicker-drenching flibbertigibbets, biting their friend’s shoulder at the mere hint of a bouncy boyband hairdo. First and foremost, they fancy the performers; the music comes a distant second.
Well, I call nonsense on that caricature. I have been a fervid music fan for as long as I can remember, forced to forge my own path in a house with neither older siblings nor parents who played music. I found unending joy in the trial and error of buying little-known singles for 99p, swinging my Freebird Records bag on the bus home. Some artists, such as Pink Floyd, Dylan or Led Zeppelin, seemed so “blokey” as to be almost out of bounds. And just as musicians are not born, neither are dyed-in-the-wool music nerds.
Inside track
Still, the conceit that men have access to an inside track persists. According to the head of Apple Music, Jimmy Iovine, women are not nearly as good at finding new music as men, hence a new function on his service. “Women find it very difficult at times – some women – to find music. And this helps make it easier with playlists, curated by real people,” he said. “I just thought of a problem: girls are sitting around talking about boys. Or complaining about boys, when they have their heart broken, or whatever. And they need music for that, right? It’s hard to find the right music. Not everybody knows a DJ.”
Iovine has been forced to backtrack and invoke a sort of “not all women” defence, but still . . .
It has been impossible to find any biological, chromosomal or even psychological research to back up his offensive-on-a-hundred-levels thesis.
In some ways, I get what Iovine is circling around. Many women, already juggling the demands of work, childcare, home and other emotional labour, rarely get the luxury of a “man cave” to retreat to. What rare time women get, they often don’t want to spend frothing over Beatles vinyl or searching eBay for Thin Lizzy memorabilia. But doing so is seen as such an integral part of the male experience, such an entrenched facet of male identity, that many men are reluctant to let it go, family, professional or other commitments notwithstanding.
Double standards
I have skated around the periphery of the music industry enough to register the double standards. When I was a music journalist I was accused of getting my job by sexual or nepotistic means (this, it transpires, happens to many female music critics).
I went on junkets and endured the endless showboating and cocksure posturing as male journalists tried to outdo each other with obscure B-side references. I worked in the A&R departments of record labels and stared with envy, my nose metaphorically pressed against the glass, at the male staffers’ buddy-buddy camaraderie. As a DJ running my own club night, men would routinely ask me, the one wearing the headphones, to “get yer man to play something”, referring to my male friend standing beside me.
For fan, musician and industry insider alike, the gender lines are still highly delineated in music. The industry that Hunter S Thompson denounced as a cruel and shallow money trench still borders on the misogynistic.
Amber Coffman of the band Dirty Projectors recently claimed that music publicist Heathcliff Berru had sexually assaulted her in public. Several other musicians and industry figureheads followed in her wake. In a statement Berru blamed his actions on alcohol and drugs, said he would go to rehab, apologised to any women he had “offended” and signed off with the rather passive-aggressive: “It’s time to put a stop to all of this. Create a world with one less inappropriate man.”
Even more disturbingly, Coffman has noted that the industry is ostracising women who spoke out about Berru. “Dudes overlook it and keep hiring him,” she said.
Thanks to a wave of vibrant new voices such as Coffman’s, change is afoot. Women are no longer just the groupies or the squealing fans.
In the meantime, Iovine has launched his new Apple Music service not just for clueless women, but for time-poor people of either gender. But if you are looking for a playlist for the Sunday morning lie-in, the post-breakup weep or the bus commute, I know a girl who would be happy to help.
