Oh Boy! Book 27

This is a book of articles on masculinity and rock written by a wide variety of authors, all of whom are professors of music (except Judith Halberstam who is in English and Feminist Studies). The subject matter ranges from Elvis, to the mosh pit, to emo, to Justin Timberlake, and to Indonesian pop (just to mention a few). My favorites were Freya Jarman-Ivens' "Don't Cry Daddy" on the degeneration of Elvis' virile masculinity in the course of his career and what that might mean for the (in)stability of masculinity more generally, and Judith Halberstam's "Queer Voices and Musical Genders" which uses Big Mama Thorton (the original singer of "Hound Dog")to queer the butch (masculine) personas of the early women blues singers. Neither of these articles is an easy read, mostly due to unnecessary academic jargon, but they are worth the effort, as taken together they offer a different "founding" or beginning for the history of rock and roll, one that features a less stable view of gender and sex identity, which could in turn provide a very different basis upon which the rest of the story of rock might be told. If that doesn't pull you in, how about that book cover? Can't beat it, especially for an academic book :)