"Masculine" / "Feminine" Oppositions in Popular Music

"Good" / "Bad" Oppositions in Popular Music

Difford/Tilbrook, to be sure...possibly Forster/McLennan, though they may be more of an example of an "emotional/intellectual" dichotomy...

Jason Pierce/Pete Kember were a good example of the "High/Higher" opposition...

Noodle's a detective!

Noodle can remember things that happened 1 week ago.

Are you doing Hegel 101 or sump'n at college? Srsly it seems odd to do 2 versions of this question in the space of a week.

Can you please explain the "gendered" roles of the three examples given in the thread question? I can't see why you're viewing their differences as "gendered," not least because they are all men.

haha, I wondered the same thing.

is the question defining things in their traditional gender roles (eg masc = tough, emotionally removed, strong & feminine = soft, vulnerable, sweet) then maybe what you're getting at is examples like:

M/F
Johnny Ramone/Joey Ramone
Richards/Jagger
Lennon/McCartney

or am I misunderstanding?

I'm dubious that these oppositions even exist as much as they're just being imposed on groups where there I see no need to label one as feminine.

Argh. Okay, gender is a social construction, yes, and if you're talking about sex or gender it can make sense to point out that, yes, we do happen to code (e.g.) intellect as masculine and emotion as feminine.

If, however, you are talking about two dudes in a rock band and how one of them seems like more of a sap, egghead, or tough-guy than another, I can't see any point whatsoever to projecting a gender system onto that.

The only exception I see is something like Richards/Jagger (haha or Tyler/Perry) where a frontman is kinda deliberately and consciously feminized in certain ways.

haha xpost - Mehlt OTM, basically, this is kinda silly

The thing is, I'm not even sure how those traditional/stereotypical roles would map onto e.g. Daltrey/(amp-blowing, guitar-smashing, bearded) Townshend or even Richards/Jagger (if we're thinking of the Jagger of "Get Off of My Cloud" or "Satisfaction" or "Under My Thumb") for that matter.

3xpost yeah, what they said.

The Who: Roger Daltrey / Pete Townsend
The Clash: Joe Strummer / Mick Jones
Fugazi: Ian MacKaye / Guy Picciotto

so which ones are the dudes?

xpost

Jagger's definitely campy tho, deliberately so. Part of the fun of a song like "Satisfaction" is the waspishness of his delivery, right?

Gal Picciotto?

this is really messy and probably futile - i'm also kind of thinking a lot of the opposites floated here are masc lead guitar player vs. femme lead singer... eg the guy with the tool = the masc one which is pretty basic freudian shit, right?

Eh, well, there's definitely a trend in hard rock of deliberately feminized lead singers, but that's a rock role, and not one I think can tell us much about actual gender roles. And yes, it'd seem to stem from pretty basic gendered thinking concerning how the frontman is the one who's looked at (haha the Fan's Gaze) and usually wants to be sexually appealing and is responsible for human connection with the audience and maybe writes poetic lyrics, all things we code as more feminine than some workmanlike studio-visionary guitar-mastermind role. Also the frontmen often had longer, curlier hair.

That's just a minor rock trope, though, I don't see much value in talking about that as having to do with gendered relationships in bands across the board! Especially when it's easier to just talk about, like, relationships/dynamics in bands, straight up, without projecting gender stuff onto them.

(I can see the point about Jagger but yes, nabisco OTM.)

Gene Simmons/Paul Stanley
Gene & Paul/Ace Frehley & Peter Criss
Stipe/Buck

It's more fun to find easy/dumbass divisions like this than to nod sagely about the evils of knee-jerk gender categorization.

It'd be more fun to zing you right now than to engage with your argument.

P.S. you need to fit Mills into that last one, yo

M/F
jennifer herrema/neil haggerty

I miss the zings.

Sexy dancer OTM.

Suggested threads:

- "Chaki" / "Wagemann" Oppositions in Popular Music
- "Pinefox" / "TOMBOT" Oppositions in Popular Music
- Peanut Butter / Chocolate Oppositions in Popular Music
- Shiite / Sunni Oppositions in Popular Music
- R. Kelly / Underage Girl Oppositions in Popular Music

Are you doing Hegel 101 or sump'n at college? Srsly it seems odd to do 2 versions of this question in the space of a week. - Noodle Vague

I'm not terrible familiar with Hegel, but I've read some cultural studies stuff. I'm not currently in college. Was that question meant to be demeaning? These were two imperfect notions I've thought about on and off, and I thought I'd bring them both up. Because I think that some people here have good or interesting ideas. Why is that odd?

Argh. Okay, gender is a social construction, yes, and if you're talking about sex or gender it can make sense to point out that, yes, we do happen to code (e.g.) intellect as masculine and emotion as feminine.

If, however, you are talking about two dudes in a rock band and how one of them seems like more of a sap, egghead, or tough-guy than another, I can't see any point whatsoever to projecting a gender system onto that.

The only exception I see is something like Richards/Jagger (haha or Tyler/Perry) where a frontman is kinda deliberately and consciously feminized in certain ways. - nabisco

I am talking about ways of moving or making utterances that people tend to register as masculine or feminine. This isn't about who is the sap, tough guy, or egghead, but rather about a way of using your voice and/or your body. And the way that two people in a group MAY OR MAY NOT intentionally play off of these oppositions.

I think that Fugazi is the clearest example, due to MacKaye's excessively clipped, gutteral delivery of lines, and Picciotto's breathier and often more dynamic vocals. Also, the way that particular Picciotto would very often dance onstage (usually during "Suggestion") registered with me as contrary to the usual role of a male rock performer.

The smooth/gutteral interplay of vocals extends clearly into Strummer/Jones and Daltrey/Townsend, and I sometimes wonder if the template is that of male/female duets.

It's just an observation, and one that came out of an interest in other peoples' opinions. I didn't expect to have been so gleefully shot down.

I wasn't trying to be demeaning, honestly. I just wondered why you were interested in applying a dialectic to bands to the point where you asked two questions that are arguably the same question in the space of a week. I don't think people are gleefully shooting you down, either, so much as saying that this approach results in a lot of straining to fit categories for not much insight. That is an answer, even if it's not the answer you were looking for.

Nobody's trying to rip you up, it's just that some other people's opinion is ... to reject the question's framing, basically. I was kinda waiting to hear you expand on it so I could see if there was some link I was missing, but no -- even with that explanation, I'm not convinced there's anything remarkably gendered about those things. I especially don't see those types of vocal interplay as based on male/female duets, no -- they seem more like they're about two common types of rock singing styles and the handiness of being able to cover both. (I actually can't think of many male/female duets that have that dynamic, actually, and the ones I can think of seem to be about the rock tropes way more than the sexes!) If you're talking specifically about vocals, I guess I just don't see it, or at least I feel like it's a stretch to describe those differences in gendered terms.

this approach results in a lot of straining to fit categories for not much insight

-- Noodle

Noodle: It's very much an answer I'm looking for--I think that that's constructive!

I'm not sure that they're essentially the same question, if only because I was explicit in pointing out that good/bad oppositions very much exist and are perhaps media or fan constructions. The (admittedly more dubious) masculine/feminine observation is rooted more in my own long time fanhood in the three above-mentioned bands, and closely watching and listening to them. The two frontmen in these groups undoubtably play off of each other in common ways, and those ways appear to me to run along gendered lines. Maybe a difference in vocal delivery that, in writing, would be analogous to Hemingway and (I dunno) Woolf? Is coding literature in this way as dubious? Because maybe it sincerely should be, and perhaps I'm totally wrongheaded...

STIPE is the masculine one??

Couldn't you just as easily say that those bands are playing on different versions of masculinity, tho? In the same way that boy bands often used a whole range of Jock/Preppie/Bad Boy/Boy Next Door etc etc stereotypes?

Oh god yes that literary coding is equally dubious, sorry (choosing Woolf is ... not even sure how to tackle this) ...

Max, re: Stipe. Umm, no. I had 'em backwards - Buck is more butcher. Not that it matters.

And yet bringing Mills and Berry in kinda points up why coding as masculine /feminine obscures things way more than it says much interesting

REM = The Monkees has always been my template for understanding their dynamic.

http://www.60s.ch/2/img/monkees2.jpg http://thebigmuff.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/rem3.jpg

Absolutely. I'd be happy to frame the question in terms of people in groups playing off of two different forms of masculinity, or to frame it in terms that have nothing to do with gender. I'd be happy to have someone determine exactly what the difference is.

Because there is a common difference, and I don't think it's pointless to interrogate it.

By the way, I don't think many jazz musicians would argue that certain performers, particularly on reed instruments, have a more masculine or feminine tone. In fact, contrary to some pretty rotten homophobic things he's said, Ornette Coleman at one point said something about wanting to get a more feminine tone (I'll look for the source after dinner...). I think that vocally, I'm talking about some qualities they'd mean.

Aaargh! This kind of stuff is not "dubious". It's honest. Games like this allow us to reveal our biases. Although in selecting these pairs we seem to evaluate the artists, all we're really doing is airing the gender mechanics schemata in our own heads. AND THAT'S OKAY.

This reminds me of Abbot's complaints about the race humor in "Blazing Saddles". Yeah, 70s race humor weird and uncomfortable from our much more sensitive 21st century perspective, but it's also kinda refreshing in its uselfconscious honesty.

It's honestly dubious, dude. I mean, if you want to go out of your way to develop complex gendered behavioral schemes -- as if we don't already have way too many of them -- then don't let me spoil your fun, but I can't personally get much out of it. (The race metaphor is poor: I kinda imagine you'd agree with me if someone started a thread about which band members seemed to have the most Dominican / Haitian dynamic going on.) (Actually that's Paul / John, never mind.)

P.S. Talking about instrument tones as masculine/feminine surely has a lot more to do with the paucity of concrete terms to describe things like reed sounds, and the fact that the nearest, most efficient metaphor is the human voice, which is produced in a pretty similar way.

So, nabisco: It's okay to talk about instrument tones as masculine or feminine because there's a paucity of terms, and because the human voice is produced similarly, but it's not okay to talk about human voices as having human tones? I'm mystified.

(I meant human voices as having masculine or feminine tones)

I kinda imagine you'd agree with me if someone started a thread about which band members seemed to have the most Dominican / Haitian dynamic going on

-- nabisco

I understand why we police ourselves in this manner. But I still find it kinda sad and regrettable, sometimes.

if you want to go out of your way to develop complex gendered behavioral schemes...

-- nabisco

Maybe, though (as per my last post), this is a situation where caution and empathy are more important than chip-shouldered "bravery" -- at least for now.

Umm, dude, Usual Channels: every one of the performers you're talking about has a male vocal tone. There is not a one among them whose voice would be mistaken for a woman's. You're talking about singing styles, not vocal tones, and we're not talking about Brian Molko.

Contenderizer, I'm not saying we have to "police" ourselves on these things. I'm saying that despite all the gender-role prescriptions existing in our culture, I would never have looked at any of these bands and thought "hey wow that's such a masculine/feminine dynamic they have there." And if that's never occurred to me (or several other people here), there doesn't seem much point in going out of my way to try and project that system onto things. I could also go around my office judging all the women on which ones have "masculine" walks and which ones have "feminine" ones, but I don't -- not out of cowardice but mostly because it's lame and kind of a waste of time, you know?

I could also go around my office judging all the women on which ones have "masculine" walks and which ones have "feminine" ones, but I don't -- not out of cowardice but mostly because it's lame and kind of a waste of time, you know?

contenderizer, I couldn't agree with you more.

I don't see how I'm constructing anything. Gender is performative, right, and I don't think I'm bringing up anything that the above-mentioned groups aren't aware of or playing off of (particularly re: The Who and Fugazi).

I'm merely talking stylistically. I don't think any of those singers would be mistaken for being women. It would be ludicrous to think so.

However, if we're looking for literal, lyrical examples, there's Daltrey as Ivor the Engine Driver and Townsend as the cuckolding wife in "A Quick One While He's Away," and Picciotto's vocal contributions to many live versions of "Suggestion." Conversely, I'd argue that MacKaye singing the lion's share of that song from a woman's point of view is more transgressive than had Picciotto done the same due to a recognition by many fans of MacKaye's extra-masculine persona in past groups (and those fans' same recognition of Picciotto's attempts in Rites of Spring to pop hardcore's masculine bubble).

Those are examples of those artists playing discrete, intentional, gendered roles in songs that have a degree of narrative, but again, I'm more concerned performative and stylistic choices.

And nabisco, don't be foolish. To consider stage performance and the performative nature of gender in people's "natural" gaits and walks as performance in the same register is just ridiculous. I'm talking about artistic choices that are not consistently enacted, but that from time to time come across intentionally.

Haha dude if you think women's gaits are entirely "natural" and totally unaffected by the performance of gender then you are whackadoodle

That said, I find your specific examples about performing feminine points of view in songs WAY more interesting than most of this thread so far, because they're the first things that try to address anything about these bands consciously performing gender roles. (Jagger aside, I think.)

Oh wait sorry, that zing attempt was not called for -- I misread you about performing gender in gaits, sorry

You are probably not whackadoodle, just possibly having to stretch to describe these inter-band dynamics as being informed by gender notions more so than other things

I mentioned Kiss earlier because their costumes seemed intentionally (?) crafted to appeal to different segments of the teen rock audience: Gene's no-homo monster movie appeal to boys & bad-boy appeal to girls; Paul & Ace's no-homo (?) superhero appeal to boys & romantic appeal to girls; Ace's androgynous starchild thing; and Peter Chriss being a cat for god knows what reason, though I guess that could be girl-appeal too. There seems to be an intentional gendered-ness to it all. Gene comes across as entirely masculine, to the point where he's a grotesque cartoon of the male id. Paul and Ace are each more softened, though Paul still reads as masculine while Ace makes a point of vacillating, Bowie-style, between genders.

Kiss are obvious, but lots of performers adopt roles that have at least some component of complementary gendered-ness. The geeks vs. the pretty boys in Cheap Trick. Adam Ant & Marco. Ron & Russel in Sparks. Kathleen & JD in Le Tigre. They're not always as simple as male/female, but they're all intentionally gendered oppositions. Hell, I sometimes think Bono is intentionally aping the vocal mannerisms of female soul/R&B singers, though he's not "plaing with identity" or anything like that.

I'm sorry to hound on this one but I don't see how something like "geeks vs. pretty boys" is a dynamic that it's at all useful to think of as gendered, especially when "geeks vs. pretty boys" captures it pretty efficiently on its own!

There are long conversations to be had about gender play and androgyny in rock music and probably some tangents to be followed about how those can get split up among members of one-sex bands, but some of these applications baffle me. (I also couldn't much imagine anyone saying "yeah well so Joan Jett was kinda the masculine one and Lita Ford was the feminine one" and trotting that out as a deep or productive observation, so maybe it's some combination of obviousness AND weirdness I'm reacting to here.)

I'm going home so I will be less bothersome/present in a second here

nabisco: I do appreciate your posts (most of them) here. Please let me reiterate:

I'd be happy to frame the question in terms of people in groups (the specific ones I mentioned) playing off of two different forms of masculinity, or to frame it in terms that have nothing to do with gender. I'd be happy to have someone determine exactly what the difference is.

Your distinction that "geeks vs. pretty boys" isn't useful to think of as gendered resonates with me. I think you're right. I also think that I'm talking about something different. My not being able to specifically pinpoint instances of these performances is not helping!

pretty much everything else about the band/George Hurley's hair

Also, REM = Monkees = brilliant