>Indeed, the very discrepancy between the public's
>general knowledge of Mick Jaggar versus the largely unknown female group
>Bikini Kill reveals the gendered nature of the music industry.
Far be it from me to discredit the notion that rock is a man's world. Cuz it
is. We control the language and the money, we decide who gets to be
proselytized as the next "woman in rock," etc. I'd like to think that it was
a man who saw the cash potential in pumping up Alanis as some sort of
feminist model rather than the more appropriate and musically-gifted PJ
Harvey.
HOWEVER--to compare the public's knowledge of Jagger/The Stones to Bikini
Kill is a horribly misleading advocacy device. If the Stones' popularity is
to be compared relative to a female artist, it should be a female artist
from the mid-60's, and preferably from Decca or London Records. Hopefully it
could be demonstrated that her promotion was slighted in favor of The
Stones' promotion and that sort of thing. BK isn't as well-known as The
Stones, but they aren't as well-known as Janis Joplin either, but it has
nothing to do with their gender.
The proper question might be: Why isn't BK as well known as Nirvana or the
Smashing Pumpkins? Or Better Than Frickin Ezra? Or the Offspring? Or, could
it be argued that Kill Rock Stars Records simply didn't have the financial
resources to compete with the promotion depots of the major labels? If you
can accept that to be true, I think BK did about as well as could be
expected. I mean, they were fantastic self-promoters (although they paled
next to Courtney Love, but that's another story), and they are probably more
well-known than, say, Bratmobile or Team Dresch. Popularity can be a dicey
subject, because it's hard to say whether a band like Sleater-Kinney is
commercially-unpopular because they are aggressively female, or because
they're on Kill Rock Stars and are thusly ignored by MTV and the major radio
stations. So, the final question I have is this: In the current market, is a
band's popularity more contingent on gender or class?
Lance . . .
np-Kathleen Hanna's rant on Mike Watt's "Tugboat" LP . . .
