Gender Ventriloquism in Studio Production
Keywords:
ventriloquism, recording, women producers and engineersAbstract
A process of ventriloquism, with male producers speaking through the mouthpieces of the women they produce, can reinforce gender delineations in pop. After discussing ventriloquism in pop and demonstrating different ways in which this has happened using historical examples, the author’s original interviews with women who record male artists are examined to discover whether a similar process takes place when roles are reversed. The author concludes that aspects of ventriloquism are inherent in production, although some women producers have questioned gender roles during this process. She also notes that as more female mediators enter the profession, we may hear more authentic expressions of women’s identities in popular music.References
Bibliography
Armstrong, V. 2011. Technology and the Gendering of Music Education. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate.
Attali, J. 1999. Noise: the political Economy of Music. Minneapolis/London: University of Minneapolis Press.
Auner, J. 2003. ‘Sing it for Me’: Posthuman Ventriloquism in Recent Popular Music. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128 (1): 98-122. Accessed 30 June 2018.
BBC, 2013. ‘Charlotte Church attacks sexist music industry’, BBC News, 15 October. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24528022 Accessed 14 January 2018.
Born, G. and Devine, K. Eds. 2016. Gender, Creativity and Education in Digital Music and Sound Art. Contemporary Music Review, 35 (1): 115-129 https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2016.1177255
Bradby, B. –
Do-Talk and Don’t-Talk: The Division of the Subject in Girl Group Music in Frith, S. and Goodwin, A. Eds. (1998) On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. London and New York: Routledge: 341-368.
Sampling Sexuality: Gender, Technology and the Body in Dance Music. Popular Music 12(2): 155-176. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000005535
Bourdieu, P. 2001. Masculine Domination. Cambridge: Polity.
Butler, J. 1993. Imitation and Gender Insubordination. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale and D. Halperin Eds. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York: Routledge: 307-320.
Chick, S. 2010. ‘I write the songs; he’s the eye candy’: Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. The Guardian, 28 October. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/28/isobel-campbell-mark-lanegan-interview Accessed 10 March 2018.
Clawson, M. 1999. When Women Play the Bass: Instrument Specialization and Gender Interpretation in Alternative Rock Music. Gender and Society 13(2): 192–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124399013002003
Cooren, F. 2010. Action and Agency in Dialogue Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
Dickinson. K. 2001. 'Believe'? Digitalised Female Identity and Camp. Popular Music 20/3: 33-347 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143001001532
Easlea, D. 2004. Everybody Dance: Chic and the Politics of Disco. London: Helter Skelter.
Fine, C. 2010. Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences. London: Icon Books.
Fleeger, J. 2014. Mismatched Women: the Siren’s Song through the Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frith, S. and Goodwin, A. Eds. 1998. On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. London and New York: Routledge.
Frith, S. and Zagorski-Thomas, S. Eds. 2012. The Art of Record Production: an introductory Reader for a new Academic Field. Farnham: Ashgate.
Gadir, T. 2016. Resistance or Reiteration? Rethinking Gender in DJ Cultures in Born, G. and Devine, K. Eds. 2016. Gender, Creativity and Education in Digital Music and Sound Art. Contemporary Music Review, 35 (1): 115-129 https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2016.1177255
Goodwin, A. 1992. Rationalization and Democratization in the New Technologies of Popular Music. In Lull, J. Ed. Popular Music and Communication. London: Sage.
Green, L. 1997. Music, Gender, Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greig, C.1989. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow: Girl Groups from the 50s on… London: Virago.
Katz, M. 2010. Capturing Sound: how Technology has changed Music. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Lawrence, T. 2015. How Loleatta Holloway Became Disco’s Most Sampled Artist. electronicbeats.net, October 2 http://www.electronicbeats.net/how-loleatta-holloway-became-discos-most-sampled-artist/ Accessed 5 May 2018.
Leonard, M. 2016. Girls at Work: gendered Identities, Sex Segregation and Employment Experiences in the Music Industries. In Warwick, J. and Adrian, A. Eds. 2016. Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music: Performance, Authority, Authenticity. New York: Routledge: 37-55.
Love, D. 2013. My Name is Love. New York: William Morrow.
Lull, J. Ed. 1992. Popular Music and Communication, London: Sage.
Massey, H. 2009. Behind the Glass: top Record producers tell how they Craft the Hits Volume 11. Milwaukee: Backbeat.
Middleton, R. 2006. Voicing the Popular: on the Subjects of Popular Music. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.
Milner, G. 2009. Perfecting Sound Forever: the Story of Recorded Music. London: Granta.
MPG News. 2016. Music Producers Guild Announces its 2016 Award Winners! 4 February. https://www.mpg.org.uk/news/mpg-awards-2016-winners/ Accessed 28 April 2018.
Mulvey, L. 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16 (3): 6-28
Nicholson, R. –
‘Why Björk is right to stand up for female producers’. The Guardian, 27 August. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/aug/27/whybjorkisrighttostickup Accessed 7 August 2018
‘Chvrches: “We could have sold 200,000 more records if we hid us boys out of view”. The Guardian, 20 August. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/20/chvrches-we-could-have-sold-200000-more-records-if-we-hid-the-boys-out-of-view Accessed 30 June 2018.
Newman, M. 2018. Where Are All the Female Music Producers? Billboard, 19 January. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8095107/female-music-producers-industry-grammy-awards?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral Accessed 30/05/2018 Accessed 30 May 2018.
Reddington, H. (forthcoming) Outside the Box: Women Engineers and Producers in the British Pop Music Industry in the early 21st Century. Sheffield: Equinox.
Rodgers, T. 2010. Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Durham/London: Duke University Press.
Seabrook, J. 2015. The Song Machine: How to Make a Hit. New York: Jonathan Cape.
Shepherd, J. 1991. Music as Social Text. London: Polity.
Sillitoe, S.1999. ‘Recording Cher’s “Believe”’. Sound on Sound, February 1999. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-cher-believe Accessed 30 June 2018.
Tavana, A. 2015. Democracy of Sound: Is Garageband Good for Music? Pitchfork.com, 30 September. http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9728-democracy-of-sound-is-garageband-good-for-music/ Accessed 28 April 2018.
Théberge, P. 1997. Any Sound You Can Imagine: making Music/consuming Technology. Hanover NH: Wesleyan University Press.
Toynbee, J. 2000. Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions. London: Hodder Arnold.
Wolfe, Paula –
A Studio Of One’s Own: Music Production, Technology And Gender. Journal on the Art of Record Production. (7) http://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/a-studio-of-one’s-own-music-production-technology-and-gender/ Accessed 1 August 2018
‘I write the songs. He’s the eye candy’: the female singer-songwriter, the woman artist-producers and the British Broadsheet press. In Green, S. and Marc, I. Eds. The Singer-Songwriter in Europe: Politics, Paradigms and Place. London and New York: Routledge: 95-109
Warwick, J. 2004. ‘He’s Got The Power’: the politics of production in girl group music in Whiteley, S. Bennett, A. and Hawkins, S. Eds. Music, Space and Place: Popular Music and Cultural Identity. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate
Web Sources
Askar, P. 2005. ‘Howard Massey: Record Producer and Music Industry Author’. Originally published on: blog.lownoiserecords.com. Permanent link: https://web.archive.org/web/20160407185739/http://blog.lownoiserecords.com:80/howardmassey.html Accessed 7 August 2018.
Elliott, M., 2018. Where are all the female producers? Twitter, 24 January. Available from: https://twitter.com/MissyElliott/status/956349994713436160 Accessed 30 June 2018.
Female:pressure http://www.femalepressure.net/fempress.html Accessed 28 April 2018.
Grimes., 2018. Twitter, 8 March. Available from: https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/971912926238920704 Accessed 1 August 2018.
M, PRS For Music Online Magazine, 2013. Women in music: round table discussion. 8 March. http://www.m-magazine.co.uk/publishers/women-in-music/ Accessed 28 April 2018.
Marling, L., 2016. http://www.reversalofthemuse.com Accessed 14 January 2018.
Sound Women, http://www.soundwomen.co.uk Accessed 28 April 2018
The Huddersfield Organisation: http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/go-compose-huddersfield Accessed 13 August 2018
Discography
Aretha Franklin. 1967. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, Atlantic, September, USA.
Beyoncé. 2011. “Run the World (Girls)”, Columbia, USA.
Black Box. 1989. “Ride On Time”, Groove Groove Melody, USA.
Cher. 1998. “Believe”, WEA/Warner Bros, USA.
Film
Singin’ in the Rain. 1953. Dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, MGM.
Interviews
Colleen Murphy. 2014. Interview by Helen Reddington, London, May.
Felix Mackintosh. 2012. Interview by Helen Reddington, London, September.
Hannah. 2016. Interview by Helen Reddington, email, September.
Isobel Campbell. 2014. Interview by Helen Reddington, email, September.
JPL. 2014. Interview by Helen Reddington, London, April.
Lauren Deakin Davies. 2018. Interview by Helen Reddington, London, March.
Miss Melody. 2018. Interview by Helen Reddington, London, February.
Olga Fitzroy. 2016. Interview by Helen Reddington, email, July.
Susan Rogers -
Interview by Helen Reddington, email, January.
Personal Conversation at the ARP Conference, Oslo, December.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain copyright, while licensing their work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
