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A review by callofthelibrary
The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper
4.0
Don't let the high numerical praise fool you- I disagree with Jessica Hopper's critical assessment quite a bit, not insomuch the feminist lens, which I appreciate, but the way it's soaked in riot grrl's "girl-punk" flair. calling any guitar playing "feminine" or a man's voice "femme" is lame in my personal post-gender estimation. this is a second edition which, based on reviews, attempts to open up the writing on Black music and Blackness more explicitly but it still falls short imo (the black women she discusses are typically "land-locked" in specific genres- like rap or rnb). i also kind of think Hopper doesn't deserve the majority of the credit for the R. Kelly piece considering the way jim derogatis kept that story alive mostly on his own for literal decades. by contrast its very telling that the two artistic projects that get exhaustive treatments at the end (in the "she says" sections, implying the ability to speak and be heard) are Hole and Bjork lmaooo. i find Hopper's transition to her own kind of pop-timism exhausting and factors into like 90 percent of my personal beef with her which is her total awareness of like the 90s underground to a degree that is frankly giving it too much credit but does not afford any future scene (except local Chicago artists) much of the same awareness (there are no women in emo circa 2003, apparently, which is true in a mainstream sense, in a radio sense, in a big package-bill tour sense, but any knowledge of the underground tells you women have always been there, which is a more interesting story). the most egregious issue i have is her repositioning of Chalk Circle's Sharon Cheslow as the forgotten mother of Revolution Summer because she talked to Ian Mackaye about masculinity one time when Amy Pickering of Fire Party LITERALLY CAME UP WITH THE IDEA. but Pickering isn't a part of riot grrls one-to-one punk mentoree legacy and she was part of the Boys Club that was Dischord, not wanting to be known as a "girl band" so maybe that makes her less interesting to Hopper idk. amy pickering is never mentioned in this collection but kathleen hanna will be randomly shoehorned into as many articles as possible- i'll tell you that much! i also disagree with Hopper's assessment of nostalgia. i wish there was more negativity in her reviews (again, she oftentimes gives artists she likes way too much credit). and babes and toyland isn't riot grrl, which she couldve made more explicit bc its my pet peeve.
BUT. all that said. i respect the hell out of Hopper. and i love love love the way she writes about music, physically and emotionally embodying it in ways that sit heavy on your skin, like you can feel it playing all around you. i love her tenacity and complete unwillingness to compromise herself, even if that makes me a little mad. she inspires me (partly out of spite and partly out of love) to write about music because it Matters. how many men have started their creative lives because they were driven to do better than what came before? why can't women do the same without being accused of disrespect? of shattering the "girl code" or whatever? this book is going to sit with me for a long time to come.
BUT. all that said. i respect the hell out of Hopper. and i love love love the way she writes about music, physically and emotionally embodying it in ways that sit heavy on your skin, like you can feel it playing all around you. i love her tenacity and complete unwillingness to compromise herself, even if that makes me a little mad. she inspires me (partly out of spite and partly out of love) to write about music because it Matters. how many men have started their creative lives because they were driven to do better than what came before? why can't women do the same without being accused of disrespect? of shattering the "girl code" or whatever? this book is going to sit with me for a long time to come.