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About
In the early nineties, riot grrrl exploded onto the underground music scene, inspiring girls to pick up an instrument, create fanzines, and become politically active. Rejecting both traditional gender roles and their parents' brand of feminism, riot grrrls celebrated and deconstructed femininity. The media went into a titillated frenzy covering followers who wrote "slut" on their bodies, wore frilly dresses with combat boots, and talked openly about sexual politics.
The movement's message of "revolution girl-style now" soon filtered into the mainstream as "girl power," popularized by the Spice Girls and transformed into merchandising gold as shrunken T-shirts, lip glosses, and posable dolls. Though many criticized girl power as at best frivolous and at worst soulless and hypersexualized, Marisa Meltzer argues that it paved the way for today's generation of confident girls who are playing instruments and joining bands in record numbers.
Girl Power examines the role of women in rock since the riot grrrl revolution, weaving Meltzer's personal anecdotes with interviews with key players such as Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. Chronicling the legacy of artists such as Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, Alanis Morissette, Britney Spears, and, yes, the Spice Girls, Girl Power points the way for the future of women in rock.
The movement's message of "revolution girl-style now" soon filtered into the mainstream as "girl power," popularized by the Spice Girls and transformed into merchandising gold as shrunken T-shirts, lip glosses, and posable dolls. Though many criticized girl power as at best frivolous and at worst soulless and hypersexualized, Marisa Meltzer argues that it paved the way for today's generation of confident girls who are playing instruments and joining bands in record numbers.
Girl Power examines the role of women in rock since the riot grrrl revolution, weaving Meltzer's personal anecdotes with interviews with key players such as Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls. Chronicling the legacy of artists such as Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, Alanis Morissette, Britney Spears, and, yes, the Spice Girls, Girl Power points the way for the future of women in rock.
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Reviews
"There are probably at least a thousand ways to write about popular music, and the vast majority of them are fucking awful . . . All that makes it even more gratifying when a relatively new writer takes on pop music and does it flawlessly. Marisa Meltzer . . . manages to avoid every single music-writing pitfall in her fascinating new book, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music. It's a remarkably well-written book, and it doesn't seek to be comprehensive, indier-than-thou, or preachy --it's a brief history, written with a keen eye for both social and musical context, and it captures the spirit of popular music in the '90s better than anything I've read. . . I'm dying to see what she writes about next. Girl Power deserves an immediate place in the canon of popular music writing--Meltzer's accomplishment is remarkable, and her talent is undeniable."
Michael Schaub, Bookslut
"We love Marisa Meltzer's Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, not only for its examination of music, feminism, and their subsequent catchphrases ('Riot Grrrl,' 'She-Rebels,' 'Pop Tarts,' and 'Girl Power!') but also for lines like this: "Music is often most important to you when you're really young or really pissed off. Luckily, in the nineties I was both."
Elle