Customer Reviews

Go, Girl, Go! The Women's Revolution in Music

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It is obvious that every non-fiction writer is going to come to the table with some biases. It can be curbed, but it can't be helped. And I think James. L. Dickerson came into this book on the women's revolution in modern music with his taste in music firmly in place. It's a book about women in the top twenty pop charts essentially with a lot of stories about the Country charts. Country music and female Country performers. The book also takes a lot of stock in the unprecedented rise of female solo artists on the charts in the 1990's. The concept of the book is fantastic. I loved reading about women in the recording industry both under the lights and behind the stage, but the problem with this book was while it came off as trying to be a comprehensive collection of the movement in women's music, it really just showed Dickerson's bias to music from and of the South. For example, while there are pages dedicated to country music artists that I've never heard of before, there is no mention of the Riot Grrrl movement of the early-mid 90's that began making waves in the underground and perhaps coincidently, perhaps not, preceded the move on the main stream charts in the mid-90's by female artists like Alanis Morissette and Liz Phair. There was also a lot of information on The Bangels, yet next to nothing (aside from the fact that Belinda Carlisle took it off for Playboy) on The Go-Go's who really paved the way for all-girl bands. There is also very little information on female singers of Disco hits and no information on women in the punk and heavy metal genres. Those are just a few examples out of many. However, there is a wealth of information as I said before about Country singers and Top 40 pop singers with some kind of link to South. Perhaps that isn't totally fair, I do think Dickerson did include a fair share of the female hitmakers, just not close to all of them. The book is set up with chronological chapters highlighting many of the stars of the time. It is chock full of interesting material, some new, most not to someone who has been following the music press or reads a decent amount of rock history. I think this would be an excellent book for younger women without a sense of what came before them and what has been accomplished. I also think it's a great reminder that before the mid-90's we weren't hearing back to back female artists on the radio. I only wish this was a complete history of the women's movement in music. As a side note, it is also a big shame that with all the talk of women's movements and women's power in this business, this book was written by a man.