[net.women] Lauper

ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (02/05/85)

Coming up next month at Berkeley Zellerbach is Ferron. How anyone can refer
to Lauper as a feminist singer when such powerful and dedicated voices go
unmentioned is beyond me!

I understand there's a fairly vocal group of feminist musical artists who
employ a folk, and often country, idiom to express a peculiarly intense
statement.

As a fan of social/political music (and angstmusik in general), I'd enjoy
hearing anything at all about Ferron, or anyone else who is involved with
feminist music. Surprisingly, punk/hardcore has produced almost nothing in
this genre, to my knowledge, except for `Penis Envy' by Crass.

-michael

shor@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Melinda Shore) (02/09/85)

> I understand there's a fairly vocal group of feminist musical artists who
> employ a folk, and often country, idiom to express a peculiarly intense
> statement.

It's true.  Now, what I like about Ferron is that she's a top-notch
musician who uses her music to express good things.  This sets her apart
from most feminist musicians (and I've listened to a lot of them), who
might be considered "politically correct" in some circles, but are truly
terrible musicians.  I've seen her in concert a few times, and things she
has said indicates that she thinks of herself more as a musician than as
bearer of political messages.  Because of the quality of her music, the
political messages come through more strongly and more convincingly than
is true of people like Meg Christian, Chris Williamson, and Therese Edell.
Also, Ferron's music is positive and human.  

Another musician I like a lot is Robin Flower, who is probably
more identified with the new acoustic music than with feminist music.
Fortunately, she does both very well.

Being a died-in-the-wool folkie, I don't know anything about what sort of
feminist/political rock groups are out there, but I'd be curious to hear
about them.

-- 

Melinda Shore, Microcomputer Laboratory
University of Chicago Computation Center
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