Glam “Heroines”. Gaps in Glam Historicisation from Black Self-Feminised Musicians to the Herstory of Glam Rock Cover Image

Glam “Heroines”. Gaps in Glam Historicisation from Black Self-Feminised Musicians to the Herstory of Glam Rock
Glam “Heroines”. Gaps in Glam Historicisation from Black Self-Feminised Musicians to the Herstory of Glam Rock

Author(s): Katharina Alexi
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Media studies, Music, Communication studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie
Keywords: glam rock history;female glam singers;Black glam singers;musical canon;digital archives;

Summary/Abstract: The narration of glam music, especially glam rock, as queer is countered by a canonisation of male white icons in pop musicology, which is illuminated and expanded in this article. Early glam performances by self-feminised Black musicians (Ward 1998) as well as the music making of female agents of glam rock are at the center of this exploration. Firstly, an outline of the current gender and race specific remembrance of glam rock is given. Secondly, the “glamorous” origins of glam music are questioned with Ward; musical canon of glam is also re-arranged regarding the category of gender by adding the basic biographies of two further female heroines, Bobbie McGee and Cherrie Vangelder-Smith. They are present in digital (DIY) media within practices of affective archiving (Baker 2015), which enable lyrics interpretation in this paper.

  • Issue Year: 13/2021
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 7-20
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: English