Women In Revolt: the thrill of women's rage

Suzanne Moore wrote ten years about that women’s rage is “totally thrilling”. And she was right.

I saw the Women In Revolt exhibition at Tate Britain last week and I was totally thrilled.

Writing about pop as though it really mattered: music journalism and women

Gatekeepers. All women know about them, whatever their job or chosen leisure activity. And the music business has always been one of the top villains. 

Within that crowded field, Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, recently emerged as an arch villain. In case you missed it, he put out a book of archive interviews which was full of old white blokes. When challenged about the lack of women said: “none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level”. And made a similar point about Black musicians. Prat.

The ensuing controversy even lost him his gig with the ever-irrelevant Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which isn’t exactly squeaky clean when it comes to ignoring minorities. 

So why am I writing about this now?

Ear-altering sounds and personal stories

Book review: Sound Within Sound by Kate Molleson

This is the latest in my series of reviews of music books by women, specifically those that were longlisted for the 2022 Penderyn Music Book Prize. I think this going to be the hardest to write, because it’s outside my field of knowledge, but the book wasn’t hard to read because it is so well written.

I suspect that some books get listed (particularly in the case of memoir) because they tell a good story rather than for the quality of the writing. Sound Within Sound, though, qualifies as literature; Kate Molleson used to be a music critic, and her descriptions of how things sound are precise and poetic. But she tells a good story too – in fact, many good stories.

Goodbye to Twitter?

Another day, another Elon Musk rumour. This time it’s about plans to charge people to use Twitter (which no-one will ever call X).

From a business point of view, this is nuts. He should know that most of his user base are hanging on by a thread, under sufferance, and we’ll all be gone if that happens. It’ll probably turn out to be another attention-seeking item like the notion of removing the block function (which turned out to be illegal).

It’s weird, because for years I’ve been saying I’d be happy to pay if it meant no ads. Why? Because I valued Twitter.

Looking at it now, you might be wondering why.

Book review: Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi

This memoir from “Miki from Lush” is out now in paperback, so if you haven’t read it yet now’s your chance.

Since its original release, the book has become Rough Trade Book of the Year, a Rolling Stone Book of the Year and a Mojo Book of the Year. But, I wondered, is it really a music book? There is after all a lot about Miki’s life before Lush: so is it a book about a person - like a “normal” memoir - rather than a book about music?

Of course, you can’t really separate those things, as everyone whose life has been immersed in music knows. So the first half of the book is about Miki’s dysfunctional, damaging childhood and adolescence. The second half is about her dysfunctional life in the music business. And they make sense of each other.