Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot
This is no chronological plod through the classic western 'women in rock' narrative ... [Goldman's] aim is to amplify female voices across cultures, continents and generations and to understand the relationship between genre and gender, all the while showing how oppression and hard-won freedoms have yielded some of the most electrifying music ever made ... The language is urgent, often furious, sometimes funny and full of piquant turns of phrase ... While Goldman isn’t especially interested in trying to define punk...her understanding of it is wide-ranging and determinedly global, travelling way beyond the old DIY cliches ... Goldman’s punk, then, is a broad church, including as it does those with views that seemingly go against the liberal punk grain. All the stories and voices here are linked by a defiance, both musical and ideological, born from thousands of years of patriarchal oppression
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Revenge of the She-Punks is not a dry academic history—instead, it feels like an exhilarating conversation with the coolest aunt you never had, as she leaps from one passion to the next .. Goldman gives every chapter a Spotify playlist so you can listen along as you read — which is practically impossible not to do, since her excitement is so contagious ... Goldman moves far outside the usual American and British punk narratives ... Compared to most of the (many) writers who have chronicled the London ’77 punk explosion, Goldman is refreshingly free of scenester score-settling ... Revenge of the She Punks shows why this rebellious music survived. But even more importantly, it shows why it keeps turning on new fans today.
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We are not going to talk about Goldman's extensive bonafides as a musician, producer, ultimate scenester and cultural critic, because that is a useless way to evaluate a book on punk feminism. Suffice it to say she's well qualified. A more punk feminist approach is just to read the book and then love it or hate it or possibly both. I just loved it. I loved it for many reasons ... Regional treatment is the common back-up to chronological treatment, but Goldman embarks on a wonderfully ambitious analysis based on subject matter. She divides the chapters into Girly Identity, Money, Love/Unlove, and Protest. I mean, has music ever been about anything but these four things? .. one of the best things about Revenge of the She-Punks is the total lack of spite Goldman exhibits throughout. It would be far too easy to do a tell-all book about the experiences of women in punk music ... Instead, she hefts the virtues and the vices into one heap and concludes that some of it was necessary, some of it was fun, and some of it was evil. It's a true and generous move that doesn't gloss the reasons we she-punks still have to rage
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