An Introduction to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Pop-Rock Music

Following the 1960’s sexual revolution, rock and pop have continued to map the societal understanding of sexuality, feminism, and gender studies. Although scholarship has well established how early rock and roll encouraged and affected issues of sex in the baby boomer generation, this book asks how subsequent pop music has maintained that tradition.

The text discusses the gendered performances and biographical experiences of individual musicians, including Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Etta James, and Frank Ocean, and how their invented personae contribute to musical representations of sexuality. It evaluates lyric structure and symbolic language of these artists, and overall emphasizes how pop music, while a commodity art form, reflects the diversity of human sex and gender.

Walter Everett is Professor of Music in Music Theory at the University of Michigan, USA. He is the author of Foundations of Rock (2008), Expression in Pop-Rock Music, Second Edition 2007), and The Beatles as Musicians, Volumes 1 and 2 (1999, 2001). Everett is a recipient of the Kjell Meling Award for Distinction in the Arts and Humanities, has served as Chair of the Society for Music Theory Publications Committee, and is past editorial board member of Music Theory Spectrum and Theory and Practice.