Misogyny! The Musical

Image: Alubavin

I have a confession to make. When I started at secondary school after an incident with the clique I was in I became 'indie'. The only people who would speak to me were some boys in the year above on my bus. They made me rock mix tapes, for which I would feign appreciation, then go home and listen to Now! CDs. Loudly. If you asked me who I liked I'd list the bands on the tapes, omitting a list of hip hop and pop. My tastes did lean towards the scruffier ends of the charts and when I discovered riot grrrl, punk and The Smiths (what? It's a natural trifecta) I stopped wondering what the hitmakers that be called music, now.

That doesn't mean I don't have a lingering affection for the RnB and hip hop music of the 90s and early 2000s. It does mean I'm reasonably well versed in these genres to note that there is a common trend. Misogynist lyrics. 

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There's a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to misogyny in hip hop culture. bell hooks has quite rightly asserted that it not a "male black thing” but we tend to focus on hip hop and its fondness for aggressive sexual lyrics because it is "much easier to attack gangsta rap than to confront the culture that produces [the] need [for gangsta rap]."

The misogyny in gangsta rap and hip hop sit very comfortably in with the music of skinny white men. For both Pharrell and The Starting Line* a date's not a date unless the night ends at A&E, judging from their desire to tear asses up. Justin Timberlake sings about being fed up of using technology to effectively stalk a woman. Nick Cave sings about killing women (nay, Kylie Minogue). Every Christmas the shops are filled with the seasonal song of date rape "say what's in this drink? Baby it's cold out there".

Indie darlings The Decemberists sing tinkly music whilst dressed as tress and the like. Disguised in non-threatening corduroy trousers and thick glasses they sing lyrics such as I found you a tattooed tramp/A dirty daughter from the labor camps/I lay you down in the grass of a clearing/You wept, but your soul was willing. That last line sounds like the poetry of a pick up artist. 

no-one wants to hear a song about  the time you got Ocado delivery and they brought everything for Italian theme night.

Music can be terribly problematic when it comes to healthy relationship lyrics anyway. It's not that nothing rhymes with 'content' (bent, tent, meant, went, Kent) but no-one wants to hear a song about shopping for AGAs or the time you got Ocado delivery and they brought everything on your list for Italian theme night. It's conflict, sadness and disappointment we like to hear in songs. Or possibly extreme happiness that is impossible to maintain. But mainly misery. 

And that's fine, nobody and nothing is perfect. It's when a song normalises abusive relationships that you start to think maybe a song about an AGA and domestic bliss would be nice. For instance, there is an incredibly creepy bit in Little Esther Phillip's song I'm a Bad Bad Girl in which Little Esther sings about being bad and trying not to be. A man chimes in with: Listen little Esther/ You made leave my home/ Know that I'm no good/ And everything I've done is wrong/ Now you tried your best/To get rid of me/But I've got news for your baby /Cause you'll never be free/You're just a bad girl/You’re always gonna be. 

Lalala, wait, never be free? Is that a threat? Or just a song. 
 
*brief review - Good Grief. Yawn. 

Squeamish Kate