‘Being a Woman, Being a Woman’: Gendered Criticism of Joanna Newsom

MA Dissertation (Popular Music Research)

Word count: 14,888

Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................................1

I: Gender and Feminism in Joanna Newsom’s Lyrics...........................................................................5

II: Enchantment, Deification, and Benevolent Sexism in Criticism of Joanna Newsom.....................13

III: The Gendered History and Criticism of Joanna Newsom’s Harp..................................................21

IV: The Gendered Criticism of Joanna Newsom’s Voice....................................................................27

V: Towards a Feminist Criticism of Joanna Newsom..........................................................................33

Conclusion............................................................................................................................................39

Works Cited..........................................................................................................................................43

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Introduction

‘As a woman who writes about rock and pop music’, states communications theorist Holly Kruse, ‘I have been struck by the degree to which...control over the discourses and institutions of popular music is still exercised almost exclusively by men’.1 The masculine nature of the music industry as a whole has been cited by numerous theorists including authors Sue Steward and Sheryl Garratt, sociomusicologists Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie, and sociologist Sam Cameron; it is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that the music press is similarly male-dominated.2 3 4 Sociomusicologist Marion Leonard suggests that there are ‘few female journalists in key positions’ within the music press, while music ethnographer Helen Davies cites the example of Melody Maker magazine, at which male journalists outnumber female by more than two to one.5 6 As such, music criticism tends to be written from what Kruse identifies as a ‘masculine subject position’ by default, leading to a fundamentally patriarchal critical industry under which female rock and pop musicians often become the targets of sexism.7 Davies states that the music press frequently sexualises its female subjects, critiquing their desirability (often in an openly hostile manner) far more than is true for their male counterparts, and claims that female musicians are more likely to be attacked outright for lacking credibility and authenticity than are male musicians.8 The industry’s masculine culture is sufficiently pervasive that Davies suggests the gender of individual critics becomes immaterial; women who enter the journalistic ‘Boys’ Club’ must subscribe to the same sexist discourses as male critics, ‘identifying with their male peers rather than with the women on whom they comment’.9

Davies’s study focuses predominantly on criticism of mainstream music, but suggests that it is even more challenging for a female musician to achieve subcultural credibility; to be regarded as credible within a subculture, she claims that a female musician must adopt masculine traits such as rebellion and anger. However, women performing these traits are frequently critically pathologised and attacked by critics: critics Simon Reynolds and Joy Press suggest that a rebellious female musician is viewed with ‘a morbid mixture of voyeurism, pity, and sadistic delight at the possibility that she might fall’.10 The alternative route to subcultural credibility is perceived intellectualism; Davies suggests that PJ Harvey, for instance, is critically regarded as credible and authentic for this reason.11 Leonard disagrees that subcultures are less friendly towards femininity than the mainstream; she proposes that, although indie music retains a masculine bias (which was most often reported in her study by those active in Riot Grrrl bands, perhaps because their performance of 1 Kruse (2002): 134 2 Steward and Garratt (1985): 54 3 Frith and McRobbie (1978): 373 4 Cameron (2003): 905-917 5 Leonard (2007): 6 6 Davies (2001): 301 7 Kruse (2002): 134 8 Davies (2001): 301 9 Ibid: 316-17 10 Reynolds and Press (1995): 269 11 Davies (2001): 308

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rebellion and anger led to their critical pathologisation),12 it is somewhat inclusive of female musicians, offering ‘a cultural space in which they are more likely to achieve success and prestige’.13 If women are more likely to be attacked for lacking credibility, but are also pathologised for ‘masculine’ rebellion, might indie music offer a middle ground in which it is possible to be both feminine and authentic, and thus escape gender discrimination in the press? I suggest that the reality is more complex, and that forms of sexism are rife in all corners of the music press which are not necessarily accounted for by the studies discussed above. This essay represents an exploration of gendered criticism through a close case-study of Joanna Newsom, an artist who I believe, despite her critical acclaim and perceived intellectualism, has nonetheless become a target for more subtle (and thus arguably even more dangerous and insidious) forms of gender discrimination in the music press than those Davies and Leonard explore.

Newsom is an American singer-songwriter, harpist and keyboard player active within the American ‘freak-folk’ movement (a circle of indie musicians whose writing is both technically challenging and informed by traditional folk music).14 Over the course of the last decade, she has released three EPs: Walnut Whales (2002) Yarn and Glue (2003) and Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band (2007), and three albums: The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004), Ys (2006), featuring arrangements by Van Dyke Parks, known for his work with the Beach Boys, and Have One On Me (2010), a triple CD totalling three hours in duration.15 16 She is classically-trained in her instruments and has studied composition at a university level;17 her harp-playing is virtuosic, and she tends to write extended-form, tonally unstable songs eschewing typical verse-chorus structures. In this respect she exemplifies the kind of intellectual woman Davies suggests is likely to be considered highly credible and authentic. Newsom is not openly aggressive or rebellious, and appears to enjoy visually performing normative femininity in her live shows (‘I love polka dots, peplums...high heels, wide belts’, she states regarding her onstage dress sense in an interview with BOMB Magazine journalist Roy Harper).18 As such, criticism of her tends not to resemble the open hostility outlined by Davies and Leonard, and indeed her music is widely lauded and seemingly well-respected by the music press, which Davies implies is unusual.19 This might suggest, then, that she has transgressed many of the boundaries operating against women in the industry. However, I argue that both Newsom’s femininity and her technical skill paradoxically work against her in gendered terms even as they rescue her from hostile misogyny, simultaneously highlighting alternative forms of sexism in music criticism which may be harder to identify and, perhaps, suggesting that there is no position a female artist can occupy which will not leave her open to gender-based discrimination.

12 Leonard (2007): 63 13 Ibid: 44 14 See Remmert (2011) 15 See Newsom (2002); (2004); (2006); (2007); (2010) 16 Drag City (2012) 17 Howe (2006) 18 Harper (2011): 14 19 Davies (2001): 309

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Davies suggests that few musicians openly admit to feminist beliefs, even if their music is feminist in nature, since identifying as such invites critical abuse which ‘can be harmful to a female performer’s career’.20 Newsom, accordingly, has not labelled herself a feminist, but I suggest nonetheless that her work explores gendered and feminist themes.21 Prior to examining Newsom’s critical reception, my first chapter will analyse instances of gendered themes in her songs, proposing that Newsom may be considered a feminist musician. My second chapter will examine perhaps the most pervasive tendency in criticism of Newsom, namely her construction as an ‘enchanted’ figure and positioning as a goddess, or ‘deification’. Despite complimentary appearances, I argue these tropes represent a ‘benevolently sexist’ form of discrimination as dangerous as it is subtle, which possesses implications for other highly-skilled, feminine women in the music industry.22 My third chapter considers critiques of Newsom’s harp-playing in the context of the instrument’s gendered musical history, which is also fraught with benevolent sexism. I contend that Newsom’s use of the harp represents a feminist resignification of the instrument’s perceived femininity which is often disregarded by critics. My fourth chapter examines Newsom’s voice, which is highly unusual and subject to harsh criticism more closely resembling the hostility outlined by Davies and Leonard; that this hostility often emerges amid positive reviews suggests that critical tendencies to ignore Newsom’s subversion and resignification of femininity emerge not from ignorance of her feminist agenda, but from fear of the threat she poses to the male-dominated music industry. My final chapter considers alternative critical resources, facilitated by the Internet, which offer a feminist perspective on Newsom’s work, proposing that they may represent a route out of the music industry’s default masculine subject position.

Through a detailed case-study of a single artist, then, this essay explores broad issues of critical sexism, particularly in forms which may be harder to identify, and thus to uproot, than those Davies and Leonard describe. My study will address both print and electronic media produced by both professional and amateur journalists, since the sexist critical tendencies I located were engaged in by critics writing in various contexts, with the clear exception of the feminist critics discussed in my fifth chapter. Ultimately, I suggest that a woman in the music industry must inevitably fight harder than her male counterparts for fair criticism, but that the seeds have been sown for a new order of explicitly feminist critics and musicians who might aim to redress the balance; in doing so, a more inclusive cultural space might be opened up for women in the music industry, which in turn has the potential to influence gender equality in wider society.

20 Ibid: 310 21 Marturano (2011) 22 See Glick and Fiske (1996): 491

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I: Gender and Feminism in Joanna Newsom’s Lyrics

Many of Newsom’s songs address specifically gendered issues in their lyrics, which I suggest should be examined prior to considering critical responses to her work. This chapter will analyse instances of recurring gendered themes in Newsom’s corpus, and will ultimately position her as a feminist musician, despite the fact that she has not openly identified as such in interviews. Since Newsom’s corpus is substantial, and this essay’s goal is not primarily analytical in nature, my explorations will be necessarily brief; it is also worth noting that the abstract and poetic nature of many of Newsom’s lyrics render any study of meaning in her work highly subjective. I nonetheless believe, however, that her work strongly expresses a complex and nuanced relationship with female power and oppression which is fundamentally feminist in nature; the following represents an exploration of a subject which I believe is a crucial thematic feature of Newsom’s work.

Control and Power

The gendered power dynamic (particularly as it relates to women) may be considered a primary feminist concern, and emerges as a theme several times throughout Newsom’s corpus. Perhaps the most obvious example of Newsom’s consideration of female power is ‘The Book of Right-On’: its narrator is an alpha-female whose ‘fighting fame is fabled’.23 She claims to dominate over the men in her ‘pack’, and even when, as in sexual congress, she might be expected to be tender, she takes the opportunity to assert control (‘even when you touch my face/you know your place’).24 The song may be read from a feminist perspective as a utopian denial of patriarchy, in which the usual gendered social order is inverted, deconstructing ideals of feminine passivity. Most of Newsom’s songs adopt a less extreme perspective, but nonetheless explore gendered power dynamics: Have One On Me’s ‘Go Long’, which explores the power differential of a heterosexual relationship, is an intriguing example. The song’s narrator is sexually and aesthetically objectified by her lover, passively ‘brought in on a palanquin’, and repeatedly makes reference to ‘mighty men’, underscoring her own female powerlessness25. However, she also expresses frustration at her lover’s autonomy (‘who will take care of you when you’re old and dying?’), and positions her gender as instrumental in dissolving the emotional divide between them (‘what a woman does is open doors’).26 Although Newsom’s narrator is at her lover’s mercy, then, she also possesses control over his own position within their relationship, and it is she who possesses the power to break down boundaries between them. The song is structured around an ornate duet between Newsom’s harp and a West African kora, which seemingly duel with one another; initially the kora appears to dominate, but by the song’s close the two have begun to meld and are occasionally indiscernible. My third chapter will propose that Newsom’s harp is constructed as symbolic of her femininity; if this is so, this duet may be read as a musical allegory for a gendered power struggle.

23 Newsom (2004): ‘The Book of Right-On’ 24 Ibid 25 Newsom (2010): ‘Go Long’ 26 Ibid

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As a songwriter, much of Newsom’s own ability to exert control over her listeners is through language; her song ‘Colleen’ directly addresses the connections between language and power. ‘Colleen’ relates the tale of a being (presumably non-human) from the sea, who is taken in by a community of land-dwellers after awaking amnesic on a beach. The name she is given, Colleen, comes from the Gaelic Cailin, and means simply ‘woman’;27 her entire identity is thus reduced to her gender by the language imposed upon her, since she knows nothing about herself. Colleen is expected to partake in nurturing the land, but ‘overwaters everything’, and possesses desires for the ocean which she cannot articulate verbally due to her memory loss.28 In a dream, she encounters a whale, but is unable to name or recognise it, her perception of the world and inability to influence her own fate hinging on her lack of language. When she asks the whale’s name, it responds with ‘He-Who-Can-Easily-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky’; this name’s descriptiveness (starkly contrasting Colleen’s own given name) affords a sudden change in her, restoring her memory of the sea and leading her to reject the identity imposed upon her. ‘I don’t know any goddamned “Colleen”, she asserts, refusing to define herself by her womanhood alone, and follows the whale back to the sea, where she ultimately finds peace.29 In reacquiring and using her old language, Colleen also regains her power and freedom beyond the identity forced on her by the land-dwellers. Throughout this essay I will note critics’ keenness to construct Newsom as passively feminine. By repeatedly addressing issues of female empowerment and oppression in her lyrics, Newsom rejects her imposed passivity just as Colleen does; in this way, she actively destabilises the male-dominated, patriarchal nature of the music industry, and may thus be considered a feminist musician.

Fertility and Motherhood

Although Newsom is childless, several of her songs address motherhood and fertility. Most explicitly, ‘Baby Birch’ apparently concerns the loss of a child, and opens with a passage in which the narrator describes a baby she will ‘never know’ in amorphous terms, suggesting the child’s ephemerality: ‘your eyes are green, your hair is gold/your hair is black, your eyes are blue’.30 The song’s final section sees the narrator catching a rabbit, which she holds ‘kicking and mewling, upended, unspooling, unsung and blue’;31 ‘kicking and mewling’ both evoke an infant, while ‘upended’ recalls the practice of holding a newborn upside-down after birth to induce crying.32 ‘Unspooling, unsung and blue’, however, all possess darker connotations, and might, as some critics have averred, regard a stillbirth or abortion.33 Feminism has historically defined abortion rights as integral to gender equality, and given my positioning of Newsom as a feminist musician, the song’s

27 Hutson (1947): 18 28 Newsom (2007): ‘Colleen’ 29 Ibid 30 Newsom (2010): ‘Baby Birch’ 31 Ibid 32 Atlee (1954): 227 33 See Alexander (2011); Weiner (2010)

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sorrowful tone may be surprising;34 certainly, the repeated line ‘I hated to close the door on you’ suggests regret at the child’s loss.35 Despite her sadness, however, the line ‘I don’t want your dregs/a little baby fussing all over my legs’ implies that the narrator may have made a conscious decision not to give birth. The song closes with the line ‘be at peace, baby, and be gone’, suggesting that the narrator has come to terms with her decision, despite her sorrow at the loss of her potential child.36 I propose, then, that ‘Baby Birch’ is ultimately pro-choice, but also that it seems to depict a conflict between the pull of motherhood and the desire for autonomy.

This ambivalence towards birth re-emerges throughout Newsom’s corpus: the narrator of ‘Emily’ searches ‘for a midwife/who can help me/help me find my way back in’, positioning herself as a symbolic infant wishing to return to the pre-birth state.37 The conflict between the desire to birth (or to be birthed) and not to birth is echoed transparently in the chorus of The Milk-Eyed Mender’s ‘Sprout and the Bean’, asking repeatedly ‘should we go outside?’38 ‘Sprout and the Bean’ is replete with imagery recalling gestation and birth (indeed, its very title might recall the process of gestation and growth): ‘water running clear beneath a white throat’ may refer to birthing fluid; the ‘white coat’ drawing near the narrator might be construed as a medic or midwife; and the ‘hollow tapping of...the tadpoles’ may evoke the moment of fertilisation.39 Newsom’s fascination with childbirth is clear here, but the ambivalence of ‘should we go outside?’ epitomises her unstable attitude towards motherhood. A potentially enlightening alternative reading of ‘Sprout and the Bean’ is also possible in light of the lines ‘the difference between/the sprout and the bean/is a golden ring/it is a twisted string’ and ‘should we break some bread?/Are y’interested?’, which I propose might refer to marriage:40 the ‘golden ring’ could clearly represent the wedding band, while the knotting of a scarf by newlyweds is a Mexican custom, and breaking bread forms a central ritual of Greek Orthodox weddings.41 42 As such, the development of the ‘sprout’ into the ‘bean’ may represent both the birth of an infant, and the birth of the narrator into adulthood through marriage. In this respect, the uncertain attitude to childbirth which many of Newsom’s lyrics express may also represent ambivalence towards adult womanhood.

Femininity

Newsom’s own gender presentation adopts several characteristics identified by gender theorists as stereotypically feminine: she is long-haired, usually fully-made-up, and often wears high-fashion

34 See LeGates (2001): 363-364 35 Newsom (2010): ‘Baby Birch’ 36 Ibid 37 Newsom (2006): ‘Emily’ 38 Newsom (2004): ‘Sprout and the Bean’ 39 Ibid 40 Ibid 41Gutiérrez y Muhs (2001): 136 42 Bramen (2010):

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clothing, usually skirts and dresses.43 44 Her chosen accompanimental instrument, the harp, also connotes femininity, and will be explored in this respect in this essay’s third chapter.45 Feminist theorist Judith Butler suggests that gender norms are culturally-imposed rather than essential, and that femininity and masculinity are actively ‘performed’ by a subject:46 conforming to expected norms renders a subject socially ‘intelligible’, so that a woman performing femininity reinforces perceptions of women as innately feminine, further perpetuating gender norms.47 Butler considers reifying gender in this way to be ‘contrary to feminist aims’, and as such Newsom’s performance of femininity might be read to be at odds with my positioning of her as a feminist.48 I propose, however, that Newsom’s lyrics negotiate both the complex privileges and pitfalls of femininity, outlining its potential for coexistence with feminist empowerment.

Certainly, some of Newsom’s lyrics appear to address the oppressive potential of femininity under patriarchy, for instance ‘Monkey and Bear’, which tackles repressive feminine performativity through a complex metaphor. Ursala, the titular bear, wears ‘fancy clothes’ which are described in detail, suggesting an interest in fashion which is coded by gender theorists Caroline Evans and Minna Thornton as typically feminine;49 50 media professor Myra Macdonald proposes that adorning the body as Ursala does is intrinsically linked to feminine performativity, ‘shaping and moulding what it means to be “feminine”’;51 as such, I suggest that Ursala’s clothes may represent feminine performativity in the context of Newsom’s song. Ursala performs, too, in a literal sense, to a crowd for an organ-grinder; yet the fact that she must be coaxed by her companion the monkey to ‘dance, darling’ implies that her performance of femininity is not wholly consensual or freely chosen.52 Ursala ultimately escapes from captivity; as she does so, she literally steps clear of her own skin which becomes blurred with her clothing (her fur is described as a ‘gown’), suggesting her liberation also includes shedding the trappings of feminine performance. The shed parts of her anatomy are themselves described in gendered terms: her belly is compared to an ‘apron’, a garment associated with the traditionally female activity of housework; her shoulders are ‘lowered in a genteel curtsy’, a gesture traditionally representing a female alternative to the male bow;53 and her legs are ‘like knobby garters’, garments best-known for their use in bridal wear.54 55 The fact that Ursala’s body is 43 For further exploration of the physical norms of femininity, see Rose Weitz (2001): 667-686; Lichtenstein 1987: 77-87 44 in an interview with Lula magazine, Newsom states that she ‘almost always wears dresses on stage rather than jeans or

pants’, actively favouring feminine iconography over the masculine or neutral. Sanders (2010): n.p. 45 See Gross (1992): 30-43; (1993): 28-46 46 Butler (1990): 172-177 47 Ibid: 23-24 48 Ibid: 5 49 Newsom (2006): ‘Monkey and Bear’ 50 Evans and Thornton (1991): 48 51 Macdonald (1995): 193-4 52 Newsom (2006): ‘Monkey and Bear’ 53 Armstrong and Wagner (2003): 7 54 Gillis (1985): 34 55 Newsom (2006): ‘Monkey and Bear’

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blurred with her clothing may indicate, as gender theorist Hillevi Gannetz suggests, that gender norms are a sufficiently culturally-embedded social process that they are ‘impossible to get on or off at will’;56 Ursala may feel trapped by femininity, but also thoroughly embodies it. At the close of the song, she continues to dance, and retains her ‘threadbare coat’, suggesting that she has not fully escaped feminine performance. Yet she remains hopeful, convincing herself that ‘sooner or later you’ll bear your teeth’ just as Butler argues that, despite the cultural pervasiveness of notions of essential gender identity, deconstructing them may ultimately allow for the increased mobility of gender roles.57

Crucially, Newsom does not invariably depict femininity as a trap. Have One On Me’s final track, ‘Does Not Suffice’, sees the narrator collect up items of feminine clothing described in detail in a manner akin to the description of Ursala’s clothes: ‘pretty dresses’, ‘high-heeled shoes’ and ‘sparkling rings’.58 These items may be construed to be signifiers of oppression: ‘sparkling rings’ might recall marriage, an institution deemed oppressive by many feminists, while high-heeled shoes have been critiqued both, as feminist authors Bell et al describe, for restricting women’s movement, and for physically damaging their feet and spines.59 60 Newsom’s narrator, however, lovingly protects the items in question, ‘wrap(ping) it all up in reams of tissue’, suggesting a fondness for femininity which is not present in ‘Monkey and Bear’. As ‘Does Not Suffice’ unfolds, we learn the narrator’s relationship has dissolved; viewing her possessions as symbols ‘of how easy I was not’, the process of repossessing them from her partner may represent a reappropriation of her own subjectivity; despite their coded femininity, Newsom’s narrator views them as symbols of her own complex humanity. This nuanced attitude to femininity is, I suggest, crucial to an understanding of Newsom’s work as a feminist text. Theorist Stephanie Genz proposes the existence of a postmodern female archetype which she labels the ‘postfeminist woman’, who ‘blurs the binary distinctions between feminism and femininity’, ultimately becoming ‘both feminine and feminist at the same time’;61 this may be a useful lens through which to view Newsom’s work. The coexistence of female power with femininity is present throughout Newsom’s corpus, although ‘Monkey and Bear’ shows that it does not go unproblematised; Genz suggests that balancing feminism and femininity with may prove challenging to the postfeminist woman, and certainly ‘Monkey and Bear’ illustrates the ‘self-doubt and despair’ which Genz proposes may emerge from such a position.62 Nonetheless, I contend that Newsom’s songs successfully balance a fundamentally feminist conviction in female power with a fondness for feminine performance despite acknowledging the frustrations entailed therein, positioning her as a musician who addresses feminist topics from a specifically postfeminist perspective.

56 Ganetz (2011): 415 57 Butler (1990): 148 58 Newsom (2010): ‘Does Not Suffice’ 59 Awofeso (2002): 257-270 60 Bell et al (1994): 11 61 Genz (2010): 106 62 Ibid: 99

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Female Sexuality

‘Only Skin’, from Ys, possesses perhaps the most frank approach to sexuality of any of Newsom’s songs, describing an encounter between the narrator and her lover in which she expresses surprise at his ‘awfully real gun’, and urges him to ‘see what you anointed in pointing your gun there’;63 psychologist Calvin Hall suggests that firearms are a conventionalised phallic symbol within psychoanalytic literature, representing explosive male sexuality, rendering this passage’s meaning clear.64 However, ‘Only Skin’ also acknowledges the social dangers of participating in sexual congress as a woman. The song’s middle section sees the narrator travelling to her lover, ‘candy weighing both of my pockets down’, and describing herself as ‘the happiest woman among all women’; however, she finds that ‘the common-folk condemn/what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm/being a woman, being a woman’. Just as the candy she carries is sweet, yet burdens her pockets, so the joy the narrator finds in sexual congress (for which ‘keeping [her lover] warm’ is presumably a euphemism) becomes a burden when those around her condemn it. Penelope Eckert proposes a gendered asymmetry in the judgement of sexual behaviour: sexually active women, she claims, are judged negatively as ‘sluts’, while their male counterparts are upheld as ‘studs’;65 Newsom’s narrator appears to consider ‘being a woman’ to be part and parcel of her condemnation, suggesting an awareness of this gendered imbalance. However, I also suggest that the wording of the line positions her sexuality as a natural aspect of womanhood, so that ‘being a woman’ is, in itself, what permits the narrator to ‘keep (her lover) warm’. ‘Only Skin’ both positions female sexuality as natural, and acknowledges the negative judgement it often receives.

The burden of feminine sexuality is also present in Have One On Me’s title track, which tells the story of Lola Montez, a nineteenth-century courtesan and dancer famed for her affair with King Ludwig I of Bavaria.66 Lola, like the narrator of ‘Only Skin’, is criticised for her sexual behaviour by ‘lines of whispering Jesuits’;67 Newsom has openly stated in interviews that she identifies with Montez’s resistance against these gendered judgements, stating that she finds parallels ‘between what I do as a profession and what it meant to be a female artist at that time...I was noting the intersections between being a courtesan or a whore, and these professions that were socially looked down upon...(but) were basically creative’.68 Newsom’s identification of her own career with Montez’s, and her implication that female creativity is judged in similarly harsh gendered terms to female sexuality, suggests that she is fully aware of her own hard-to-negotiate position as a woman in the music industry, which I will explore throughout the rest of this essay. Despite her often poetic turns of phrase, several of Newsom’s lyrics resemble no less than an outpouring of passion, with lines such as ‘I only want for you to pull over and hold me ‘til I can’t remember my own name’ from Good Intentions Paving Company reminding the listener of woman’s potential for powerful sexual

63 Newsom (2006): ‘Only Skin’ 64 Hall (1953): 171 65 Eckert (2003): 386 66 Empire (2010) 67 Newsom (2010): ‘Have One On Me’ 68 Rogers (2010)

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impulses.69 As Newsom’s work examines the implications and pressures of female sexuality in a patriarchal society, it also considers and explores its potential for joy and power.

Ultimately, I propose that Newsom’s engagement with issues of femininity, womanhood and female empowerment clearly suggest her to be a fundamentally feminist musician, though she has never explicitly labelled herself as such, presumably due to the risks of critical scorn which Davies suggests feminist identification often provokes.70 I believe that Newsom’s work argues in favour of the postfeminist coexistence of femininity and female empowerment, eschewing absolutism and essentialism and instead acknowledging both the power and oppressions entailed by womanhood. Throughout the rest of this essay, I will consider how Newsom’s gender, performed femininity, and engagement with feminist topics in her work lead to her criticism in specifically gendered and frequently outright sexist terms, as well as how this criticism reflects or conflicts with the issues raised by her own music.

69 Newsom (2010): ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’ 70 Davies (2001): 310

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II: Enchantment, Deification, and Benevolent Sexism in Criticism of Joanna Newsom

I have, I hope, established my belief that feminist themes are identifiable in Newsom’s musical output, despite the fact that she has never personally identified as a feminist in an interview. By positioning herself as a postfeminist woman, Newsom can express feminist beliefs in her lyrics even as she performs femininity onstage, allowing her to avoid the pathologisation Reynolds and Press suggest more masculine, aggressive female performers are often targeted by.71 Simultaneously, however, her literary lyrics, instrumental skill and profoundly complex song structures all aid in constructing her as intellectual, crucial to her perceived credibility according to Davies: she is frequently described as ‘eloquent’,72 73 ‘virtuosic’74 and ‘impressive’,75 suggesting that she is regarded as credible and authentic despite her femininity. This, according to Davies, is a significant feat; yet has Newsom truly escaped the sexist denigration which she claims pervades the music press?

Certainly, Newsom is largely critically lauded; my research located very few unambiguously negative reviews of her work. However, I suggest that certain sexist tendencies recur in critical responses to Newsom’s work which are more subtle than those explored by Davies and Leonard. This chapter will examine the cultural origins of one particular critical trope, consisting of two parts, which pervades throughout reviews of Newsom’s work. My research repeatedly found Newsom referred to as non-human, a supernatural being: Alexis Swerdloff of Papermag describes her as a ‘wood nymph clad in Sonia Rykiel’;76 Jude Rogers as ‘otherworldly...a fairy, a pixie’;77 blogger Julia Baldini as a ‘forest fairy’;78 Jean Khut of Girly Bubble as a ‘wood nymph’;79 Seattle Weekly’s Erin Thompson as a ‘fabulous harp fairy’;80 music blogger Cole Nielsen as a ‘crazy woodland sprite’.81 Simultaneously, Newsom is considered in touch with nature: I included two instances of the ‘wood nymph’ moniker above because it was by far the most common supernatural descriptor of her, positioning her both as a fairytale ‘nymph’ and referencing the natural habitat from which she is seen to originate (Nielsen’s ‘woodland sprite’ label operates similarly). Flavorwire’s Judy Berman states that Newsom ‘[gave me] the idea that she woke up every morning in...a forest clearing, nuzzling a deer and singing to the swallows’;82 ‘otherworldly’ she may be, but Newsom is perceived as profoundly connected with nature and the earth. As such, Newsom is constructed as supernatural and

71 Reynolds and Press (1995): 269 72 Paul (2008) 73 Howe (2006) 74 Tedder (2010) 75 Lacey (2011) 76 Swerdloff (2008) 77 Rogers (2010) 78 Baldini (2010) 79 Khut (2010) 80 Thompson (2010) 81 Nielsen (2010) 82 Berman (2010)

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therefore unnatural, but also as more in touch with the natural world than any human. I will henceforth refer to this dual critical tendency, of naturalness and supernaturalness, as the ‘enchantment’ discourse.83

What might be the origins of this trope? Except for ‘Colleen’, in which the narrator is an aquatic being forced into human society, and ‘Monkey and Bear’, in which the protagonists are animals, all of Newsom’s characters appear to be human; certainly no wood nymphs or fairies are present. The enchantment discourse’s nature component is perhaps easier to find a lyrical provocation for than its supernatural component, since several of Newsom’s songs are rooted in nature: Ys’s ‘Emily’ invokes ‘the meadowlark...the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow’;84 ‘Only Skin’ describes a ‘twisting and braiding’ river;85 ‘’81’ details the creation of a ‘garden of Eden’ in which the narrator lies ‘naked as a trout’, communing with the earth in a manner recalling Berman’s ‘forest clearing’ image.86 However, Newsom’s lyrics tackle the urban world as frequently as the natural one: in the second line of ‘Only Skin’, the image of ‘black airplanes...over the sea’ is invoked, juxtaposing the natural world with the man-made;87 the cryptic ‘Kingfisher’ describes the process and aftermath of an atomic bombing, while ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’ sees the narrator on a car journey with her lover.88 Seemingly, critics tend to amplify the natural over the urban references in Newsom’s work.

Certainly, non-gendered origins for this tendency exist. One possible explanation is Newsom’s positioning within the folk-influenced ‘freak-folk’ movement; as folklorist Philip Bohlman points out, folk musics have historically been perceived by theorists as connected with nature.89 However, when I began exploring criticism of male freak-folk artists such as Devendra Banhart and Sufjan Stevens, the enchantment discourse seemed markedly absent. A single review labelled Banhart a ‘wood nymph with ear hair’, a description whose bathos arguably undoes the romanticism of the ‘wood nymph’ moniker.90 Conversely, Kevin Friedman’s Oregon Live review of avant-rock artist Shara Worden’s project My Brightest Diamond labels Worden, Kate Bush, Bjork and Newsom as ‘forest nymphs’ who ‘conjure worlds of sound that wouldn’t...sound out of place in a Tolkein realm’.91 These artists arguably share fewer stylistic similarities with Newsom than does Banhart, with whom Newsom has toured and collaborated;92 all, however, are marked by their

83The term ‘enchantment’ is borrowed from Paytress (2010): 46-49, in which Newsom herself briefly queries the

gendered origins of the word when asked if she struggles to reconcile the ‘enchanted realm of creativity’ with everyday

life: she describes it as ‘very coded...very female-specific that I don’t necessarily love’. 84 Newsom (2006): ‘Emily’ 85 Ibid: ‘Only Skin’ 86 Ibid (2010): ‘’81’ 87 Ibid (2006): ‘Only Skin’ 88 See Ibid (2010): ‘Kingfisher’; ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’ 89 Bohlman (1988): 7 90 Purdum (2009) 91 Friedman (2011) 92 Breihan (2009)

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positions as gendered minorities, as female artists creating music challenging enough to render them credible.

How, then, might gender contribute to the enchantment discourse? Psychoanalyst Ruth Moulton suggests that the archetype of the ‘Earth mother’, a ‘source of life’, is invariably positioned as feminine, perhaps accounting for critics’ tendency to amplify the natural imagery in Newsom’s work.93 Sociologist Melissa Leach suggests the Earth mother’s construction as feminine may result from the belief that women are essentially more in touch with nature, possibly due to pre-feminist social expectations that the female partner will provide childcare.94 English Literature professor Nicola Bown offers a possible gendered source for the enchantment discourse’s supernatural component in Victorian fairytales: fairies, she claims, are usually female, representing the ‘perfect epithet’ for Victorian femininity: they are ‘diminutive in relation to men, magical in their unavailability, of delicate constitution, playful rather than earnest’.95 She notes that, while male Victorian authors seemed preoccupied with fairies, they are near-absent from women’s writing, representing ‘a metaphor for everything feminism was struggling to rescue women from’.96 Although Victorian fairies were desirable and delicate, they were also shallow and powerless compared to humans (and thus men). As such, although comparing female musicians with fairies appears flattering, it may also operate as a method of symbolically disempowering them.

Such a reading potentially problematises the enchantment discourse. However, this seems a far cry from the ‘vitriol’ and overt sexualisation Davies describes, and indeed Newsom’s construction as enchanted frequently occurs within positive, even passionate responses to her work.97 Artist Jessie Bowie’s engagement with Newsom takes the form of watercolour portraits of the musician, depicting her face atop the bodies of various animals.98 The resultant chimeras epitomise the enchantment paradigm: as an animal, Newsom is depicted as literally one with nature, yet also otherworldly, even disturbing. Bowie’s paintings are not tongue-in-cheek caricatures; their realistic detail must represent many hours of effort, and they number in double figures, suggesting a near-obsessive component to Bowie’s work. It is not uncommon for Newsom’s fans to idolise her for her constructed enchantedness: an extreme version of this obsessive form of the enchantment discourse represents Newsom as goddess-like, a trope I will henceforth refer to as ‘deification’. Newsom is frequently outright labelled ‘a goddess’ by her fans, suggesting she is not only outside of humanity, but transcends it, in contrast to the ridiculing Davies suggests is common for female musicians. The Chicago Tribune’s M. David Nichols dubs Newsom a ‘harp goddess’, while Fader Magazine’s Matthew Schnipper records an instance in one of her live performances of an audience member shouting out ‘what’s it like being a goddess?’99 100 Blogger John Cruz’s review of ‘Baby Birch’

93 Moulton (1972): 188 94 Leach (2007): 67 95 Bown (2001): 14 96 Ibid 97 Davies (2001): 310 98 Bowie (2012) 99 Nichols (2008)

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opens with the sentence ‘Let’s get straight to the point because there really is no denying it: Joanna Newsom is a damn goddess’, treating her deification as axiomatic.101 This tendency is so pervasive that it has sparked a parody website, ‘Joanna Newsom Is Perfect’, aiming to ‘make jokes about how amazing (Newsom) is and how seriously some people take her’.102 The blog posts images of Newsom featuring deliberately overblown captions such as ‘Joanna Newsom is the creator of all rainbows’, and (captioning a concert photo) ‘That isn’t a spotlight...Joanna Newsom just naturally radiates light’.103 104 It therefore taps into, and duly exaggerates, the tendency to simultaneously represent Newsom as a supernatural being (who ‘radiates light’) and as an ‘Earth mother’ archetype (labelling her the ‘creator of all rainbows’).

Given the positive nature of this tendency, need it necessarily be construed as sexist, as I have implied? One potentially empowering origin for the enchantment discourse’s nature component is the worship of ‘mother-goddess’ figures. According to anthropologist Andrew Fleming, this tradition dates back to the megalithic period, positioning women as the ‘mothers of all creation’, and connecting women as creators of children to goddesses as creators of mankind.105 A corresponding supernatural reading is indicated by eighteenth-century historian Thomas Keightley’s theory that fairy belief originates in ‘heathen religion’, with fairies as the vestiges of ancient deities who once animated the world.106 The deification narrative’s connection to the enchantment discourse also complicates it; constructing Newsom as a goddess does not disempower her as Bown considers fairies to disempower women, positioning her instead as a powerful creator. This appears quite at odds with the sexism that Davies claims to be rife within music criticism. Indeed, sociomusicologist Linda Lister suggests that the deification of female musicians is a common tendency bearing roots in ancient goddess-worship, which may even be interpreted as a feminist act. Lister claims that postmodern culture is pervaded by a cult of celebrity, which is largely enacted by women seeking role-models ‘both to deify and emulate’.107 This process, Lister argues, is ‘a form of goddess-worship, of women celebrating the parts of themselves they can see in their female idols’, operating as a mode of empowerment which ‘enables both the worshipped and worshipper’.108 Certainly, many of Newsom’s fans engaging in deification, particularly in the context of social networks rather than professional media outlets, appear to be young and female.109 According to Frith and McRobbie,

100 Schnipper (2010): Newsom reportedly deflected the question, saying ‘if we all write to Dolly Parton, maybe we’ll find

out’. 101 Cruz (2010) 102 Joanna Newsom Is Perfect (2011) 103 Ibid: ‘Why are there so many songs about rainbows?’ 104 Ibid: ‘That isn’t a spotlight’ 105 Fleming (1969): 247 106 Keightley (1850) 2-3 107 Lister (2001): 8 108 Ibid 109 The highly active and dynamically-updating ‘Joanna Newsom’ tag page on the social networking site Tumblr appears

to be primarily populated with younger women, many of whom engage in discourses of deification. See ‘Tumblr Tagged:

Joanna Newsom’ (2012)

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most pop music aimed at female fans aims to ‘repress (their) sexuality’;110 in this respect Newsom’s deification may be considered a response to her lyrical explorations of female sexuality and power, and, potentially, as an act of self-empowerment amongst her fans by positioning her as a role model.

In reality, I propose that the enchantment discourse is intrinsically polysemic in nature, and bears overtones of sexism alongside its potential for empowerment. Since most professional critics deifying and labelling Newsom as enchanted are male, self-empowerment is presumably not the sole origin of this tendency, although it may be a contributing factor amongst younger female critics. Writer Tim Kahl’s essay, ‘Your Feyness’, in the book Visions of Joanna Newsom, represents an extreme example of problematic deification:111 calling Newsom ‘your feyness’ throughout, Kahl documents his emotional responses to her work, querying her ‘supernatural powers’, and suggesting her voice (which I will discuss in a later chapter) may be ‘visited upon [her]...from some kind of gently castrated wizard’.112 Notably, Kahl uses Newsom’s construction as supernatural to objectify her, stating:

‘There is a strange, murky moon essence about you. You look equally at ease in both fur and floral prints, but there is a part of me (not completely impure) that would like to see you in more headbands or in other exotic head coverings...I discover that large portions of my Tuesday are given over to thinking about what you would look like in a toque, fez, or bonnet.’113

Kahl’s analysis is frequently overtly sexual, claiming Newsom’s songs lead him to ‘conceptualise...that I am up to the task of interfaith and interspecies breeding’, and comparing his perception of her to ‘a middle-aged Japanese man who visits vending machines to...fetishize soiled schoolgirls’ panties’.114 In Kahl’s hands, Newsom becomes a passive subject of the controlling male gaze, and deification and enchantment become tools for objectification and sexualisation, in keeping with the sexualised representation of women that Davies identifies within the music press in relation to mainstream musicians.115

Certainly, the enchantment discourse may possess roots in objectification. Media practitioner Jordan Dalton traces the archetype of the otherworldly female (the enchantment discourse’s

110 Frith and McRobbie (1978): 380 111 Visions of Joanna Newsom is, in itself, a fine example of Newsom’s passionate fanbase: published by a small,

independent company, it essentially amounts to a series of tributes to Newsom created by fans (only some of whom are

professional authors), forming a kind of collectively-made biography without contribution from the artist herself.

Considering Newsom’s relatively short career, spanning less than a decade, and her continued signing to an independent

rather than a major label, I suggest that the book’s existence is testimony to the extent to which Newsom tends to be

deified by a comparatively small fanbase. 112 Kahl (2010): 476 113 Ibid: 478 114 Ibid 115 See Mulvey (1992): 839 for more information on the controlling nature of the male gaze.

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supernatural component) to ancient Greek sirens, dangerous yet sexually enticing femmes fatales.116 The siren represents the polar opposite of the responsible and loving Earth mother; while the Earth mother is a source of life, the siren brings death enacted through sexuality. I propose that this reading of the enchantment discourse’s binary division may represent a re-casting of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s ‘Madonna-whore’ complex, under which men are capable of viewing women either as saintly Madonnas (here, the life-giving, non-sexual Earth mother) or debased prostitutes (the supernatural femme fatale).117 Psychologists Florence Denmark and Michele Paludi suggest this complex is inherently misogynistic, as it offers two mutually exclusive ways to construct an identity;118 under this reading, the enchantment discourse appears similarly problematic, providing little scope for human subjectivity.

This reading of the enchantment discourse is remarkable for how it entirely disregards Newsom’s own explorations of motherhood and sexuality, as discussed in my previous chapter. Newsom’s ambivalence towards her own capacity for creating life, as well as her sexuality and femininity, suggest full recognition of the complexity of womanhood, powerful and wonderful but intensely dangerous and burdensome. The Madonna-whore dichotomy erases this, depriving Newsom of her subjectivity and apparently ignoring her music’s feminist content. Certainly, Newsom herself has stated that she does not condone her construction as enchanted, complaining that ‘if people ask a question...(assuming) I am a pixie, and then I have to respond...it validates the assumption’, suggesting she feels powerless to negate her own construction as enchanted by interviewers.119 This, perhaps, is the darker side of deification; despite elevating its subject, theorists John Hassard and Denis Pym suggest deification’s ultimate outcome is to ‘exempt (the subject) from basic human mortality’.120 The same is presumably true for the enchantment discourse: wood nymphs and mother-goddesses, after all, are not human. In this respect, enchantment and deification may be read as a form of outright misogyny; feminist author Catharine McKinnon’s book ‘Are Women Human?’ charts a history of gender-based denial of human rights, ultimately implying that patriarchy considers women subhuman.121 To dehumanise a woman by objectifying her on the basis of gender, then, may represent a re-enaction of a historical narrative which has denied women of their freedom for generations.

It appears, then, that criticism of Newsom’s work often ignores its feminist content and is not, after all, free from sexism. However, the positive tone of all the reviews discussed in this chapter contrasts with Davies’ assertions of outright ‘abuse’ and ‘ridicule’ of women in the music press.122 I suggest that much of the gendered criticism levelled against Newsom may be categorised as what psychologists Peter Glick and Susan Fiske label ‘benevolent sexism’.123 Sexism is defined by 116 Dalton (2010): 1 117 Hartmann (2009): 2332-2339 118 Denmark and Paludi (2993): 493-4 119 Rogers (2010) 120 Hassard and Pym (1990): 135 121 McKinnon (2006): 142 122 Davies (2001): 310 123 Glick and Fiske (1996): 491

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psychologist Gordon Allport as prejudice based on gender, manifest as hostility of the kind Davies discusses;124 Glick and Fiske label this tendency ‘hostile sexism’ specifically. Benevolent sexism is defined as ‘viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but (in a manner)...subjectively positive in feeling’.125 Glick and Fiske suggest that, despite the positive feelings benevolent sexism is often perceived to indicate, it is rooted in misogyny, and that ‘its consequences are often damaging’.126 The purpose of benevolent sexism, Glick and Fiske claim, is to ‘pacify women’s resistance to societal gender inequality’, which may account for tendencies to ignore the feminist content of Newsom’s work.127 They also suggest that benevolent sexism possesses ‘greater social acceptability’ than its hostile counterpart, permitting its insidiousness;128 it may be this that causes Davies to focus largely upon hostile sexism in their work, missing the more subtle effects of benevolent sexism on female performers.

The enchantment discourse, then, is as problematic as it is pervasive. It offers a means for Newsom’s fanbase to connect with her, allowing her to better serve as a role-model to young women by acting as a subject of idol-worship. However, it may also be considered a manifestation of benevolent sexism, objectifying and dehumanising her as well as erasing the complex subjectivity represented in her songs; that she clearly does not condone it also raises issues of consent. It is worth noting that whether the enchantment discourse is empowering or sexist at the point of reception cannot be neatly concluded upon, since criticism which constructs Newsom according to the enchantment discourse or which deifies her will ultimately be consumed by audience members from various demographics who may use it as a tool for objectification or self-empowerment; it is thus intrinsically polysemic and multifaceted. Newsom’s position as a gendered minority within the music industry leaves her susceptible both to othering and objectification, and to being upheld as a role-model; that the enchantment discourse is also applied to other skilled female musicians by critics such as Friedman regardless of musical genre or lyrical subject matter indicates benevolent sexism’s pervasiveness within the music industry, and, perhaps, wider society.

124 Allport (1954): 9 125 Glick and Fiske (1996): 491 126 Ibid: 492 127 Ibid (2001): 111 128 Ibid

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III: The Gendered History and Criticism of Joanna Newsom’s Harp

One possible origin for the benevolent sexism levelled against Newsom is the instrument used most frequently to accompany her songs, namely the harp. Although she is also a keyboard-player, Newsom is best-known as a harpist, with virtually every review of her work mentioning the instrument as central to her performances. The Guardian’s Vanessa Thorpe dubs her ‘a harpist...who also sings’, transparently consigning her vocals to a secondary position.129 I suggest that Newsom’s harp is particularly pertinent in the context of its historical role as a gendered signifier, which may shed light upon Newsom’s simultaneous critical acclaim and frequent construction through benevolent sexism in popular media. I propose that the harp possesses an extensive history of use as a tool and signifier of benevolent sexism, and is consequently used to construct Newsom in terms of passivity and submissiveness. I also argue, however, that she has reappropriated and resignified the instrument in a postfeminist manner, as a feminine vehicle for feminist music, but that this is frequently ignored by critics.

Musicologists Jacqueline Letzler and Robert Adelson suggest that ‘for feminine decency, no instrument could compete with the harp’.130 This stereotype persists to the present day; psychologist Kenneth Cramer’s research into gender stereotyping of musicians found the harp to be strongly associated with femininity, while music education researchers Judith Delzell and David Leppla found that, of nineteen commonly-played instruments, the harp was considered the most feminine.131 132 The harp appears, then, to be a powerful feminine signifier, which may explain child psychologist Susan Hallam’s findings that ninety percent of school-aged harpists are female.133 The origins of the harp’s perceived femininity are examined in performer Olga Gross’s article ‘Gender and the Harp’, which traces the instrument’s gendered history from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.134 Sexual stereotyping of instruments, according to musicologist Carol Neuls-Bates, began in the Renaissance, when Gross suggests the harp was one of only a few instruments desirable for women to play; it was feared that most instruments’ physical requirements might spoil their ‘proper demeanor’.135 Gross quotes sixteenth-century author Baldesar Castiglioni, who remarks upon the ‘ungainly sight... (of) a woman playing drums, fifes, trumpets...their stridency buries...the sweet gentleness which embellishes everything a woman does’.136 Indeed, in contrast to the critical discourses surrounding her voice (which will be discussed in my next chapter), critics often focus upon the beauty and gentleness of Newsom’s harp-playing. Eric Martz of Minneapolis Fucking Rocks claims that her ‘gentle harp’ recalls ‘medieval music’;137 Tiny Mix Tapes’s Justin Spicer describes her harp as a

129 Thorpe (2010) 130 Letzler and Adelson (2001): 49 131 Cramer et al (2002): 161-74 132 Delzell and Leppla (1992): 93-103 133 Hallam (2008): 7-19 134 Gross (1992):30-33; Ibid (1993): 28-35 135 Neuls-Bates (1982): 223 136 Cited in ibid: 39 137 Martz (2010)

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‘pretty damsel’;138 independent reviewer Guy Peters claims that ‘her fingers...flutter over the strings with a butterfly’s light touch...the way she plucks those strings...is sheer bliss’ (also a clear example of the enchantment discourse).139 Recalling Castiglioni’s praising of ‘sweet gentleness’, these descriptions suggest the perceived femininity of Newsom’s playing contributes to her critical approval; that is, her demeanour is ‘proper’. Just as Newsom’s comparison to a fairy taps into misogynistic narratives of feminine passivity, so her harp-playing is praised for its conformance to patriarchal ideals of submissiveness.

Davies suggests that musicians who are normatively feminine are often attacked for lacking credibility, a narrative I have proposed is not generally used against Newsom due to her perceived intellectualism.140 Indeed, critics frequently dwell upon Newsom’s technical prowess in the harp, which I argue may stem from the instrument’s gendered history. In the nineteenth century, Gross explains, proficiency in the harp was considered a ‘feminine accomplishment’, replacing academic education to render a woman marriageable.141 ‘Accomplishment’ indicated status, provided one’s accomplishments were appropriately feminine; skill at the harp indicated culture, but was viewed as ‘innocent’ and ‘harmless’. Sociologist Mavis Bayton suggests that competent female guitarists’ skills are often belittled in media, since, by inhabiting a traditionally male role, they threaten gender boundaries.142 Conversely, Newsom’s classical training is often mentioned, alongside a frequently-retold story from her music camp’s harp teacher, Diana Stork. Stork claims that, aged twelve, Newsom resolved to master the two-handed polymetric patterns which are now central to her playing style, and spent hours ‘alone with her harp in the woods’, practicing to perfection.143 This anecdote’s critical appeal may bear roots in the enchantment discourse’s Earth mother component, but I posit that it is also linked to the gendered nature of Newsom’s instrument. The harp’s history is sufficiently feminine that although her skill renders her credible, it can be critically constructed as ‘women’s work’, posing no challenge to male musicians. As such, Newsom’s instrument helps her escape hostile criticism, but renders her a target for benevolently sexist construction as gentle and powerless.

Sociologist Erving Goffmann suggests that women’s presentation within visual media reflects and influences their perception in society, and that they are frequently physically positioned to code submissiveness. This process, in which the body becomes a text carrying socioculturally coded meanings, is referred to as ‘embodiment’.144 Men, Goffman suggests, are usually depicted grasping objects with their hands; women use only their fingers, touching objects delicately.145 The harp’s present-day feminine associations may, I contend, directly relate to its mechanics: supported by the body, the hands need not grasp it but are used to pluck the strings finger by finger, signifying 138 Spicer (2006) 139 Peters (2004) 140 Davies (2001): 301 141 Gross (1993): 28 142 Bayton (1997): 38 143 See Rosen (2010) 144 Goffman (1979): 252-3 145 Ibid: viii

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gentleness. Goffman also suggests that women are often depicted recumbent or in acquiescent poses; it is impractical, even impossible, to play the harp in a standing position. Gross states that the harp restricts motion of the torso and head, leaving only the limbs free to pluck the strings and press the pedals and ‘physically and symbolically binding’ the harpist.146 This might account for critical tendencies to label Newsom a ‘harpist’ first and foremost, prioritising the instrument at the expense of her voice and songwriting, and dehumanising her by conflation with an inanimate object.

Gross claims that the harp’s physical boundaries were not always only bodily. By the nineteenth century, the ideal female role was as the ‘guardian angel’ of a household, creating a home which was a ‘nook of heaven in an unheavenly world’; the world of work beyond the home was exclusively male territory.147 In Western art, the harp is frequently depicted being played by angels, and is described in D.F. Schubart’s 1839 Asthetik der Tonkunst as ‘spiritually elevated’;148 for this reason, Gross suggests, the harp signified heavenly domesticity. These connotations also served to keep women confined to the home, since playing professionally was viewed as a result of failure to marry.149 Women’s construction as angelic, then, served as the same kind of benevolent sexism as the discourses of deification and enchantment discussed in the second chapter of this essay, and it is perhaps unsurprising that several reviewers have described Newsom’s playing as ‘angelic’.150 In each case, the female subject is idealised while simultaneously being limited and controlled; the difference is that Newsom’s labelling as enchanted or angelic limits her symbolically, rather than physically confining her.

The harp’s gendered history, then, is problematic, and its legacy remains visible today in its use as a tool of benevolent sexism in the critical stereotyping of female harpists like Newsom. I established my belief in this essay’s first chapter that Newsom’s songs are fundamentally feminist in nature, and positioned her as a feminist musician. Yet according to Goffman and Gross, her choice of instrument codes passivity, is positioned as ‘women’s work’ in a male-dominated music industry, and restrains her physically and symbolically. Can the presentation of femininity as problematic and restrictive in ‘Monkey and Bear’, or the declarations of female power represented by ‘The Book of Right-On’, be reconciled with the submissive femininity apparently coded by Newsom’s instrument? I propose that Newsom actively subverts the harp’s gendered connotations in her work, reappropriating the instrument as a feminine vehicle for the feminist views represented in her lyrics, and resisting against critics who stereotype her as passive. Sociology professor Marie Buscatto notes that the emergence of professional female musicians is a recent phenomenon, dating from the twentieth century. Women, she suggests, still constitute a relative minority in vernacular music, and proposes that performing professionally remains, as such, inherently transgressive.151 From this perspective, Newsom’s very existence as a female musician is radical; she has removed the harp from its domestic origins, recasting it in a context allowing her to broadcast not only her songs, but

146 Gross (1992): 30 147 Ibid (1993): 28 148 Schubart (1839): 60 149 Gross (1993): 29 150 See Peters (2004); Saunders (2010); McLean (2010) 151 Buscatto (2010)

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the feminist themes therein, to the public. This is arguably true of any professional female musician, but I argue its transgressive resonance is greater in light of the harp’s domestic and feminine associations. The harp’s rarity in vernacular music renders its onstage presence even more striking; it is a symbol of femininity, brought into a world which, according to Buscatto, remains dominated by masculinity.

Newsom’s technical accomplishment as a harpist is also, I suggest, utilised in a manner which is at odds with the instrument’s reputation as ‘sweet and gentle’, to quote Castiglioni. While most critics miss, or perhaps ignore this (a distinction addressed by my next chapter), journalist Rob Harvilla’s live review of Newsom in The Village Voice (which opens by remarking wryly upon Newsom’s objectification by male audience members) compares her playing to the ‘shredding’ style of guitar-playing, comprising rapid arpeggiations, runs and off-beat, syncopated rhythms.152 153 Shredding is usually associated with genres such as heavy metal, a style which cultural theorist Andy Brown suggests centralises masculinity; its connections with guitar culture link Newsom’s playing style to an instrument which, according to author Steve Waksman, is commonly read as an ultramasculine phallic symbol.154 155 Newsom also appears capable of exacting significant physical force on her instrument; one member of fan message board Milky Moon notes that in a live performance, ‘her attack...was so strong, she had the harp going from side to side’.156 By playing forcefully, Newsom subverts the ‘sweet and gentle’ stereotype of the harp, utilising her technical accomplishment not merely to appear displayable or desirable, but to adopt a range of styles and techniques, including those typically coded as masculine or aggressive. In this respect, she is actively competing with her male contemporaries who play more masculine-coded instruments; doubly so given her songs’ feminist content.

I have, then, explored Newsom’s use of the harp to transgress gendered performance boundaries, and to subvert the instrument’s feminine stereotyping. Gross’s consideration of the harp’s bodily restraints seems more difficult to overcome, since the immobilisation of the harpist is apparently a basic tenet of the instrument’s mechanical function. Videos of Newsom’s live performances, however, suggests that this is not necessarily so. Unlike most classical harpists, Newsom appears to rest the instrument far forward on her shoulder closer to her collarbone, leaving her torso relatively free; she visibly rocks while singing, even as she supports the instrument.157 Far from being ‘immobilised’, Newsom also moves her head in fluid circular motions, presumably for expressive purposes; psychologists Dahl and Friberg suggest that pianists’ head movements play a vital role in their communication of expressive content, and it seems likely that Newsom’s head motions fulfil a similar role.158 Newsom appears, then, to have adopted methods of playing which

152 Harvilla (2010) 153 Roth and Yancik (2001) 154 Andy Brown (2003): 222 155 Waksman (2001): 313 156 ‘Wanbli’ (2012) 157 A particularly clear video of Newsom’s playing posture is available at Video: Cosmia (2010) 158 Dahl and Friberg (2007): 433-454.

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even minimise the harp’s physical constraints, allowing her to literally transgress several of the boundaries Gross describes.

Just as Newsom’s protagonist in ‘Does Not Suffice’ collects up the trappings of femininity from her lover’s room, and therefore exerts power over him by regaining her subjectivity, I contend that Newsom’s use of the harp rescues it from its historical position as a tool to oppress women through benevolent sexism, resisting against critics who construct her in terms of passive femininity just as her song’s narrator resignifies her potentially oppressive high-heeled shoes as reminders of ‘how easy I was not’. Newsom’s harp playing thus exemplifies her position under Genz’s archetype of the postfeminist woman, as discussed in this essay’s first chapter: it is ‘feminine and feminist at the same time’, a feminine instrument for feminist music.159 While a few critics like Harvilla (and others who will be discussed in this essay’s fifth chapter) have noted these reappropriative tendencies, more often they are erased in favour of casting Newsom’s skills as quaintly feminine and gentle, a narrative recalling the enchantment discourse, which similarly disregards Newsom’s subjectivity and her music’s feminist content. Given Davies’ assertion that the admission of feminist beliefs may prove harmful to a performer, it is perhaps surprising that Newsom has not attracted more hostile criticism;160 critics appear to misread her, latching on to the feminine aspects of her work while ignoring her postfeminist resignification of that femininity and levelling benevolent sexism against her. The next chapter of this essay will examine the only aspect of Newsom’s performances which is regularly met with hostility, namely her singing voice. I propose that examining critical responses to Newsom’s voice may aid in unlocking the origins of the benevolent sexism which appears in response to much of her work, and will argue that the feminist content of her songs is, ultimately, not simply missed, but wilfully ignored by many critics.

159 Genz (2010): 106 160 Davies (2001): 310

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IV: The Gendered Criticism of Joanna Newsom’s Voice

This essay’s two previous chapters have primarily considered criticism of Newsom’s work which is benevolently sexist in nature. I suggest that such criticism emerges from a misreading of Newsom’s postfeminist resignification of femininity, leading to her objectification and construction as passive even as her work is critically acclaimed. One exception to this trend is Newsom’s singing voice, which is by far the most harshly-critiqued aspect of her work, perhaps because, rather than resignifying feminine ideals, it entirely rejects them. Newsom’s singing voice operates as a powerful tool for the open subversion of her femininity which I argue in turn illuminates the feminist potential of her work more broadly, and is far less subtle than her reappropriation of the harp. Consequently, critics frequently respond to it with hostility, even within otherwise benevolent reviews. I propose this discrepancy indicates awareness and fear of the subversiveness of Newsom’s performance of femininity, and suggest that the critical misreadings represented by the enchantment discourse and benevolently sexist treatment of her harp-playing emerge not from ignorance, but from a desire to contain the feminist threat Newsom poses to the male-dominated music industry.

Newsom’s vocal production is highly unusual: it relies heavily upon speech-like chest resonance, pushed as high as E6 in ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ which gives the impression of a pitched shout.161 162 Newsom sings with a high larynx, strong nasal resonance, and a tone characterised by cracks and squeaks (the onset of the first note of ‘Only Skin’ is a prime example);163 she also tends to widen her vowels, imparting a rustic accent to her singing which is absent from her speech.164 165 Newsom seems fully aware of her voice’s unusualness, describing it as

basically out of my control...I've been unable to groom or refine it much beyond its own naked and untrained color...there's not much room in my mind for technicalities—the voice does sort of just come straight from my gut, my muscles, blood and bones.166

Newsom’s approach to singing was evidently uninformed by vocal pedagogy, which may contribute to her vocal idiosyncrasies. Critics’ responses to her voice are mixed; one common tendency I noted was to praise her harp technique and ambitious songwriting (both contributing to her perception as intellectual and thus credible) but to respond with confusion or even hostility to her singing. Bill Bradley of Vanity Fair describes her voice as possessing ‘a Monty Python quality’, while Scott Reid

161 Newsom (2004): ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ 162 In Have One On Me, Newsom utilises somewhat more head resonance in her upper register, reducing the ‘pitched-

shout’ effect I have described here, but the rest of her vocal quirks remain intact. 163 Newsom (2006): ‘Only Skin’ 164 Carriage (2011): 3 offers a clear and detailed description of Newsom’s vocal quirks, aimed at vocal pedagogues. 165 I would strongly recommend taking time to listen to Newsom’s recordings in order to gain a sense of her signature

vocals; although I have endeavoured to describe her technique here in relatively neutral, non-gendered terms, an accurate

picture of her voice can only really be gained by listening to her performing. 166 Bohm and Potts (2006)

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of Stylus Magazine labels it ‘downright grating’.167 168 Michael Jordan of Sputnik Music labels Newsom ‘vocally...a demented she-gnome or the half-idiot sister of a Laura Ingalls frontier family’, and claims that the refrain of ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ would cause a listener to ‘claw out his eyes’.169 Dave Eggers, meanwhile, describes Newsom’s voice in his piece for SPIN Magazine as ‘crazy’: ‘“Is she nuts?” I wondered, because the voice sounded nuts. It was upsetting, wobbly and wavering’.170 In all these pieces, the most aggressive criticism is of Newsom’s voice: Reid praises her arrangements and ‘flashes of brilliance as a songwriter’;171 Bradley considers her ‘skilled’ and ‘Very Good (sic) at the harp’;172 Eggers discusses his fascination with her music, describing her song ‘Sadie’ as his ‘92-plays-a-day habit’. Only Jordan’s review is broadly negative, rating The Milk-Eyed Mender at 1.5 stars and dubbing it a ‘failure’.173 However, the most hostile aspects of his review by far refer to Newsom’s voice; he concedes that her lyrics are ‘pseudo-clever’ and that her accompaniments exploit the harp’s ‘dreamy quality’. Seemingly, Newsom’s voice offends him sufficiently to negatively colour his impression of the album as a whole. In all these reviews, Newsom’s voice garners the harshest criticisms, contrasting the idealisation I have hitherto identified throughout reviews of her work, and which still remains prominent in Eggers’ article.

One might argue that these hostile responses stem from the sheer unfamiliarity of Newsom’s vocal timbre, since even within the independent rock scene her voice is highly unusual. Nonetheless, I suggest that the terms in which Newsom’s voice is critiqued are as profoundly gendered as the enchantment discourse, and that negative critical reactions to it may be deeply rooted in a broader cultural misogyny, manifest, for once, as hostile rather than benevolent sexism. It is worth considering Newsom’s critical treatment relative to a male contemporary: John Darnielle, lead singer of Californian band the Mountain Goats, represents a useful vocal counterpart to Newsom, since he is active in similar musical circles and tends to be generically pigeonholed, like Newsom, as indie-folk or folk-rock. Darnielle’s vocal production is also highly unconventional: like Newsom, his singing adopts significant nasal resonance and a high larynx, and he uses cracks for dramatic effect (the song ‘Psalms 40:2’ from the Mountain Goats album The Life of the World to Come is a good example).174 His lyrics and music, like Newsom’s, are well-regarded, but his voice divides critics. I located several reviews of Darnielle describing his voice as ‘grating’, a descriptor used in Jordan’s review of Newsom, and articles in which both singers were labelled ‘bleating’, ‘reedy’, or simply ‘annoying’.175 176 However, while nearly every derogatory adjective applied to Darnielle’s voice was

167 Wagner and Bradley (2010) 168 Reid (2004) 169 Jordan (2010) 170 Eggers (2004): 61 171 Reid (2004) 172 Wagner and Bradley (2010) 173 Jordan (2010) 174 Darnielle (2009) 175 Smith (2011); Zonenashvili (2012) 176 See Baron (2012); Barker (2010); Robbins (2011); Williams (2010); Chorpenning (2011); Kepplinger (2010)

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also applied to Newsom’s, the reverse was not the case; some insults were levelled against Newsom alone.

Most notably, Newsom is often described as ‘shrill’ and ‘shrieking’, words which seemed not to be used in any reviews of Darnielle’s work.177 Feminist author Kathleen Rowe considers ‘shrill’ a highly gendered insult, often levelled against outspoken women, and suggests that ‘voices that are not meant to be heard are perceived as loud...regardless of their actual decibel level’.178 ‘Shrill’ and ‘shrieking’ also connote hysteria, a diagnosis which Nicola Wright and Sarah Owen state many strong-willed women were labelled with in the Victorian era as a silencing tactic. I suggest, then, that the strong reactions present in many negative reviews of Newsom’s voice are prompted not only by its unconventional nature, but by the intersection of that nature with her gender. Feminist author Deborah Tannen claims that society considers masculinity ‘unmarked’ – that is, accepted as default – while femininity is ‘marked’ or added on, and is thus more visible and open to criticism. Gendered insults, therefore, are usually levelled only against women, since only their gender is marked; this might explain why words associated with hysteria are used against Newsom but not Darnielle. I also located more negative responses overall to Newsom’s voice than to Darnielle’s, despite the fact that Darnielle has released more albums and has thus garnered more reviews in total. This may stem from a lower relative cultural tolerance to female voices: a study by speech therapist D.W. Addington suggested that men with harsh voices (‘harsh’ defined as an irregular glottal wave-form and a high degree of spectral noise, both common amongst untrained singers) were attributed more positive personality traits than women with harsh voices.179 Another speech study by Boves et al suggested the ideal male voice was significantly harsher than the ideal female voice;180 seemingly, although being an unusually-voiced artist courts controversy in itself, audiences possess lower tolerance for unusual female voices. Speech therapist Monique Biemans also suggests that nasality, prominent in both Newsom and Darnielle’s sounds, is judged negatively in both genders but is considered typical of masculine voices;181 I have several times mentioned Davies’ claim that female artists adopting masculine traits are often attacked and pathologised, which might account for the extra pejorative terms levelled against Newsom, as well as suggesting that her ‘shrillness’ might indicate hysteria.

It is perhaps the fact that Newsom’s voice actively transgresses expected gendered boundaries that leads to its criticism through hostile, rather than benevolent sexism. I have already discussed the ways in which Newsom’s performance of femininity, as a vehicle for a musical corpus featuring feminist messages, leads to those messages being ignored by her critics, and her construction as gentle and passive. I propose that Newsom’s voice may act as the missing piece of this puzzle precisely because it is not normatively feminine. By juxtaposing a physical appearance and instrumental accompaniment drawing upon feminine ideals with a voice that openly thwarts the expectations afforded by those ideals, Newsom subverts her own performed femininity, illuminating

177 See Hodkinson (2010); Mulvey (2010); Pearson (2010) 178 Rowe (1995): 63 179 Addington (1968): Men with harsh voices in the study were judged as mature, well adjusted, realistic, and artistic,

while women with harsh voices were seen as stupid, lazy, boorish, ugly, sickly, careless, and inartistic. 180 Boves et al (1982), cited in Brouwer (1989): 11 181 Biemans (2000): 54

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the artifice of gender performance. As a child, Newsom claims to have been self-conscious about her voice, believing herself to be unable to sing; it was not until she entered university and heard the similarly unusual voice of folk singer Texas Gladden that she felt ‘encouraged to consider my own strange, unruly voice to be an instrument at my disposal’.182 Newsom’s conscious decision to sing despite her inability to conform to feminine vocal ideals, therefore, may represent a calculated resistance against those who would restrict her based on her gender, exposing to the world a voice which is, in Rowe’s words, ‘not meant to be heard’. Newsom’s singing technique also subverts the perception of her physical appearance as feminine: she distorts her face when vocalising, thrusting her jaw forward, exposing her teeth and pulling back her lips; when vocalising an ‘oo’ vowel, she pulls her mouth off-centre, interfering with her facial symmetry, a well-established cue for physical attractiveness.183 English professor and sociologist Gayle Wald suggests that ‘a female...musician’s “pretty face” is the ultimate source of her...cultural authority’;184 Newsom’s singing not only aurally subverts the femininity attributed to her music, but visually alters her own ‘pretty face’, contesting her objectified construction as the beautiful ‘wood nymph clad in Sonia Rykiel’ (to quote Swerdloff) and sexualisation by critics like Kahl.

Rather than resignifying aspects of femininity, then, Newsom’s singing openly flouts gendered expectations. I suggest the fact that Newsom’s voice, specifically, fulfils this purpose is significant. In this essay’s first chapter, I discussed ‘Colleen’, which examines language and verbalisation as an exertion of power; when Colleen is voiceless, she is at the mercy of the community into which she has been indoctrinated, her identity amounting simply to her gender, as her name – meaning ‘woman’ – suggests. Like Newsom under the enchantment discourse, her subjectivity is erased. It is not until she once again finds her voice and language that she is able to throw off the shackles of the femininity imposed upon her, regaining her subjectivity. Classicist Anne Carson suggests that, in ancient Greek literature, women’s speech and language is said to lack the masculine qualities of sophrosyne, or self-control; their voices are associated with ‘the expression of unrational sounds’, and they are, as such, encouraged to remain silent; it is perhaps unsurprising, then, that Newsom’s ‘uncontrolled’ voice led her, as a child, to refrain from singing.185 Anthropologist Susan Gal suggests that women’s voices are still systemically silenced; for Gal, speech is inextricably linked in power, and silencing is a patriarchal act of oppression.186 I have already established that the majority of gendered critiques of Newsom’s work may be categorised as benevolent rather than hostile sexism, entirely ignoring her music’s feminist themes and her postfeminist resignifications of femininity, and instead pigeonholing her as passively and desirably feminine; I now propose that this is no accidental misreading of Newsom’s work, but a calculated act of silencing.

182 Bohm and Potts (2006) 183 All of these features of Newsom’s performances can be viewed in virtually any of the videos available of her

performances online. An excellent example is available at ‘Video: Peach, Plum, Pear’ (2010) (see bibliography), a

recording of a live performance filmed in extreme close-up. 184 Wald (1998): 589 185 Carson (1995): 127 186 Gal (1991): 415

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While the resignifying aspects of Newsom’s performances could conceivably be misread as conforming to femininity, leading to their critique using benevolent sexism, the hostility levelled against her voice implies an awareness of the threat she poses to the music industry’s gender boundaries; read in this light, ignoring the postfeminist aspects of Newsom’s performances, and the feminist content of her work, seems more like an act of calculated suppression. Intriguingly, media professor Mary Celeste Kearney suggests that such silencing of feminist musicians is common, claiming that even the overtly feminist Riot Grrrl movement was initially treated in the press as ‘just another anarchic pose of youth’, posing its greatest threat when publicly refuting this framing of itself.187 Newsom’s decision to embrace her untrained voice may be read as a similar refutation of her construction as passively feminine, rather than subversively postfeminist, repositioning her as an invader in a men’s world of serious music. The hostility levelled at her voice may express panic at Newsom’s rejection of her benevolently sexist construction; just as her narrator in ‘Only Skin’ resists condemnation for her feminine sexuality, so Newsom vocally resists her construction through benevolent sexism. I therefore suggest that Newsom is recognised as a threat to the music industry’s prevailing masculinity, and that gendered criticism levelled against her (whether benevolent or hostile) represents an attempt to preserve that order. I submit, therefore, that the forms of gendered criticism used to contain threatening women musicians may be further-reaching and more nuanced than Davies suggests, and that critical sexism is near-inescapable regardless of perceived credibility or acclaim. This essay’s final chapter will explore alternative approaches to criticism of Newsom which aim to destabilise this tendency, and will consider the possibility of a feminist music criticism on a broader scale.

187 Kearney (1997): 224

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V: Towards a Feminist Criticism of Joanna Newsom

Much of the gendered criticism so far discussed in this essay has been highlighted as problematic. Misogyny appears to be rife throughout the music press, and despite Newsom’s critcal acclaim she is frequently critiqued in sexist terms, usually benevolently but occasionally, in the case of her voice, with hostility. As an artist both appropriating and subverting feminine ideals as a vehicle for a feminist musical corpus, Newsom represents a substantial threat to the male-dominated indie-rock scene; it is perhaps unsurprising, then, that even in the context of positive reviews, critics often go to some length to suppress and silence the transgressive elements of her work in ways not necessarily accounted for by Davies’ exploration of hostile critical sexism. I propose that a truly feminist criticism of Newsom’s work would acknowledge the gendered aspects of her corpus without resorting to either hostile or benevolent sexism; though I was unable to find a mainstream media outlet accomplishing such critique, I was surprised to find several amateur online sources whose self-appointed purpose was to consider gendered issues in Newsom’s and other artists’ music from a feminist perspective. I suggest that these sources may signpost a way out of the perpetuation of masculine culture within the music industry described by Davies and Leonard, ultimately pointing the way towards a feminist pop criticism.

By far the most noteworthy resource for feminist critique of Newsom’s work specifically is Blessing All the Birds, a collaborative weblog based on the social networking platform Tumblr. Describing itself as a ‘feminist fan project’ which ‘sees Newsom’s work as...literature’ deserving ‘serious critical analysis’, the site is run by Rachel Parent and Melissa Marturano, two American graduate students who are passionate about Newsom’s work.188 Marturano in particular has written extensive analyses of several of Newsom’s songs, often numbering several thousand words in length. She treats each lyric as literature, frequently drawing fruitful comparisons between Newsom’s songs and numerous other texts: her contributions include an analysis of the cryptic ‘No Provenance’ from Have One On Me, which she reads as a parable about the dangers of chivalry and its connections with female passivity (a cultural trope which I have established is present in many critics’ construction of Newsom) and compares Newsom’s description of her narrator as a ‘little black mare’ and the Hellenistic love poet Theocritus’s representation of aloof women as horses.189 She has also written a multi-part series comparing ‘Go Long’ to various versions of Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard myth, including Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’, and at the time of writing had commenced a series exploring Ys’s death drive and pleasure instinct from a Freudian perspective.190 191

Blessing All the Birds’ willingness to take Newsom’s music seriously and consider it in terms of, and in comparison to, high art, may itself indicate a feminist agenda. Musicologist Elizabeth Kydd suggests that, within and outwith the academy, music created at high levels is still considered a masculine activity; she points out the gendering inherent in such terms as ‘the music of man’ or even

188 Parent and Marturano (2011) 189 Marturano (February 2011) 190 Marturano (April 2012) 191 Marturano (May 2012)

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‘masterpiece’ as an example of how naturalised taking only men’s music seriously has become.192 Blessing All the Birds’ approach observes the complexity of Newsom’s music without pigeonholing it as superficial, and also acknowledges the ambivalence contained within many of Newsom’s songs (as discussed in this essay’s first chapter), which few other critics do. Marturano considers ‘Baby Birch’ in terms of post-abortion syndrome, an unofficially-recognised disorder which is much-touted by anti-abortion campaigners, and in turn denied by pro-choice organisations. Marturano’s approach is fiercely pro-choice, but strongly advocates avoiding absolutes, pointing out that ‘Newsom’s narrator can simultaneously grieve over her abortion...and stand by her initial decision. She can somehow want a child and then not want one. She can be pro-choice and still feel sorrow over her own abortion. Somehow this is a tricky situation in our society’.193 In this way, Marturano offers a personal and openly feminist analysis of the song which respects Newsom’s subjectivity and does not aim to disempower her.

Blessing All the Birds’ primary concern is the treatment of Newsom’s works as literature; as such their aims differ somewhat from mine. They have, however, engaged to some extent with criticism of Newsom’s music, and occasionally call out sexism in articles in which it is clearly evident. In March 2011, Parent wrote a series of intriguing posts regarding the ‘gender-binary of influence’ in music journalism, noting reviewers’ tendency to compare Newsom only to other female performers.194 I have not touched upon this topic in this essay, partially due to limitations of space, but also because Blessing All the Birds have covered it quite comprehensively. Parent notes repeated instances of critical comparison between Newsom and several other musicians, particularly Joni Mitchell, but also Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Bjork, artists with fairly divergent styles who, Parent suggests, are implied to be similar due to their gender.195 In the second chapter of this essay, I quoted Friedman’s application of the enchantment discourse to several stylistically diverse female artists and suggested this to be gendered in origin; Parent’s findings suggest this to be a recurrent trope. Parent states that:

music critics are...perpetuating a system which defines female musicians as essentially different from male musicians, while also strongly implying that women are the underclass in this gendered hierarchy. Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush are unfairly lumped together because there are so few women writing demanding music, that music critics do not have many women from whom to choose for their comparisons.196

I suggest that this may be at the heart of much of the criticism of Newsom’s work already discussed in this essay. I have said little here about the differences in style between female and male critics, since even female critics (a distinct minority in my research) seemed to engage in the enchantment discourse, to idealise Newsom as an angelic figure based on her harp-playing, or to write off her voice as ugly. The music industry remains, as Parent puts it, ‘dominated by men on both the creative

192 Kydd (1992): 122-23 193 Marturano (July 2011) 194 Parent (2011) 195 Ibid 196 Ibid

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and critical sides of the equation’, particularly in the circle of independent musicians writing the kind of challenging music Newsom herself creates.197 Davies suggests that for women to succeed in music journalism, they must become ‘one of the boys...identifying with their male peers rather than the women on whom they comment’;198 as such, narratives such as those identified by Parent are perpetuated by both genders, artificially sustaining the music industry’s masculine subject position.

Blessing All the Birds is run by amateur writers rather than professional journalists, who are less entrenched in the male-dominated industry Parent describes. Although it is the most significant source for feminist criticism of Newsom’s work, several other critics (also web-based and not professional journalists) have contributed considerably. Blogger Leigh Alexander’s self-described ‘overly intense track-by-track analysis’ of Have One On Me reads the album as the story of a codependent or even abusive relationship; again, it eschews absolutism and considers both the love between the story’s protagonists, and the potentially oppressive and misogynistic nature of that love towards Newsom’s narrator. Alexander’s tone is informal and she predominantly describes a personal response to the album, but nonetheless avoids constructing Newsom’s femininity as passive or enchanted, and does not resort to gendered attacks on her voice, even as she considers the gender dynamic within the album itself.199 ‘Technicalities’, the pseudonymous author of philosophy and literary criticism weblog There Could Be Snakes In Here, offers a more analytical approach, discussing motifs within each track of the album, including femininity and nature, as well as allegories such as drunkenness (which, it is convincingly argued, represents love).200 Mapping these themes between songs and providing brief analyses of musical structure, Technicalities’ article often resembles a stream of consciousness, but is nonetheless extremely comprehensive, taking into account both gendered and non-gendered themes without resorting to essentialism or sexism.

All of the sources I have so far discussed eschew negative criticism. One might argue that constructing a feminist critique of an artist is significantly easier when a critic’s impression of that artist is positive; certainly, while negative reviews of Newsom are rare, those which exist (such as Jordan’s Sputnik Music review, discussed in this essay’s fourth chapter) do engage in hostile sexism. This is unsurprising; a study by psycholinguist Kathleen Preston suggested that, at least amongst college-aged students, almost all colloquial insults were assigned to one gender or the other (Tannen’s theory of feminine ‘markedness’, outlined in this essay’s previous chapter, makes it all the more likely that a female artist will be attacked in gendered terms).201 Although Preston’s study refers to informal use, it nonetheless indicates that gender may be an important factor in negative perception of individuals and their actions, and may contribute to the difficulty of constructing a feminist pop criticism which is not, paradoxically, entirely uncritical of its subjects. I did, however, locate one reviewer who is critical of Newsom without resorting to gendered attacks: Alyx Vesey, of website Feminist Music Geek. Vesey admits to initial indifference to Newsom; she claims to have ‘warmed up’ to Have One On Me due to its relative directness, but nonetheless critiques the album’s

197 Ibid 198 Davies (2001): 304 199 Alexander (2011) 200 ‘Technicalities’ (2010) 201 Preston (1987): 209-219

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‘pretension’ and Newsom’s tendency to ‘stretch odes...well past the three-minute mark’.202 However, she also considers the significance of male versus female pretension, questioning whether the latter may be ‘earned’ and therefore more justified by historical oppression; although this may not affect her own emotional response, I suggest that the fact she accounts for it is significant, representing a step towards a feminist music criticism.203

Vesey’s blog is a resource for feminist critique of numerous musicians of all genders and genres. She admits disdain for certain artists, such as Alicia Keys, but considers the social narratives behind that disdain, suggesting that Keys ‘projects a studied black authenticity’ but admitting that her own whiteness renders her unable to wholly comprehend a mixed-race artist’s negotiation of representation.204 Vesey’s separation of personal taste from identity politics, considering the latter’s effect on the former without negating either’s validity, is absent from much mainstream criticism, and may contributed to the gendered discourses circulating between reviewers and perpetuating the acceptability of sexist criticism. By presenting her negative responses to artists without resorting to unstudied attacks on their identities, instead considering the impact those identities might have on her own viewpoint, Vesey explores a form of criticism which is less oppressive to minority artists and may have the potential to deconstruct kyriarchal norms.

All of these sources adopt an approach which seemingly draws more from critical musicology than from conventional pop criticism: Vesey, Parent and Marturano are academics whose articles directly engage with advanced gender theory, and the article at There Could Be Snakes In Here draws on literary criticism and musicology. Vesey’s separation of personal taste from theoretical narratives recalls Lawrence Kramer’s framing of critical musicology; ‘what is responsible for our response to music, and to what is our response responsible?’205 It is this consideration of broader cultural meaning, including feminist theory, which I suggest is absent from most pop criticism, and which offers the possibility of questioning and ultimately destabilising the industry’s norms. Why do these resources differ so much from mainstream media outlets? I suggest that a crucial factor is the influence of capitalism; if, as Davies suggests, sexism is the default status for pop writing, music publications must participate in it to survive within a capitalist infrastructure.206 This renders the industry’s masculine subject position self-sustaining, since questioning it poses a risk to critics and publications. Social scientist Richard Barbrook suggests that the Internet offers the possibility of escape from patterns of capitalist exchange; amateur critics operating in a non-profit context (all the authors discussed here, crucially, use free web-hosts to publish content) are not in direct competition with their non-feminist counterparts to survive.207 They are thus freer to explore

202 Vesey (2010) 203 Ibid 204 Ibid (2011) 205 Kramer (2006): 1 206 Davies (2001): 310 207 Barbrook (1998)

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the music they listen to from a perspective incorporating their own academic study and egalitarian politics.208

While the authors discussed here therefore offer an approach to music criticism which escapes structural misogyny, the question remains as to whether their methods can permeate the industry at large. Although these amateur critics’ readerships are necessarily smaller than a major publication, I suggest that their influence is nevertheless non-trivial; Feminist Music Geek currently possess almost a thousand ‘fans’ on Facebook, presumably a fraction of her total readership.209 Faith Wilding proposes the Internet as a new forum for disseminating feminist information, representing an ‘entry point into...feminist activism’ for many readers;210 as such, I suggest that the more widespread feminist discourses become amongst amateur critics, the more pressure will be placed upon larger outlets by their readers to adopt a more egalitarian approach. This may also apply to budding writers; exposure to feminist pop criticism before entering the masculine music industry might, in the long term, lead to a sea-change in the default subject position of music journalism. As such, while the writers discussed here are by no means an end-goal for feminist pop criticism, I propose that they may, perhaps, be paving the way for the future of the music industry.

208 The fact that numerous amateur critics nonetheless engage in the same sexist discourses as their professional

counterparts, of course, indicates that amateur status alone is no guarantee of a more egalitarian outlook; any consumer of

existing mainstream critical discourses is liable to be affected by and to imitate them, but the choice to resist is

nonetheless, I propose, more feasible for an amateur critic than for one operating professionally in the mainstream media. 209 See ‘Feminist Music Geek: Facebook’ (2012) (see bibliography) 210 Wilding (1998): 10

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Conclusion

Although this essay is a case study of a relatively niche musician operating predominantly within the American independent music scene, it highlights issues which I firmly believe pervade throughout the music industry, and which are particularly dangerous for their insidiousness. The majority of sexism identified in the music industry by critics such as Davies and Leonard is, as I have said, hostile in nature; my examination of Newsom seems to disclose an almost untouched strand of benevolently sexist criticism which is an arguably equally oppressive counterpart to the more typically aggressive misogyny used to critique Newsom’s voice. I propose that the oppressive and silencing nature of this benevolently sexist criticism is no accident; it is merely another means of sustaining the existing patriarchal order of the industry which can be applied in different circumstances from hostile sexism. In my second chapter, I quoted Friedman’s review of My Brightest Diamond which indiscriminately applied the benevolently sexist enchantment discourse to several female musicians despite their distinct writing styles;211 Newsom is clearly far from the only target of this tendency, and I suggest that exploration of benevolent sexism across the entire music industry may represent a worthwhile avenue for further study.

It is important to note that just because Davies’ and Leonard’s studies do not dwell upon forms of benevolent sexism does not mean it is irrelevant to the artists discussed in their research. Indeed, benevolent sexism’s most dangerous quality may be its subtlety; Benoit Dardenne indicates that hostile sexism is usually identified by its targets as sexism, while benevolent sexism is not; as such, a woman targeted by benevolent sexism is less likely to resist against it.212 Unlike calling a woman a sexist slur or sexualising her outright, constructing her as a pixie or describing her playing in flattering terms which nonetheless play into patriarchal narratives is less obvious, and is less likely to be highlighted as misogyny and resisted against. The fact that benevolent sexism can exist quite well within a positive review, since by nature it is superficially complimentary, also makes it harder to spot; it is not obvious why, if a review seems to consider an artist’s work credible and worthy of respect, misogyny would be a factor at all. The reality is that sexism need not always represent the calculated abuse of an artist; it may simply be a habitual symptom of (in Davies’ words) ‘the only appropriate discourse for pop writing’.213 This is how a critical response such as Kahl’s ‘Your Feyness’ can position Newsom as a goddess-figure and simultaneously objectify her, erasing her subjectivity and ignoring her work’s feminist potential. It is, therefore, entirely possible that the sources discussed in Davies’ and Leonard’s work are replete with benevolent sexism alongside the hostility they explore; they may simply have failed to identify them, suggesting their insidious potential. The existence of such comparatively nuanced gendered discourses in the music press, and the difficulty entailed in identifying them, may directly contribute to the ‘masculine subject positions’ Kruse identifies in the music industry at large.214

As Davies suggests, sexism in music criticism is less a product of individual misogynistic critics as it is a self-sustaining tradition. Uprooting such a tradition to create a more egalitarian 211 Friedman (2011) 212 Dardenne (2007): 764 213 Davies (2001): 304 214 Kruse (2002): 134

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critical space for female musicians and writers is more challenging when the narratives upholding its oppressive tendencies are often left unidentified. If these deeply-rooted forms of sexism remain unnoticed in the music industry, little is likely to change in terms of its gender equality. The impact of hostile sexism, however, should not be ignored; as my study of Newsom’s voice indicates, even a woman perceived as highly credible and well-respected within her field may become the target of hostile sexism. Beverley Gross, for example, claims that the gendered slur ‘bitch’ is levelled predominantly against assertive, powerful women perceived as a threat, and even suggests that its male equivalent is ‘boss’.215 Newsom is the subject of sexism because she is seen as a threat, all the more so given her songs’ engagement with feminist topics. All forms of sexism, hostile or benevolent, serve to disempower women, containing the threat they pose to the music industry’s existing structural order; I suggest that Newsom’s resignification of feminine tropes as a vehicle for her feminist lyrics, and her decision to sing those lyrics in the knowledge that her voice does not conform to feminine ideals, represent a form of resistance against a society in which her power is still limited by her gender. Consciously or subconsciously, Newsom seems aware that she is perceived as threatening, and refuses to acquiesce to attempts to contain her. This is an issue of self-representation which is likely to be an issue for other performers who tackle feminist issues in their work; their public perception is filtered through criticism of their work, and if, as feminists, they pose a threat to the patriarchal order, attempts will be made to suppress the feminist content of their work. Fiona Apple and Tori Amos are both artists who have dealt openly with rape, eating disorders and female oppression in their work, at times with brutal clarity; both have also been described in criticism as ‘wood-nymphs’, limiting their feminist power through benevolent sexism, and both have had their voices compared to ‘wailing banshees’, implying that they should not be heard.216 Gerda Lerner suggests that ‘women's lack of knowledge of our own history of struggle and achievement has been one of the major means of keeping us subordinate’;217 by writing artists off as enchanted or insulting their voices for not conforming to gendered ideals, criticism which refuses to engage with artists’ feminist intentions silences them, and in turn disempowers their wider fanbase.

With this said, Newsom has clearly made an impact on the feminist critics discussed in my fifth chapter, who recognise her empowering potential. Evidently, a feminist approach to music criticism is not unachievable in practical terms, and feminist music critics have already begun to be facilitated by the Internet. While Blessing All the Birds is notable for its depth rather than its breadth, it nonetheless offers numerous different approaches to constructing a feminist criticism of a single artist’s work, proving that a criticism which strives to destabilise patriarchy need not be narrow in scope. Feminist Music Geek applies such criticism to a broader range of artists, signposting a route out of the mainstream music press’s prevailing masculinity, and taking the cultural impact of gender into account without resorting to misogyny. I propose that listeners and fans can aid the progress towards a more egalitarian critical approach by reading widely, and refusing to take for granted the things they read in the music press whose critics must adopt the patriarchal viewpoint to survive in the industry. By exposing themselves to forms of media which are less susceptible to capitalist narratives, listeners may, perhaps, develop a more egalitarian understanding of female artists, and a 215 Gross (1994): 146 216 Hampson (2005): 3; Williott (2012); Soeder (2012); Daniels (2012) 217 Lerner (1986): 226

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better knowledge of the gendered aspects of their work which may be suppressed by the mainstream press.218 This, in turn, could create a greater mainstream demand for a feminist approach to criticism, and in time, it seems possible that such exposure, particularly by budding critics who have not yet entered the industry professionally, might see more egalitarian ideals filtering into the industry of music journalism.

Women make up roughly half of the world’s population, and yet are not only outnumbered as critics and artists within the music industry, but are actively othered, objectified, sexualised, insulted and silenced when they attempt to redress the balance. The music industry, it is worth noting, does not exist within a cultural vacuum; it is an aspect of wider society, which not only permits these inequalities but arguably produces and perpetuates them through its own values. When Deborah Tannen claims that male is the unmarked default and female is a marked other, she is not referring specifically to the masculine subject position of music criticism, but to society at large. By endeavouring to correct inequalities within the music industry, whose influence extends to millions of listeners across the world, it seems possible that perceptions of women in wider society might, in time, become more egalitarian. Feminism, according to third-wave feminist authors Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, may be summed up as ‘the radical notion that women are people’;219 phrased as such, there seems to be no reason why a feminist music industry (indeed, a feminist society) should not simply be the default. It is for this reason, I suggest, that further exploration and encouragement of the development of a feminist music criticism should be an absolute priority for academics, journalists, and artists alike. Newsom serves as a single example of a much broader critical imbalance, whose correction has potentially far-reaching consequences for the perception and treatment of women both within and outwith the music industry.

218 I suggest this to be the case, too, for many other strands of identity politics, ranging from race to class and even to age;

all of these are likely to be coloured by the prevailing demographics of professional music writers, and, I suggest, are

liable to align with dynamics of privilege and oppression in society at large. 219 Heywood and Drake (1987): v

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24/08/2012

Joanna Newsom Is Perfect: ‘That isn’t a spotlight’ (2011)

‘That isn’t a spotlight’. Joanna Newsom Is Perfect (2011): <http://joannanewsomisperfect.tumblr.com/post/10978229201/that-isnt-a-spotlight-joanna-newsom-just>. Accessed 24/08/2012

Joanna Newsom Is Perfect: ‘Why are there so many songs about rainbows?’ (2011)

‘Why are there so many songs about rainbows?’. Joanna Newsom Is Perfect (2011): <http://joannanewsomisperfect.tumblr.com/post/13047443614/when-kermit-the-frog-sings-about-why-are-there-so>. Accessed 24/08/2012

Tumblr Tagged: Joanna Newsom (2012)

‘Tumblr Tagged: Joanna Newsom’. Tumblr (2012): <http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/joanna+newsom>. Accessed 02/08/2012

Video: Cosmia (2010) ‘Video: ‘Joanna Newsom – Cosmia ~New Arrangement~’ (2010): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olHR2MdmY3M>. Accessed 27/08/2012

Video: Peach, Plum, Pear (2010) ‘Joanna Newsom – Peach Plum Pear (Paris 31.05.2010)’ (2010): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprS7irIVCE>. Accessed 12/08/2012

Albums cited

Darnielle (2009) Darnielle, John. The Life of the World to Come (London: 4AD Records, 2009)

Newsom (2002) Newsom, Joanna. Walnut Whales (self-released, 2002)

Newsom (2003) Newsom, Joanna. Yarn and Glue (self-released, 2003)

Newsom (2004) Newsom, Joanna. The Milk-Eyed Mender (Chicago: Drag City, 2004)

Newsom (2006) Newsom, Joanna. Ys (Chicago: Drag City, 2004)

Newsom (2007) Newsom, Joanna. Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band (Chicago: Drag City, 2007)

Newsom (2010) Newsom, Joanna. Have One On Me (Chicago: Drag City, 2010)