THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CRITICISM BY A LIVING FEMALE ROCK CRITIC

A wide-ranging assortment of essays and reportage on rock, pop, country, and hip-hop, conscientiously putting women front and center.

The title of Hopper’s book (which revises and expands a 2015 edition) isn’t a brag but rather an air horn announcing a problem: Just as female musicians have been dismissed, marginalized, and abused by a patriarchal industry, Hopper is just one of many women music journalists who was told “it was perverse to tangle up music criticism with feminism or my personal experience.” So being “first” is as much a lament as an assertion, but the best pieces show how thoughtfully the author has used her position. Essays on Liz Phair, Kim Gordon, Miley Cyrus, and Lana Del Rey underscore how the negative “personas” applied to them are often used to obscure and undermine their talent. In one emotionally intense interview, Björk reveals how, more than four decades into her career, she’s had to prove she writes her songs. Hopper elevates underappreciated women-led acts like D.C. punks Chalk Circle and calls out misogyny in the system: Her landmark 2003 essay, “Emo: Where the Girls Aren’t,” chastised the scene for confusing sad-boy sensitivity with proactive feminism, and she reports on women country artists’ oft-futile efforts to gain airplay. The author convincingly argues that staying silent on such inequities has consequences, a point underscored by an interview with journalist Jim DeRogatis on R. Kelly’s track record of sexual assault and music journalists’ turning a blind eye to it. Hopper is stronger as a reporter and cultural observer than a track-by-track reviewer; the collection is padded with reviews that reflect her wide range of tastes but are stylistically flat. However, as she points out in the fiery conclusion, the book exists in part to expose other female writers to what’s possible with diligence and a refusal to compromise. In that regard, it’s essential reading. Samantha Irby provides the foreword.

A canny blend of punkish attitude and discographical smarts that blasts boys-club assumptions about pop music.