How hard is it to remember Bananarama? The perennial forgetting of girls in music
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.40052Keywords:
memory, feminism, popular cultureAbstract
Remembering and forgetting female pop musicians sits within the broader project of feminist and queer identity histories. The history of uncovering a past in order to inform the here and now raises questions about the relationship between lived experiences and the types of history that are produced. There is an assumption that each may inform the other. In the 1980s, within the academy, there was a growing understanding of the importance of remembering and re-remembering marginalized agents. This sat alongside an increasing visibility of the girl, both as a market and as a performer. Looking at the discourses, remembering and forgetting, seeing and silencing of the successful girl band Bananarama, I will map the active levels through which female performers have been marginalized, have resisted and persisted. I ask: what will it take for them to be remembered?
References
Bailey, J. E. 2013. ‘“Lady be Good”: An Exploration of Women Making Music in the Ivy Benson Band 1940–c.1985’. Doctoral thesis (PhD), University of Sussex.
Barrow, J. 2002. How Not to Make it in the Pop World. Bloomington, IN: Trafford.
BBC3. 2009. Being Human, 9 February. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/00DB43C6 (accessed 11 December 2018).
BBC4. 2008. Be My Baby: The Girl Group Story, 8 January.
—2018. Young Guns Go for It, 8 April. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/000B9D85 (accessed 23 October 2018).
Benjaminson, P. 2009. The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Birch, I. 1984. ‘Bananarama: We All Broke Down and Cried’. Smash Hits, 15 March.
Brooks, D. A. 2010. ‘“This voice which is not one”: Amy Winehouse Sings the Ballad of Sonic Blue(s)face Culture’. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 20/1: 37–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/07407701003589337
Capital Gay. 1991. ‘Birthday Boy’s Present’. Capital Gay, 28 June.
Channel 4. 1998. A Song for Eurotrash, 12 May.
Cofield, L., and L. Robinson. 2016. ‘“The Opposite of the Band”: Fangrrrling, Feminism and Sexual Dissidence’. Textual Practice 30/6: 1071–1088. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2016.1209946
Cohen, M. 1984. ‘Bananarama: Bananarama’. Creem, August.
Coslett, T., et al. 2002. Feminism and Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods. London: Routledge. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/suss/detail.action?docID=168494
Crossley, N. 2015. ‘Music Worlds and Body Techniques: On the Embodiment of Musicking’. Cultural Sociology 9/4: 471–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975515576585
Dawson, G. 2013. Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203411162
du Gay P. 1997. Production of Culture/Cultures of Production. Newbury Park, CA: Sage in association with Open University.
Frith, S. 1983. ‘Post-punk Blues’. Marxism Today 27/3: 18–21.
Gold, R. 1982. ‘EPs Help Crack Market’. Variety, 1 September.
Hall, S. 1973. Encoding and Decoding in the Media Discourse, Stenciled Paper 7. Birmingham: CCCS.
Hibbert, T. 1988. ‘Who the Hell do Bananarama Think They Are?’ Q, September.
Hill, D. 1986. Designer Boys and Material Girls: Manufacturing the ’80s Pop Dream. London: Blandford Press.
Home Affairs Committee. 1987–88. The Government’s Plans for Radio Broadcasting. House of Commons.
Houston, M., and C. Kramarae. 1991. ‘Speaking from Silence: Methods of Silencing and of Resistance’. Discourse & Society 2/4: 387–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926591002004001
ITV. 2015. Coronation Street, 7 January. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/085E49C1 (accessed 11 December 2018).
Kay, R. 1984. ‘Life for Soldier’s Belfast Murder’. Daily Mail, 15 December.
Kinnersley, S. 1982. ‘Bright Young Sings…’. Daily Mail, 9 June.
Kirkham, N. 2017. ‘Polluting Young Minds? Smash Hits and “High Thatcherism”’. Journal of European Popular Culture 8/2: 139–52. https://doi.org/10.1386/jepc.8.2.139_1
Kupfermann, J. 1987. ‘Like Lapps to the Nuclear Slaughter’. Daily Mail, 2 November.
Lababedi, I. 1986. ‘Bananarama: These Charming Girls’. Creem, December.
Lester, P. 1992. ‘Shakespeare’s Sister: Idol Fantasies’. Melody Maker, 20 February.
McRobbie, A. 1991. Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen. London: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21168-5
—1997. ‘More! New Sexualities in Girls’ and Women’s Magazines’. In Back to Reality, ed. A McRobbie, 190–209. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Negus, K. 1996. Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Neville, M. (dir.). 2013. 20 Feet from Stardom.
Nicholson, R. 2017. ‘“People wet their knickers when they find out I was in Bananarama”: The 80s Trio Return’. G2, 24 April.
O’Hagan, S. 1987. ’Stock, Aitken and Waterman: Let the Kids Decide’. NME, 19 December.
O’Reilly, D., G. Larsen and K. Kubacki. 2013. Music, Markets and Consumption. Oxford: GoodFellows Publishing. https://doi.org/10.23912/978-1-908999-52-8-2250
Page, B. 1991. ‘Bananarama: Sisters Undie the Skin’. NME, 4 May.
Paglia, C. 2012. ‘Madonna—Finally, a Real Feminist’. In The Rock History Reader, ed. T. Cateforis, 265–66. London: Routledge.
Petridis, A. 2002. ‘Ska for the Madding Crowd’. The Guardian, 8 March.
Railton, D. 2001. ‘The Gendered Carnival of Pop’. Popular Music 20/3: 321–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143001001520
Reynolds, G. 1982. ‘Pirates of the Airwaves’. Broadcast, 19 June.
Robinson, L. 2011. ‘“Sometimes I like to stay in and watch TV…” Kinnock’s Labour Party and Media Culture’. Twentieth Century British History 22/3: 354–90. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwq060
—2018a. ‘Zines and History: Zines as History’. In Ripped, Torn and Cut, ed. The Subcultures Network, 39–54. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
—2018b. ‘Exhibition Review Punk’s 40th Anniversary—an Itchy Sort of Heritage’. Twentieth Century British History 29.2: 309–317. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwx047
Rogers, J. 2009. ‘What Makes a Great Summer Pop Hit?’ The Guardian, 22 July.
Rolston, B. 2001. ‘“This is Not a Rebel Song”: The Irish Conflict and Popular Music’. Race & Class 42/3: 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396801423003
Romanowski, P. B., P. Romanowski, H. George-Warren and J. Pareles. 1995. The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Littlehampton: Fireside Books.
Roy, A. 1985. ‘Ivor’s Slip Shows at Lunch for the Leading Ladies’. Daily Mail, 29 October.
Shuker, R. 2013. Understanding Popular Music. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203188019
Simper, P. 2017. Pop Stars in My Pantry. London: Unbound Press.
Simpson, D. 2018. ‘How We Made Smash Hits Magazine’. The Guardian, 6 August.
Small, C. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Spender, D., and N. Bardin. 1985. Man Made Language. London: Routledge.
Stock, M. 2004. The Hit Factory: The Stock Aitken Waterman Story. London: New Holland Press.
Strong, C. 2014. ‘All the Girls in Town: The Missing Women of Australian Rock, Cultural Memory and Coverage of the Death of Chrissy Amphlett’. Perfect Beat 15/2: 149–66. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v15i2.18363
Sullivan, C. 1990. ‘Bananarama: Girls Together Outrageously’. Melody Maker, 28 July.
Summerfield, P. 2004. ‘Culture and Composure: Creating Narratives of the Gendered Self in Oral History Interviews’. Cultural and Social History 1/1: 65–93. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478003804cs0005oa
Summerfield, P., and C. Peniston-Bird. 2013. Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War. Manchester: Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781847791542
Tennant, N. 1983. ‘Bananarama: Q&A’. Smash Hits, 23 July.
Terry, K. 1983. ‘Music Records’. Variety, 6 April.
Thompson, M. 2016. ‘Feminised Noise and the “Dotted Line” of Sonic Experimentalism’. Contemporary Music Review 35/1: 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2016.1176773
Thrills, A. 2010. ‘Bananarama’s Drama Queen Siobhan Fahey Peels Back the Years’. Daily Mail, 11 June.
Tonioli, B. 2012. Bruno My Story. New York: Hachette Press.
—2017. Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 24 December.
Toynbee, J. 1993. ‘Policing Bohemia, Pinning up Grunge: The Music Press and Generic Change in British Pop and Rock’. Popular Music 12/3: 289–300. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000005730
Wald, G. 2002. ‘“I want it that way”: Teenybopper Music and the Girling of Boy Bands’. Genders 35: 1–39.
Waterman, P. 2000. I Wish I Was Me: The Autobiography. London: Virgin Books.
Williams, S. 1984. ‘Bananarama: Mean Streaks and True Confessions’. NME, 28 April.
Wilson, M. 1987. Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme. New York: St Martins Press.
Winship, J. 1987. Inside Women’s Magazines. King’s Lynn, UK: Pandora Press.
