From Jen's list on music and memoirs about rule-breaking women.
Vivien Goldman is a guardian of sacred punk knowledge. With decades of experience writing about punk, post-punk, and reggae in addition to playing in bands herself, she has a necessary lens on the music industry and the political structures that both uphold and challenge it. Today, she is a documentarian and adjunct professor of punk and reggae at NYU.
I first caught a glimpse of this book at 57th Street Books in Hyde Park in Chicago on display on the new release table. Its hot green cover with a bright red mouth immediately caught my eye, and once I recognized what it was and it who it was by, I tossed the title into my basket without question. I couldn’t put it down; it’s a poetic and historical account of women’s role in punk, organized into four themes that are explored through personal essays, interviews, and academic analysis. It’s an…
Revenge of the She-Punks
Why should I read it?
1 author picked Revenge of the She-Punks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
What is this book about?
As an industry insider and pioneering post-punk musician, Vivien Goldman's perspective on music journalism is unusually well-rounded. In Revenge of the She-Punks, she probes four themes-identity, money, love, and protest-to explore what makes punk such a liberating art form for women.
With her visceral style, Goldman blends interviews, history, and her personal experience as one of Britain's first female music writers in a book that reads like a vivid documentary of a genre defined by dismantling boundaries. A discussion of the Patti Smith song "Free Money," for example, opens with Goldman on a shopping spree with Smith. Tamar-Kali, whose name…