Ron Swanson, the pillar of hypermasculinity on the American television series Parks & Recreation, admits to having cried twice in his life. The first time, at age seven, was after being hit by a school bus. The second, occurring within the show's timeframe, is upon hearing that beloved miniature horse Lil’ Sebastian had died. During a musical tribute to Lil' Sebastian, Ron reveals himself as local jazz icon Duke Silver. Ron hides his musical persona from his co-workers as long as he can, as it threatens his staunch masculinist aura. To the viewers, it makes sense. If they knew he liked something, that he felt, his perceived masculinity might soften. Themes such as theseFootnote ¹ are taken up in Sam de Boise's book Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions, by asking, how have music and emotion, both historically and contemporarily, related to men's’ bodies? Can music function as a tool for the study of masculinity and its associated ‘rationality’? How have these histories functioned to provide white – and most often cis-heterosexual – men social privileges and political power?

De Boise's cross-disciplinary approach draws on methodology from sociology (his home discipline), musicology and critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM) primarily, and uses six case studies chosen from 914 survey responses. The electronic survey was distributed via email amongst universities, business, clubs, magazines and on Facebook. While this method may seem to reach a wide audience, the results show that 80% of participants identified as ‘White British’, and 83.7% identified as heterosexual (pp. 16–17). Further, the survey allowed for self-identification as only ‘male’ or ‘female’. De Boise writes, ‘this was a practical consideration … as other studies have demonstrated that multiple gender categories in surveys can have the effect of confusing respondents or being deliberately mis-chosen’ (p. 17). In disallowing non-binary or intersex persons’ participation, de Boise's analysis of sex/gender and age ‘cohorts’ can be considered only partially complete. De Boise notes that a biologised-male body is not the sole locus of masculinity, and as he paraphrases Halberstam, ‘the performance of masculinity is not necessarily restricted to those bodies which “pass” as male’ (p. 62). Unfortunately, most of de Boise's ethnographic material speaks towards white heterosexual British men, and thus cannot speak towards the intersectional masculinities the author demands.

In Chapter 1, de Boise provides an in-depth overview of sex/gender differences in emotion. Descartes becomes a key figure not only here but also throughout the text, as de Boise highlights Cartesian rationality as the root of a masculinity which perceives itself as divorced from emotion. We also come to biology and medicalised sexual difference here as the author guides his readers through 20th century psychoanalysis and Darwinism, critiquing such approaches for beginning with sexual difference rather than interrogating it after data collection. The musicologist will perhaps feel out of their element in much of de Boise's text, which is based largely upon quantitative methods, but de Boise's conclusion sections are written clearly and synthesise the vast literature each chapter pulls from.

Chapter 2 continues with an examination of Cartesian rationality as upholding patriarchal society. De Boise levels criticisms against social psychology here as well, which he claims makes assumptions about the scientific ability to measure emotions in terms of physiological arousal. De Boise asserts that social psychology assumes the equal socialisation of all boys into a hegemonic masculine discourse, and advocates instead for an intersectional approach. The remainder of the chapter examines historical examples of masculinity-as-emotion, wherein emotions function as social capital ‘to indicate comfort with one's masculinity or the ability to successfully “give women what they want”’ (p. 61). This serves to demonstrate a ‘masculinisation of intimacy’ which creates tension between notions of masculinity as void of emotion, and masculinity and comfort with emotion that often exist simultaneously.

Chapter 3 looks at masculinity within the mass music market of Western Europe, the USA and Canada, taking an economic approach to CSMM. De Boise writes that the increased market demand for music from the19th through 21st centuries makes the mass market the ideal site for studying sex/gender divisions. Curiously, this chapter also relies on Plato and Aristotle as historical roots for Western masculine rationality. While the two are mainstays of Western academic thought, this chapter draws straight lines from Plato to the 21st century market, a project suited for much more than a few pages. The chapter continues with music/emotion as social capital following the emergence of the middle class and the growth of cities. According to de Boise, social stratification was integral in creating musical stratification, thus giving rise to individual taste. Such contextual approaches – taste, social class, gender – are crucial to understanding listening practices, according to de Boise, and as such, clinical explorations must continue to question the western canon of white (cis-heterosexual) male bourgeois composers.

Chapter 4 attempts to answer the question, ‘which emotions are most commonly connected to music preference today?’ (p. 95). This chapter draws on de Boise's survey responses, which included open-ended questions, in order to chart emotional trends. De Boise notes that age is a significant factor in how respondents relate to music – the teenage years are critical in identity formation, making music quite important. While de Boise notes that life-stages are structural and culturally specific, and that to discuss music purely as a tool ignores the gendered patterning of emotional experience, the imbalance of data might make this chapter's arguments largely specific to white cis-heterosexual men. Further, most of the gay respondents racially self-identify as Chinese-British, which requires significant intersectional work that is currently absent.

Chapter 5 explores emotional authenticity and genre as they relate to male listening practices. De Boise does away with the notion that certain individuals are predisposed towards specific emotional states, as well as the connection between any specific genre and a particular emotion. This chapter is notably the only of the book to address race head-on, and unfortunately, it does so through white respondents. Racist notions of rap and hip hop as entirely ‘sexist, over-sexualised, aggressive or misogynistic’ were repeated by respondents, all white heterosexual males. De Boise writes, ‘respondents positioned their tastes in opposition to tastes which they believed did not reflect their own values’ (p. 131). Tracing a history of black music and race relations in America, de Boise asserts that such ‘tastes’ are founded upon specific judgements and historical constructs about specific bodies. Unfortunately, the notions of black masculinity so prevalent in discourses of hip hop are lacking here, and rap functions only to dispel the notion that certain musics (rap) might corrupt the (white) child or evoke uncivilised behaviour. While the author writes against these notions, his treatment of hip hop does little to redeem the genre from his respondents’ racism.

Chapter 6 presents the reader with affect as a solution to the Cartesian separation of emotion and rationality. De Boise asserts that ‘it is fruitless to enforce a distinction between emotions and affect because the two cannot be separated’ (p. 152), which confuses the argument of the chapter. Further, he spends considerable time discussing affect physiologically despite earlier arguments against emotions’ biologisation. Affect seems, then, to function as a set of vocabulary for discussing embodiment rather than as an idiosyncratic approach to music and bodies.

De Boise sets out on an impossibly large project in Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions. He provides an excellent overview of current research across disciplines, and pulls them together in ways others have not. However, a lack of nuance in discussion of race, sexual orientation and non-cis-gendered, intersex and non-binary masculinities significantly narrows the project's frame. Consultation with texts in the hip hop literature, such as Miles White's From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the Performance of Masculinity or Patricia Hills Collins's From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism, might have provided a more well-rounded approach to racialised masculinity.