As Whitely states in her preface to this volume, the 2003 Biennial Conference for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Montréal was the catalyst and starting point for the collection of essays which revisit the themes of the earlier volume, Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, edited by Philip Brett, Gary C. Thomas, and Elizabeth Wood (New York, Routledge, 1994). This present volume, however, shifts the focus away from the study of Western Art music and onto issues of sexuality in popular music. The collection claims to explore ‘the ways in which queering has challenged cultural, social, and musical structures, subverting the gendered heterosexual bias in popular music by invoking a different way of listening, a queer sensibility’ (p. xiii).
The book is divided into four sections, the first of which deals with how gender and sexualities are contextualised, along with other elements such as community and race. An essay by Judith Halberstam criticises the failure of subcultural studies to address queer subculture. The essay by Anno Mungen engages with issues such as ‘musical strategies for revealing and concealing gender and sexual identities’ (p. xvi). Mungen explores vocal performance in interesting ways, suggesting that tessitura and timbre can contribute to a kind of vocal cross-dressing, what Mungen calls ‘cross-singing’ (p. 75). While writers in the previous volume have explored the power of the voice (see Elizabeth Wood, ‘Sapphonics’, Queering the Pitch, pp. 27–66), this essay seems to suggest something more. The timbre of the voice, rather than its pitch or a dichotomy between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ voices, can also be sexually coded.
The second section of the book deals with ‘other’ musical histories, with ‘queering’ being applied to studies of national musics and musicians in national contexts. A collection of essays on musical moments seemingly, but not completely, open to homoeroticism constitutes the third part of the volume. The editors of the volume should be praised for including, in this section, an article on the girl group Tatu by Sarah Kerton entitled, ‘Too Much, Tatu Young: queering politics in the world of Tatu’. To see work on a musical group often derided for being too ‘fluffy’ for inquiry (or perhaps for inhabiting a space at the crux of the ‘study of bad music’ debate) is a breath of fresh air, even if this air might seem old in a few years. The contribution of Tatu to the popular-cultural fabric cannot be denied, even if this contribution was short-lived. Furthermore, Kerton's explorations should serve as inspiration for further inquiry into the presentation of sexualities in popular music as well as the ways in which these sexualities are negotiated by the press: ‘[Tatu's] greatest strength lies in the subversion and realignment of Western values, challenging and questioning the gendered positioning placed upon female performers in popular music practice … Tatu queer the conventions of a girl band’ (p. 166). This is powerful material, and Kerton's work seems to defiantly scream the importance of musics which would often be cast aside because of their apparent lack of ‘authenticity’. It is a strong addition to this volume.
Where the first volume, Queering the Pitch, considered a new gay and lesbian musicology, Queering the Popular Pitch considers much more than a new gay and lesbian popular musicology. This new collection of essays applies the queer framework to popular music, musicians, nationalistic contexts, as well as film music and stage presence (Lloyd Whitesell writes about the film musical, while Sheila Whiteley writes about the stage presentation of Rob Halford from Judas Priest as ‘fantasy’). This collection is a recommended addition for both interdisciplinary scholars and (popular) musicologists alike.
