Cock rock

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For other uses, see Cock rock (disambiguation).
Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, considered one of the key acts in the development of cock rock, onstage in New York in 1973

Cock rock is a term used to describe a style of rock music that emphasised an aggressive form of male sexuality. It developed in the later 1960s and came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.

Characteristics

Philip Auslander uses Simon Frith's description of cock rock characteristics:

"cock-rock performance means an explicit, crude, 'masterful' expression of sexuality ... Cock-rock performers are aggressive, boastful, constantly drawing audience attention to their prowess and control. Their bodies are on display ... mikes and guitars are phallic symbols (or else caressed like female bodies), the music is loud, rhythmically insistent, built around tecniques of arousal and release. Lyrics are assertive and arrogant, but the exact words are less significant than the vocal styles involved, the shrill shouting and screaming."[1]

Use of the term

Cock rock was first mentioned by an anonymous author in the New York-based underground feminist publication Rat in 1970,[2] to describe the male dominated music industry and became a synonym for hard rock, emphasising the aggressive expression of male sexuality, often misogynist lyrics and use of phallic imagery.[3] The term was used by sociologists Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie in 1978 to point to the contrast between male dominated sub-culture of cock rock which was "aggressive, dominating and boastful" and the more feminised teenybop stars of pop music.[4] Led Zeppelin have been described as "the quintessential purveyors of 'cock rock'".[5] Other formative acts include the Rolling Stones, The Who and Jim Morrison of The Doors.[6]

Since the 1980s, the term has been sometimes interchangeable with hair metal or glam metal.[7] Examples of this style include: Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Warrant, Extreme, Cinderella, Pretty Boy Floyd, Jackyl, L.A. Guns, and Poison.[8] Despite the name, many of these bands had large numbers of female fans.[9] The spoof documentary This is Spinal Tap is an acclaimed parody of the style.[10] In the 21st century, there was a revival of the visual and musical style with the sleaze metal movement in Sweden, with acts including Vains of Jenna.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Frith, Simon (November 1981). Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-3945-0461-2. 
    Cited in Auslander, Philip (28 January 2004). "I Wanna Be Your Man: Suzi Quatro's musical androgyny" (PDF). Popular Music (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press) 23 (1): 2. doi:10.1017/S0261143004000030. Retrieved 31 january 2014. 
  2. ↑ T. Cateforis, The Rock History Reader (CRC Press, 2007), ISBN 0-415-97501-8, p. 125.
  3. ↑ R. Shuker, Popular Music: the Key Concepts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, 2nd edn., 2005), ISBN 0-415-28425-2, pp. 130-1.
  4. ↑ M. Leonard, Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), ISBN 0-7546-3862-6, pp. 24-6.
  5. ↑ S. Waksman, Instruments of Desire: the Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-674-00547-3, pp. 238-9.
  6. ↑ P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (University of Michigan Press, 2006), ISBN 0-472-06868-7, p. 201.
  7. ↑ C. Klosterman, Fargo Rock City: a Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta (Simon and Schuster, 2001), ISBN 0-7434-0656-7, pp. 100-1.
  8. ↑ "Hair metal", Allmusic retrieved 30 December 2010.
  9. ↑ R. Moore, Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009), ISBN 0-8147-5748-0, pp. 109-110.
  10. ↑ J. Gottlieb and G. Wald, "Smells like teen spirit: riot girls, revolution and independent women in rock", in A. Ross and T. Rose, eds, Microphone Fiends: Youth Music & Youth Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), ISBN 0-415-90908-2, p. 259.
  11. ↑ M. Brown, "Vains of Jenna", Allmusic, retrieved 19 June 2010.

External links

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