She Bop

Popular music grew out of ragtime, vaudeville and the blues to become global mass entertainment. Women like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were the original pop divas, yet eighty years after they blazed a trail, have their successors achieved the recognition and affirmation they deserve? Or has the only was to success been to slot into saleable images of the cute baby or sexy chanteuse? Lucy O'Brien has written the ultimate hands-on history of women in rock, pop, and soul. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dusty Springfield, Patti Smith, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, whitney Houston, Courtney Love, Alanis Morissette, Destiny's child - all the key names are here. But She Bop II refuses to look at women artists simply as personalities, problems or victims. From dream babes to rock chicks, riot grrrls and ragamuffins, girlpower, Lilith Fair rock and the rise of the corporate diva, She Bop II is the uncompromising story of women as creators and innovators. Lucy O'Brien is the author of two previous books: the bestsellers Annie Lennox (1991) and Dusty (1989). She has contributed to the Guardian, Sunday Times, Observer, Marie Claire, New Musical Express and The Face, and worked extensively in TV and radio, as both guest pundit and producer.