She's So Fine: Reflections on Whiteness, Femininity, Adolescence and Class in 1960s Music

Girl groups and girl pop soloists inhabited a historical moment marked by the flourishing and subsequent decline of post-World War II social norms and structures of feeling; this volume convincingly teases out the multiple ways in which female singers voiced and embodied dramatic social change in Britain and the United States from the late 1950s into the 1970s. [...]voice' could easily have been included in the book's title, so weighty is its overall intervention on this topic. Given the ambitions and scope of this book, it is unsurprising that no unified approach is taken regarding the role of black artists and influences in the development of girl group music and in 1960s music more generally. [...]during the time period in question, African American experience was used, discarded, reframed or ignored to suit the needs of a diverse array of social actors; in this respect, any single approach has the potential to elide key distinctions.