{"id":103393,"date":"2016-04-28T09:58:27","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T09:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/04\/28\/bands-who-bemoan-their-teenage-girl-fans-are\/"},"modified":"2016-04-28T09:58:27","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T09:58:27","slug":"bands-who-bemoan-their-teenage-girl-fans-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/04\/28\/bands-who-bemoan-their-teenage-girl-fans-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Bands who bemoan their ‘teenage girl’ fans are missing the point of music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bands who bemoan their ‘teenage girl’ fans are missing the point of music<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

business-direction<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A few weeks ago, while preparing to speak to a band called Mothxr, I came across an interview they\u2019d given a couple of months earlier<\/a>. In it, they were asked their favourite thing to see in the audience from onstage \u2013 and their answer was all too familiar. \u201cGuys!\u201d they said. \u201cI\u2019m not kidding!\u201d I wish they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cA balanced ratio of men to women,\u201d they continued, \u201cmeans we have music listeners in the audience. When it\u2019s all girls of a certain age, it\u2019s likely that our music might not be their primary interest.\u201d It\u2019s probably worth pointing out here that Mothxr\u2019s lead singer is Penn Badgley \u2013 who rose to fame in the TV series Gossip Girl. His anxious desire to distance himself from a show he feels he\u2019s outgrown is a common one. But so, too, are comments like that.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Rolling Stone<\/a> at the end of last year, 5 Seconds of Summer estimated that \u201c75% of our lives is [spent] proving we\u2019re a real band. We\u2019re getting good at it now. We don\u2019t want to just be, like, for girls.\u201d In order to prove themselves as a \u201creal band\u201d (apparently for the time being, they\u2019re merely a figment of teenage girls\u2019 imagination) they must gain the approval of men. Already, they explained proudly, they\u2019re \u201cseeing a few male fans start to pop up\u201d. What an incredible moment that must be for them \u2013 to glimpse a man among a sea of female frivolity, each Y chromosome taking them one step closer to credibility. Never mind that they wouldn\u2019t have been doing this interview if it wasn\u2019t, like, for the girls that bought their records. <\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s not exactly 5 Seconds of Summer\u2019s fault that they\u2019ve got such a distorted view of things. After all, they\u2019re operating in a culture in which teenage girls are seen as the lowest common denominator of music fan. A culture in which older men are the bastions of good taste, the brave protectors of real music \u2013 while young women\u2019s enthusiasm is dismissed as a sort of mass hysteria, blocking their ability to discern good from bad.<\/p>\n

As a reviews editor, I\u2019ve lost count of the number of times writers have \u2013 while bemoaning a gig\u2019s drawbacks \u2013 referred derisively to the amount of \u201cteenage girls\u201d in the crowd. It\u2019s as if that phrase itself is a code that needs no further explanation, no elaboration as to why a young woman\u2019s fully paid-up presence at the gig is, unquestionably, a bad thing. It isn\u2019t. Their judgments are just as legitimate, their enthusiasm just as credible, even if their screams are a little louder. And if you think their taste is indiscriminate, you\u2019d be wise to remember that for every One Direction, there\u2019s a thousand other bands who tried and failed to gain even a fraction of their success. <\/p>\n

This is the case now, as it was 40 years ago. After David Bowie died, my mum dug out a \u00a31 ticket from a Bournemouth gig she\u2019d been to as a 15-year-old, alongsidesome old BBC footage of the very same show<\/a>. Bowie, says the segment\u2019s narrator, is \u201can object that is worshipped by millions of girls\u201d. Later he decries, his voice plummy and faintly horrified: \u201cIt is a sign of our times that a man with a painted face and carefully adjusted lipstick should inspire adoration from an audience of girls aged between 14 and 20. Everywhere.\u201d At this point, the level of panic bubbling up in his voice suggests he\u2019s worried they might be infectious \u2013 \u201cthere are the girls\u201d. Cut to 43 years later, and it seems those girls were pretty spot on as far as that \u201cbizarre, self-constructed freak\u201d Bowie was concerned. Just as they were with the Beatles. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting, of course, that every band adored by teenage girls in 2016 will go on to be universally revered. (For one thing, the taste of teenage girls is far from a monolithic entity.) I certainly don\u2019t think, even if they keep up the impressive feat of gaining male fans, that 5 Seconds of Summer are likely to be remembered in the same way as Bowie. But they\u2019re no less likely to do so than a band enjoyed solely by older men with furrowed brows and an extensive vinyl collection. To look out into a crowd, or into your Twitter mentions, and immediately discount the approval of young women, is a foolish thing to do. Don\u2019t bite the hand that feeds.<\/p>\n

After interviewing Mothxr, and tweeting my dislike for their sentiments on gender, I got an email from Penn Badgley. He wanted to explain that he was pushed into answering that question, and that his quote had been taken somewhat out of context, but more so, he wanted to apologise. And to let me know that he\u2019d changed his mind. \u201cEvery great band ever,\u201d he conceded, \u201chas played for a predominantly young female audience, and that audience is appreciative and invested and willing to scream and dance with abandon. Which is the point of music.\u201d It sure is.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bands who bemoan their ‘teenage girl’ fans are missing the point of music business-direction: A few weeks ago, while preparing to speak to a band called Mothxr, I came across an interview they\u2019d given a couple of months earlier. In it, they were asked their favourite thing to see in the audience from onstage \u2013 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Bands who bemoan their ‘teenage girl’ fans are missing the point of music”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1674,2,12798,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}