Don't
misunderstand. It's clearly still a boys' club, empowering lyrics or
not.
Her studio band is
a band of boys. So is the band that backs her up at MTV's New Year's
Eve party. So was the band she had before going solo.
Every song on the
album is written by or with a man. “She Bop”, a song about
female masturbation, is credited to Lauper... and four men. “Girls
Just Want To Have Fun” was originally written from a man's
perspective, which makes sense, because it was written by a man.
Lauper contacted him and received his permission to alter the lyrics
in order to make them less misogynistic. In fact, Lauper's contract
with Sony stipulated that she only be allowed to record other
people's songs. Those other people all turned out to be men.
I feel it bears
repeating: Lauper was compelled to change the lyrics to Female
Empowerment Anthem “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” because the
original lyrics were too sexist.
The three people
with production credits are men. Ok: most of the backup vocalists,
photographers, and designers were women. But hairstylist? Man.
Backup singers aside, the people who made the music are
overwhelmingly male. A large percentage of them hail from
Pennsylvania, a boys' club of musicmakers that seems to have centered
around producer Rick Chertoff's college friendships with members of
The Hooters (two of whom appear on this album.)
It matters that the
album won Grammys and produced a number of big hits. It matters that
Lauper was named one of MS Magazine's women of the year, and that her
music was forever associated with female empowerment. And it matters
that the record still stands up today, consistently ranking in all
sorts of Best Of lists. Some of that credit goes to the image that
accompanied the album—an image created largely by women, and
principally by Lauper herself. But it also matters that nearly all
the people twisting the knobs, stringing the guitars, micing the
amps, penning the lyrics, developing the arrangements, inking the
deals, pressing the album, and even handing out those awards were
men.
Last night I stood
in a field outside Leposavic. It's a small town in north Kosovo. My
band had picked up a gig at the last minute to play something the
organizers were calling “Summertime Festival.” The festival
consisted of about 40 people and two big coolers of beer positioned
in front of a small and shaky stage on a riverbank at the edge of an
abandoned pasture about a mile outside of town. My band was playing
first, and some friends of ours were playing last. We were all men.
The second act was
from out of town. They all seemed to be in their early twenties, and
they played a blend of metal and reggae that I can only describe as
utterly abhorrent, blasphemous, and against everything that is good
and righteous in this world. Their singer, who seemed like he might
be an engineering student or a coffeshop waiter, sang earnestly about
Jah and the power of the Rastafarian religion. He did not seem to be
under the influence of marijuana. Nor did he seem to notice any
incongruity between his clothes, his words, or his surroundings. His
band swung back and forth between heavy head-banging riffs and light,
groove-inducing ska strokes, and I only barely managed to maintain my
balance during what amounted to an hour of unwelcome aural whiplash.
But there was something I liked about them. It was the girls.
His female drummer
and guitarist took the stage like they knew what they were doing, and
they did. They played powerfully and tightly—never mind that I
hated the style of what that power and discipline produced. They were
the engine of the band, and everyone in the audience could feel it. I
wondered where they came from, and how. Because even today, twenty
nine years after She's So Unusual, there still aren't enough
women calling the shots in the music business. I like it when I see
a young woman doing well in a band, like these women were. I want to
see the ones “who walk in the sun.” Or rock beneath the moon. I
want to see what they can do. Sure seemed like they were having fun.
