Annotated Bibliography

Books

Auslander, Phillip. Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2009.

Brett, Philip, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C. Thomas. Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and
Lesbian Musicology, 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge, 2006.
These authors are at the forefront of Queer Musicology, and the essays contained in this collection address this
completely new way of approaching the field of musicology from a gay/lesbian or other gender non-binary
perspective. Brett discussed how music is subversive historically in that it appeals to the senses, a sort of
primeval pleasure. He then argues that musicality is inherently feminine and at odds with a patriarchal society.
This theory pairs nicely with the argument that Bowie was subversive by challenging gender stereotypes and,
thus, the heterosexual, patriarchal establishment. The most intriguing and helpful offering from this book is
Woods essay entitled Sapphonics.

Broackes, Victoria, and Geoffrey Marsh. David Bowie Is the Subject. London: V&A, 2013.
This beautiful collection of performance photographs, album cover shoots and outfits represented in the art
exhibition David Bowie Is is an artistic statement in and of itself. It allows a detailed glimpse into the fashion
of a pop icon, offering some behind-the-scenes information and unused production stills from some of Bowies
iconic moments.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Tenth Anniversary
Edition. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Butler is credited with coining the term performativity, and in this book she defines the term and illustrates
how it is a form of gender subversion, going so far as to say that all gender is a regulatory fiction, created by
sustained social performances. This is particularly helpful in illustrating that Bowies stage performances are
heightened versions of the day-to-day gender performances in which the average person engages.

Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Doty asserts that fantasy and politics are equally important elements in discussing queer theory. He also spends
time discussing the problems of theorizing mass produced cultural forms such as television, movies, and pop
music. How a mostly heterosexual audience responds to a queer offering will play a large part in the study of
Bowies performativity; the audience response is as important as the artists performance itself.

Ellis, Iain. Brit Wits: A History of British Rock Humor. Chicago: Intellect, 2012.
This text takes a different angle with Bowie and contextualizes his gender identity as part of his British humor
and wit. The author asserts that Bowie is toying with his audiences while also demonstrating the fact that these
may or may not be his true inner desires. The approach to Ziggy Stardust is one of caricature and parody not to
be take seriously at first glance but deeper within is a deconstruction of social concepts of gender and sexuality.
This perspective is interesting because it grows out of the British cultural identity of humor being vague,
cheeky and subtly irreverent and, at times, subversive.

Goldstein, Joshua. Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-creation of Peking Opera,
18701937. University of California Press, 2007.
While this book is a slight diversion from Bowie, it parallels the gender issues in males performing using
effeminate gestures and vocal ranges. Of particular interest is the fact that Peking (Beijing) Opera traditionally
 insisted on men playing the female roles because they were able to better demonstrate femininity. The study of
the patriarchal society of Japan is a whole other subject entirely, however this cultural aesthetic could prove to
be a useful case study when referring to the fact that performativity is not limited in glam rock but has its roots
in other time periods and cultures.

Hawkins, Stan. Queerness in Pop Music: Aesthetics, Gender Norms, and Temporality.
New York: Routledge, 2016.
The chapter entitled In and Out will be of particular use as it deals directly with Bowies moment of coming
out in Melody Maker magazine in 1972. The author sees this admonition as both real and as a confessional
discourse. This coming out is juxtaposed with the anti-homosexual climate in early 70s UK and Bowies
eventual distancing from the gay community during the AIDS epidemic. The chapter goes on to describe the
album Aladdin Sane, from the album cover and its queer sensibilities to an in-depth analysis of the song Jean
Genie. The analysis includes the music video, the vocal style, the lyrical content and even the blurring of
musical styles.

Hoffmann, Frank. The Literature of Rock, 19541978. Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1981.

This is a selected bibliography of books, journals and magazine articles relating to rock music, recordings, and
performers. This is one of the annotated bibliographies that I pulled from the stacks at the SDSU library for the
MUS690 Research Exercise regarding bibliographies. I may or may not use the entries on David Bowie and
seek out the articles listed but it was a helpful exercise.

Inglis, Ian. Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time. Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006
This is a great collection of short essays, each focusing on a seminal live performance that either changed music
history or left an impact on pop music. Editor and contributor Ian Inglis asserts that live performances more
than audio recordings simultaneously reflect and influence patterns of socio-cultural activity. The essay
entitled Watch that man. David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London, July 3, 1973 discusses the final
performance of Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. It is incredibly detailed and describes every movement and gesture in
minute detail, accompanied by a description of what is happening in sociological and sexual/gender terms,
backed up by scholarly sources.

Jarman-Ivens, Freye. Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music. New York: Routledge, 2007.
To understand Bowies androgyny and often times traditionally feminine movement and affectation one has to
understand the patriarchy and masculinity associated with rock music, rock image, and the music industry as a
whole. This book explores masculinity in popular music, tracing the roots of this historical construct from a
social and musical perspective.

Koestenbaum, Wayne. Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire. Da
Capo Press, 2009.
This book is written with tongue planted firmly in cheek, although it is nonetheless filled with useful information
regarding the queering of the performing arts, in particular opera. Homosexual fandom is also examined through
the eyes of a gay opera fanatic, and of particular use is the chapter on the voice itself. This chapter explores the
human voice as something innately personal and subversively sexual. The passion and desire expressed by the
human voice as well as its physiological sameness to genitalia is discussed in lurid detail. The descriptions of the
voice and the throat in this book will help explain the vocal styling of Bowie as he explored different techniques
to obfuscate his gender and sexuality.

Leibetseder, Doris. Queer Tracks: Subversive Strategies in Rock and Pop Music.
Translated by Rebecca Carbery. Burlington: Ashgate, 2012.
The author beings by tracing queer performances back to the days of vaudeville and burlesque, where men cross-
dressed to lampoon rather than celebrate femininity. She then goes even further back to Plato and other Greek
philosophers theories on this other gender that is neither male nor female. This is particularly intriguing as
these androgynous musings were completely acceptable in ancient Greek culture, yet in Bowies time was
 considered quite subversive. Also included in this work are the authors thoughts on camp and parody, both of
which are strategies used by Bowie to both hide his sexuality and flaunt it simultaneously through the use of
humor and melodrama.

Lenig, Stuart. The Twisted Tale of Glam Rock. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.
Lenig explores the social and cultural upheaval of the late Sixties that led to the rise of glam rock. He discusses
Andy Warhol, a major influence on David Bowie, and the problem with rocks overt rejection of femininity and
embrace of masculinity. The author also deals with the duality and struggle of an artist remaining true to ones
self while also embracing capitalism in order to achieve financial success in the record industry. Bob Dylan is
cited as a musician who lost a big part of his fan base by plugging in and adding electric guitar, and as disciples
of Dylan, many glam artists had to come to terms with this. By taking the Warhol philosophical approach,
Bowie and others asserted that consumerism is art; therefore one should not be criticized as losing oneself to the
establishment simply by being successful or appealing to the masses.

Miller, Edward D. Tomboys, Pretty Boys, & Outspoken Women: The Media Revolution of 1973.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2011.
I have yet to read this source.

Moisala, Pirkko, and Beverley Diamond. Music and Gender. Urbana: University of Illinois,
2000.
I have yet to read this source.

Stevenson, Nick. David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision. Cambridge: Polity, 2006.
I wanted to read at least one David Bowie biography for this research paper, and Stevensons book tells the
reader right away that this will not be a listing of facts and dates or an analysis of the music or the recording
techniques used. Instead, he delves into the psyche of Bowie and gets right to the heart of why he made the
decision to abandon the counterculture and develop the glam rock genre, which reflects the Pop Art movement of
the time as well. Bowies fascination and relationship with artist Andy Warhol and author William Burroughs is
explained in depth, and his interest in androgyny and the idea of obfuscating his gender is given much attention,
along with scholarly citations to back up the authors assertions. The albums are discussed in detail along with
Bowies intention, and the philosophy of dual personalities, performativity, and masks are discussed at length.

Taylor, Jodie. Playing It Queer: Popular Music, Identity and Queer World-making. Bern: Peter
Lang, 2012.
This book is an excellent effort in marrying queer theory to popular music. The author identifies the historical
desire for musicians to use music to express gender and sexual differences, asserting that popular music has been
a central figure in molding queer identities and the queer self-conscience of the performing artists. Music as a
transformational, freeing medium is a theme that runs throughout, and a central concept is performativity, which
is the topic of my research. The conclusion is drawn that there is no natural way to perform gender identity,
therefor all performances can be interpreted a variety of ways. This performative experimentation would be
exactly what Bowie was attempting to undertake as he transformed into Ziggy Stardust and other androgynous
alter-egos.

Tomasino, Anna. Music and Culture. New York: Pearson, 2005.

I have yet to read this source.

Whiteley, Sheila, Andy Bennett, and Stan Hawkins. Music, Space and Place: Popular Music
and Cultural Identity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
I have yet to read this source.

Whiteley, Sheila, and Jennifer Rycenga. Queering the Popular Pitch. New York: Routledge,
2006.
 This book is a nod to Queering the Pitch, focusing on popular music rather than Classical. The essay entitled
Popular Music and the Dynamics of Desire was especially relevant in providing a method to analyzing an
individual song in detail. The essay provided a background on desire in popular music and the subversive
aspects of queer performers, and then launched into a description of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody. This
measure-by-measure analysis of chords, textures, harmonies, melodies and vocal inflections will help inform a
discussion about Bowies signature songs that are representative of the performativity of androgyny in his music
itself. Whiteley then concludes with thoughts about Warhol, Burroughs, fashion and the New York gay scene
that existed under the sheen of glam rocks surface. She asserts that queering has been part of rocks early years
and that the glam artists of the early 70s were entertaining mainstream audiences while giving a wink and a nod
to their audiences who had queer sensibilities.

Journal Articles

Oh, Chuyun, and David C. Oh. "Unmasking Queerness: Blurring and Solidifying Queer Lines
through K Pop Cross Dressing." The Journal of Popular Culture 50.1 (2017): 9-29.
I have yet to read this source.

Oh, Chuyun. "Queering Spectatorship in K-pop: The Androgynous Male Dancing Body and
Western Female Fandom." The Journal of Fandom Studies 3.1 (2015): 59-78.
This article exposes the sociology behind the feminine attraction to the androgynous, feminine-leaning image of
male pop stars and offers a contemporary parallel between the Western female fandom and effeminacy of glam
rockers and modern Korean K-pop singers and bands. While male dancing is traditionally associated with
homosexuality, the female fans embrace this hyper-sexualized movement and de-stigmatize male dancing. This
is also evident in documented fan reactions to the performances of Bowie.

Rodger, Gillian. Drag, Camp and Gender Subversion in the Music and Videos of Annie
Lennox. Popular Music, vol. 23, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1729.
An excellent case study for how an academic analyzes a gender-bending pop performance. Includes a brief
background on Lennox, who is considered by many to be a female equivalent to David Bowie. The author uses
musicological terminology to describe the vocal techniques and timbres while also describing the visual
elements of her music videos and live performances.

Audio Recordings

Bowie, David. David Bowie (Deluxe Edition). Decca, 1967.

Space Oddity. Parlophone, 1969.
The Man Who Sold the World. Parlophone, 1970.
Hunky Dory (Remastered). Parlophone, 1971.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (2012
Remastered Version). Parlophone, 1972.
Aladdin Sane (2013 Remastered Version). Parlophone, 1973.
Diamond Dogs (2016 Remastered Version). Parlophone, 1974.
I referenced the studio albums of David Bowie starting with his first album David Bowie and ending
with Diamond Dogs. His first two albums are indicative of an artist trying to find his voice, with lyrics
filled with archetypal characters and a dance hall-like presentation that is charming but trite. The songs
Space Oddity and Cygnet Committee really stand out as precursors to his later material, but most of the
second album is going for a Dylan-esque vibe and although he is critical of the counterculture, Bowie
makes no effort to differentiate himself musically. The lyrics do hint at some androgyny, but they are not a
 true effort to address the subject. The next two albums (The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory)
have a sound reminiscent of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Cream, a true blues/rock jam band sound
with the inclusion of Mick Ronson on guitar. It is the album covers that are actually more telling of
Bowies future exploration of androgyny and blurred gender lines than the music itself. The last three
albums (Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs) are what the focus of my topic will be, and
these three albums are rich with the poetic, musical and vocal symbolism of performativity and gender
subversion. By exploring the lyrics, the music and the vocal delivery of Bowie I will draw clear parallels
between his performance and the research on performativity.

Documentaries & Films

Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World. Directed by Sonia Anderson. Screenbound Pictures,
2016.

Discovering Music: Discovering David Bowie. Directed by Lyndy Saville. 3DD Productions,
2015.

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker.
Mainman, 1973.

Interviews

Chuyun Oh. 2017. Interview by Andrew Bearden. San Diego. October 6.

This interview gave me insight on what Dr. Oh believes performativity really is and how it relates to movement.
Dr. Oh is an expert in dance history and her sensibilities are based on visual movement, so she suggest I choose
very specific performances and even more specific moments within those performances to focus my studies of
visual performativity. She also provided me with a list of readings she recommended, particularly her own word
on analyzing the queerness of K-Pop artists and the heterosexual Western female audience who faun over them.
The parallel to Bowies movement, fashion and fan base are clearly evident and K-Pop itself could be a useful
contemporary comparison to use in either the introduction or the conclusion of my research paper, depending on
how and when I choose to make historical or contemporary comparisons.