Who are pop dandies? Why are stars like David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker,
Pete Doherty and Robbie Williams so dandified? Taking up a wide
range of British pop stars, Hawkins seeks to find out why so many
have cast themselves in roles that often take style to absurd
extremes. In this study, male pop artists are mapped against a
cultural and historical background through a genealogy of
personalities, such as Oscar Wilde, W.H. Auden, Andy Warhol, NoA"l
Coward, Derek Jarmen, David Beckham and countless others. A
critical analysis of issues and approaches to musical performance
through masculinity becomes the focal point of this fascinating
study. Ranging from the sixties to beyond the twentieth century,
The British Pop Dandy considers the construction of the male pop
icon through the spectacle of videos, live concerts and films. Why
do we derive pleasure from the performing body, and how is
entertainment linked to categories of gender and sexuality? The
author insists that pop performances can be understood through
human characteristics that relate to the particulars of dandyism,
camp and glamour, and this he theorizes through the work of Charles
Baudelaire. One of the political objectives of the dandy is to
liberate himself through a denial of the structures that assume
fixed identity. Not least, it is acts of queering in pop music that
characterize entire generations of male artists in the UK. Setting
out to discover what distinguishes the British pop dandy, Hawkins
considers the role of music and performance in the articulation of
hyperbolic display. It is argued that the recorded voice is a
construction that idealizes self-representation, and absorbs the
listener's attention. Particularly, camp address in singing
practice is taken up in conjunction with a discussion of intimacy,
which forms part of the strategy of the performer. In a range of
songs and videos selected for music analysis, Hawkins points to the
uniqueness of the voice as it expresses a transgressive quality
that often comes across 'put-on', naive and vulnerable. To this
end, vocal performativity is considered part of music's discursive
disciplining through some of the greatest pop tracks, videos,
concerts and films of our time. It is also argued that shifting
signs of masculinity can be understood through musical process and
style. While musicological in its main focus, this study is
interdisciplinary and sets out to open new modes of thinking on the
complex issues surrounding how masculinity, music and culture have
developed in the UK.
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