Scary Monsters

Popular music and masculinity have rarely been examined through the lens of research into monstrosity. The discourses associated with rock and pop, however, actually include more ‘monsters’ than might at first be imagined. Attention to such individuals and cultures can say things about the operation of genre and gender, myth and meaning. Indeed, monstrosity has recently become a growing focus of cultural theory. This is in part because monsters raise shared concerns about transgression, subjectivity, agency, and community. Attention to monstrosity evokes both the spectre of projection (which leads to issues of familial trauma and psychoanalysis) and shared anxieties (that in turn reflect deeply held ideologies and beliefs). By pursuing a series of insightful case studies, Scary Monsters considers different aspects of the connection between the music, gender and monstrosity. Its argument is that attention to monstrosity provides a unique perspective on the study of masculinity in popular music culture.