Pop Cultures

WOMEN, MUSIC, AND CELEBRITY

Round table discussion and Q&A

The Allbright, 11 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HR.

Tickets are free but limited. Booking is essential: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pop-cultures-women-music-and-celebrity-tickets-59220456981

Whether on stage or behind the scenes, women's status in the music industry needs interrogation. Pop music culture circulates representations of women that both shape and reflect their role in our culture. At both ends of the spectrum it is a site for some of the most regressive gender tropes and some of the most excitingly resistant, norm-shattering responses to them. On an industrial level, women have to fight for their seat at the mixing desk: of the world’s 600 most popular songs last year, only two per cent were produced by women, the gender pay gap at some of the biggest music-focused companies is a staggering 30 per cent, and just 14 per cent of performers at US festivals were women. At the 5th Celebrity Culture Club event, our panel of speakers from academia and the music industry discuss how women are represented in the music industry, both on stage and behind the scenes.

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SpeakerS

Featured

Ayse Hassan

Ayse Hassan is the bassist for Mercury Prize shortlisted, all-female post-punk band, Savages. She makes music in collaborations Kite Base and 180db and solo as ESYA.

Maxie Gedge

Maxie Gedge does Communications for PRS Foundation, the UK's leading funder for new music and talent development. She is the Director of the record label Gravy, and the drummer for both angry pop girl group Graceland and Current Bond. She has an MMus in Sonic Arts, has worked for festivals, venues and talent development organisations, programmed hundreds of new music shows, and promotes and DJs at queer dance parties.

Dr Kirsty Fairclough

Professor in Screen Studies; Research and Knowledge Exchange Lead; and Research Degrees Coordinator at SODA ( School of Digital Arts).

Carla Marie Williams

Carla Marie Williams is a multi-platinum songwriter, producer and artist who has written songs for Britney Spears' album, Glory, and Beyonce's Lemonade, and has appeared as an industry expert on Simon Cowell’s X factor: the Band.

Chair

Featured

Dr Hannah Yelin

Reader in Media, and Culture, Oxford Brookes University. Host and Founder of Celebrity Culture Club. Chair of the Creative Industries Research and Innovation Network.