Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music and Fame

A light and easy read of quotes by musicians such as Stevie Nicks, Adele, Beyonce, Linda Ronstadt, Rhianna, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Mavis Staples, Debbie Harry, Jennifer Lopez, and Lorde about sexism, fame, money, groupies, family, road life, stage fright, and musical influences. Big, mysterious slam on Taylor Swift. ( )

Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music and Fame by Lisa Robinson is a fascinating look at women in music and the common threads that run through so many of their stories.

Music, particularly the popular music genres, is very much about the men. Even with all of the interviews Robinson did with women she comments that when people would ask her about any of the celebrities she had met it was almost exclusively about the men. This book doesn't simply rehash old interviews, it explores and comments on the distinct obstacles and issues women in the industry faced in addition to the ones both men and women had to overcome.

Organized by topic rather than either separate musicians or genres, the reader more easily sees the same desires and the same hurdles across both genre and time. In her epilogue Robinson mentions some of the changes that have begun to take place during and after the writing of the book, but the comments from these women are remarkably similar whether from the 1960s or the 2010s.

I highly recommend this for readers of music history, especially rock and pop music, as well as those interested in the unique obstacles that women face that men largely never even know about.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )