Skinny blues
Karen Carpenter, anorexia nervosa and popular music
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4304121 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Graham Mckay (0000-0002-7770-0502, University of East Anglia, corresponding author), George Mckay |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Popular Music (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0261-1430 • E-ISSN: 1474-0095 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s026114301700054x |
| OpenAlex | W2773300283 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 19 |
This article discusses an extraordinary body in popular music, that belonging to the person with anorexia which is also usually a gendered body - female - and that of the singer or frontperson. I explore the relation between the anorexic body and popular music, which is more than simply looking at constructions of anorexia in pop. It involves contextually thinking about the (medical) history and the critical reception and representation, the place of anorexia across the creative industries more widely, and a particular moment when pop played a role in the public awareness of anorexia. Following such context the article looks in more detail at a small number of popular music artists who had experience of anorexia, their stage and media presentations (of it), and how they did or apparently did not explore their experience of it in their own work and public appearances. This close discussion is framed within thinking about the popular music industry's capacity for carelessness, its schedule of pressure and practice of destruction on its own stars, particularly in this instance its female artists. This is an article about a condition and an industry. At its heart is the American singer and drummer Karen Carpenter (1950-1983), a major international pop star in the 1970s, in the Carpenters duo with her brother Richard; the other figures discussed are Scottish child pop star Lena Zavaroni (1963-1999), and the Welsh rock lyricist, stylist and erstwhile guitarist of the Manic Street Preachers, Richey Edwards (1967-1995 missing/2008 officially presumed dead
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Blues · Context (archaeology · Literature · Narrative · Popular music · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Visual arts · Artistic and Creative Research · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Music History and Culture · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2023 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |