Rebel Girl

"Rebel Girl – When She Talks, I Hear the Revolution" – Bikini Kill

The journalist, DJ and radio presenter Tine Plesch, who died in 2004, was not only among the first to highlight the importance of the band Bikini Kill, but also introduced countless other feminist topics into German pop journalism, always with a fan's enthusiasm while maintaining a critical perspective. Many of her articles on Riot Grrrl and Ladyfests, electronic music and female representation, counterculture and violence, or gender relations in pop culture and pop journalism have lost none of their relevance to this day.

Tine Plesch always turned her attention to those who, whether women or men, refused to conform to comfortable roles and instead looked for something better out of a love for life. To people who were searching, for whom life was not a completed process but an adventure with an open ending. "If critical or political pop culture genuinely wants to uphold this commitment, it must always take into account and actively address its own failures and its inescapable entanglement in the capitalist pop culture industry," Tine Plesch insisted, making this very same principle a prerequisite for her own writing.

The texts in this book were compiled by Evi Herzing, Hans Plesch and Jonas Engelmann.

With a foreword by Michaela Melián.

The Press

"The texts have lost none of their relevance; on the contrary, they remind us of the brilliance of pop's rebellious promise." (Kendra Eckhorst, Missy Magazine)

"This book shows that feminism in pop culture is certainly not a movement of the day before yesterday. With passion and conviction, Tine Plesch makes a compelling case for a better life. Her sparks of insight continue to ignite!" (Philippa Schindler, Aviva)

"(...) wonderfully irreverent, yet thoughtful and incisive." (Kendra Eckhorst, Jungle World)

Table of Contents

• New Tracks and Paths in the Web • Tine (1959–2004) • The Search for Rebellion in Pop • Bust and Brassiere • The Women's Band: A Myth? • Women in Rock Music: Times, They Are A-Changing? • Women in Pop Culture • One of the Boys – Just Better. On the 30th Anniversary of Janis Joplin's Death • Snow White versus Solex. Pop Music Writing by Women • Women? Humour? Pop Music? • Angela Davis. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday • Queens and Divas. Rhythm & Blues Between Collective Traditions, Myths of Individuality and Gender Politics • "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss." Popular Music, Gender Roles and Violence • Gender Trouble – Billy Tipton & Her Life as a Man. International Sweethearts of Rhythm • Drinking, but Not Always Writing About Drinking • Female Pop Musicians and Ladyfests. An Attempt at Defining a Position • The Heroine as Madwoman. Writing – Women – Madness, Through the Example of Three English-Language Novels from Three Centuries