Peer-reviewed article
Songs about Boys: Black Girl Groups, Pleasure Cultures, and the Race of Romance
Emmalouise St. Amand ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This historical study looks at Black teenage girls in the United States who formed singing groups in the decades after World War II. It asks what love songs meant to the Black girls who made them, rather than to white listeners. The author draws on local newspapers, yearbooks, magazines, recordings of girls' original songs and interviews with former group members. The study argues that girls' interest in romance created a space of friendship among girls and joy, and that these songs are important records of Black life.
Key points
- Black teenage girls built a musical pleasure culture around romance in the decades after World War II.
- Most earlier work on the girl group sound focuses on its effect on white girl listeners.
- Black girls' interest in romance, often dismissed, was an important stronghold of homosociality and joy.
- Highly feminine music, ties to white-owned production companies and a white suburban audience have left these groups out of conventional histories of Black American music.
- Girls' love songs are records of Black life even when they are not musically innovative or clearly political.
Limitations
The abstract does not give details of how many groups or interviewees were studied or how they were chosen. It is a historical, interpretive study of the US and does not evaluate an intervention or measure well-being outcomes.
Abstract
Abstract In the decades after World War II, Black teenage girls cultivated a musical pleasure culture grounded in the tropes of heteronormative romance. Although most scholarship on the “girl group sound” focuses on the impact of the most famous groups on their (white) girl listeners, I center Black girl singers themselves to ask: what did girl group songs mean for the Black girls who created them? I assess documentary evidence from local newspapers, yearbooks, popular magazines, and sound recordings of girls’ original songs alongside interviews with former girl group members to argue that Black girls’ often-dismissed interest in romance in fact constitutes an important stronghold of homosociality and joy. Furthermore, I suggest that Black girl groups’ highly feminine music, entanglement with white-owned production machines, and white, suburban girl audience tend to obscure them in conventional histories of Black American music. By expanding my analysis beyond the most famous groups, focusing on original songs, and resituating them as part of a larger culture created by and for Black girls, I show that girls’ love songs remain crucial records of Black life even when they are not aesthetically innovative or legibly “political.” When one considers Black girls’ songs without only positioning them in relation to a white ear, a record of Black girls’ joy becomes audible.