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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2021 20:56:30 GMT
 Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music and Fame
About the Author
For the past twenty years, Lisa Robinson has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where she produced music issues and profiled many major musicians. Prior to that, she was a columnist for the New York Times syndicate and the New York Post, the American editor of England’s New Music Express, and the editor of several rock magazines. Additionally, she has hosted various cable TV and radio shows, and published a memoir, There Goes Gravity, in 2014. She was born in New York City, where she still resides.
Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music, and Fame
by Lisa Robinson
www.goodreads.com/book/show/52079571-nobody-ever-asked-me-about-the-girls
3.21 · Rating details · 300 ratings · 75 reviews
An intimate, critical look at the lives of female musicians by a famed music journalist, based on new interviews with Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Adele, Bette Midler, Sade, and more
From the effects of fame on family and vice versa to motherhood and drugs, sex, and romance, Lisa Robinson has discussed every taboo topic with nearly every significant living female artist to pass through the pages of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
Here, in Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls, her interviews with and observations of fabulous female pop and rock stars, from Tina Turner and Alanis Morrissette to Rihanna, show how these powerhouse women, all with vastly different life experiences, fell in love with music, seized their ambitions, and changed pop culture.
Grouped by topic, ranging from hair and makeup to sexual and emotional abuse, Robinson’s interviews reveal each individual artist’s sense of humor, private hopes, and personal devastations—along with the grit and fire that brought each woman to the stage in the first place and empowered her to leave her mark on the world.
The Struggles of Pop Music’s Female Stars
www.wsj.com/articles/the-struggles-of-pop-musics-female-stars-from-linda-ronstadt-to-rihanna-11604509163?page=1
Neil Shah
November 4, 2020 11:59 am ET
In a new book, “Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls,” a veteran music journalist discusses the hurdles faced by generations of women from Linda Ronstadt to Rihanna.
Appeared in the Nov 05, 2020 , print edition as 'The Struggle of Pop’s Female Stars'
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2021 22:20:16 GMT
NOBODY EVER ASKED ME ABOUT THE GIRLS
WOMEN, MUSIC AND FAMEBY LISA ROBINSON ‧ RELEASE DATE: NOV. 10, 2020
www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lisa-robinson/nobody-ever-asked-me-about-the-girls/
Alongtime music writer empties her files.
Vanity Fair contributing editor Robinson has sorted through decades of interviews with scores of female artists and divided their quotes and anecdotes into chapters entitled "Hair and Makeup," "Fame," Abuse," "Motherhood," "Sex," "Drugs," "Business," “Age,” etc. The premise of the book—that nobody has been interested in stories of stars like Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Beyoncé, Rihanna, or Courtney Love until now—lacks evidence-based support and fails to justify this stitched-together jumble of retreads and outtakes. Though Robinson makes the point that she was never a critic, rather an interviewer, an editor of fan magazines, and a writer of “chatty columns,” she does have her likes and dislikes. She credits Madonna with "ruining the culture" in the 1980s, and she is particularly enraged by Taylor Swift, whom she met as “a fledgling country music singer with buck teeth. The second she heard I was from Vanity Fair, she grabbed my hand with such force that I thought she might break it, and her eyes lasered on me like something out of The Exorcist….The idea that she, or anyone, thought she could play Joni Mitchell in the still unmade ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ movie is laughable. (Joni told me she put a stop to that.)” Even the stars Robinson admires don’t come off well in these pages: Lady Gaga confides, "I feel like if I sleep with someone they're going to take my creativity from me through my vagina.” Sheryl Crow reports that Stevie Nicks told her, "if you ever have kids you'll never write a great rock song again.” The author also quotes Adele's maunderings about motherhood at numbing length. One might conclude that decades-old gossip isn't that interesting, but Ben Widdicombe's recent stylishly written memoir, Gatecrasher, suggests that isn't the problem.
For devoted Robinson fans only.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2021 22:24:59 GMT
USA TODAY
'Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls': Lisa Robinson dishes on women’s plight in pop music
www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/nobody-ever-asked-me-about-the-girls-lisa-robinson-dishes-on-women-s-plight-in-pop-music/ar-BB1aRYmF
Matt Damsker, Special to USA TODAY 11/13/2020
Until all too recently, the world of pop rock has been dominated by the male gaze and unapologetic sexism. Yet for four decades, Lisa Robinson, out with new book “Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music and Fame” (Henry Holt and Co., 256 pp., ★★★★ out of four), has been the quintessential music journalist, the great exception to the boy’s club mentality by which the big names, from Elvis to Lennon, Jagger, Bowie and beyond, have been celebrated in print as if female artists were an afterthought.
A longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a straight-shooting byline and seasoned editor in the American and British press, Robinson has gone deep in her career, snagging substantial interviews with pop’s reigning idols and dishing on their salad days and star struggles. Manhattan-born and bred, she remains a relatable, wised-up observer, never more so than when she reports on the women who have made it in pop, making her new book an indispensable document about the feminine journey through a man’s world.
www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/10/14/stevie-nicks-sings-dreams-tiktok-debut-viral-video/3650130001/
www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/11/01/beyonce-queen-b-british-vogue-beehives-honey/6118610002/
Robinson’s rich archives have brimmed with celebrity pulp since the late 1960s, but her interactions with female artists are where she mines gold. Robinson has been something of an ally to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Rihanna and countless others at key moments in their public and private lives. They opened up to her, woman to woman, while most male pop rock journalists reported from a distance – and judged.
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“Once, at a party, Beyoncé cut a small brownie into four tiny little squares in front of me and ate only one of the squares,” writes Robinson in a chapter titled “Hair & Makeup,” which examines the pressure female artists feel to conform to male standards of appearance, especially since the 1980s, when MTV brought a visual focus to pop music. “It’s an old story: No one is judged on their looks the way women are. Look at poor Madonna – with what appears to be all that extreme plastic surgery. And Cher – beloved as she is, well – it’s still hard to remember what she used to look like … This is the burden that is now placed on every single woman who steps on a stage to sing, play a guitar or to make music.”
www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/09/15/madonna-direct-cowrite-her-own-untold-true-story-biopic-movie/5808165002/
text: "Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music and Fame," by Lisa Robinson.© Henry Holt "Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music and Fame," by Lisa Robinson.
'I work on my emotional recovery daily': Mariah Carey reveals true vulnerability in new memoir
If Robinson sounds ironic in observing “poor Madonna,” make no mistake that she doesn’t empathize. She organizes the book around key themes, such as the often empty privilege and isolation of “Fame,” the difficulties of “Motherhood,” “Family,” “Business” – and, crucially, “Abuse.” Robinson vividly renders the infamous relationship between Tina Turner and her former employer-husband, Ike Turner.
“My triumph was in leaving Ike,” she told Robinson, recalling the night she sang onstage with a broken jaw, swallowing blood.
Clearly, Robinson can be more than just a reporter in those moments when her subjects reflect on their lives. The therapeutic aspect of her listening to them is evident, as when Courtney Love looks back at her childhood in a foster home.
“I wanted to be famous at the age of 4 – because I thought then, life will be fair,” Love says. After founding the rock band Hole and marrying Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who soon committed suicide, Love concludes, “I got famous. And I found out that life still wasn’t fair.”
And, fairly or not, Robinson can dish from her own perspective. She’s no fan of Taylor Swift, for example (“And no, I have never interviewed her. And no, I never wanted to”). Still, her ability to ride along and humanize her subjects without prying for gory details is less a technique than a measure of sisterhood and good faith. That’s a rarity in pop rock journalism, and Robinson is a rare resource.
'Party in the U.S.A,' 'FDT': Handful of songs see huge spikes following news of Joe Biden presidency
www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/11/09/mileys-party-u-s-a-fdt-spike-sales-after-election-news-joe-biden-president-elect/6223549002/
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls': Lisa Robinson dishes on women’s plight in pop music
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2021 22:28:16 GMT
Lisa Robinson Opens Up About the Issues Female Musicians Face
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
27.7M subscribers
Lisa Robinson talks about breaking into the boys' club that is music journalism in the '70s, breaks down the unique challenges that women experience after becoming famous and spills on working with legends such as Beyoncé and Janet Jackson.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 12, 2021 22:29:24 GMT
Legendary Music Journalist Lisa Robinson | Broken Record (Hosted by Rick Rubin)
Broken Record Podcast
45.4K subscribers
Pioneering rock journalist Lisa Robinson will never run out of stories. Over the past 40 years she’s interviewed everyone from John Lennon to Lady Gaga to Jay-Z and Eminem. She even sat down with an 11-year-old Michael Jackson years before he became the King of Pop.
Lisa’s career started in the 1970s when she embedded on world tours with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. In the decades since, she’s partied with Bowie, dined with Beyonce, and talked through the night with Joni Mitchell.
In today’s interview, Rick Rubin reminisces with Lisa about her storied career. She has a lot to say about everything …. Including how she and her husband, music producer Richard Robinson, practically lived at CBGBs during the mid-70s … and why she felt compelled to write her latest book, “Nobody Ever Asked Me About The Girls” — which features excerpts from interviews she’s done with Bette Midler, Rihanna, Adele, Stevie Nicks and so many more.
Photo: Kevin Mazur
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 25, 2024 12:59:03 GMT
EXCERPT
“The Artist Is Still Getting F--ked”: Why the Music Industry Is Still So Hard on Women
www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/11/why-the-music-industry-is-still-so-hard-on-women
In this excerpt (of the excerpt) from her new book, Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls, Vanity Fair contributor Lisa Robinson details the many built-in challenges of the music industry—and talks to the women, like Adele and Lorde, who have managed to break through it.
BY LISA ROBINSON
NOVEMBER 6, 2020
Cher and David Geffen in Los Angeles, 1983.BY RON GALELLA/GETTY IMAGES.
Almost every successful female musician has had a man initially help guide her career. Cher had Sonny Bono, then David Geffen. Joni Mitchell also had David Geffen and Elliot Roberts. Linda Ronstadt had Peter Asher (formerly one half of the British singing duo Peter and Gordon, and James Taylor’s manager). Beyoncé had her father, Mathew Knowles. Mary J. Blige had Sean “Puffy” Combs and record company executive Andre Harrell; then, for years, she leaned on her unfaithful, now ex-husband/manager Kendu Isaacs. Mariah Carey had her ex-husband and Columbia Records president Tommy Mottola, then manager Benny Medina, then a woman with whom she was recently embroiled in a lawsuit. Jennifer Lopez had Benny Medina, then guidance from Puffy, then Benny again. Tina Turner had Ike, then manager Roger Davies. Janet Jackson had her father, Joe Jackson, then Roger Davies. Lady Gaga had a New Jersey producer (who sued her), then manager Troy Carter, then Bobby Campbell—who worked for Troy—and always the involvement of her father, Joe Germanotta. From the get-go Adele has had Jonathan Dickins. Rihanna had two male producers who helped her get to Jay-Z and L.A. Reid, who signed her to Def Jam, with Roc Nation’s Jay Brown as her manager. Madonna had DJ-producer Jellybean Benitez, then label head Seymour Stein, then manager Freddy DeMann, and now, her longtime manager, Guy Oseary (who probably gets a retainer rather than a percentage), who helped her start and oversee her Maverick Records label. Dolly Parton had a mentor in Porter Wagoner and for years, a man- ager in Sandy Gallin. (There have been a few women here and there who have managed female performers, and a few women who have managed men—but they are very few and not always long term. An exception is Jane Rose, who has managed the career of Keith Richards for 35 years.)
Still, even with a male protector, women have always had to work harder, were faced with more obstacles at every turn, and didn’t always think to ask for what they financially felt they deserved. There were, of course, exceptions. Longtime music-business mogul Irving Azoff recently told me that in the music business, when it came to payment—to a male or a female—all that mattered was how many records or concert tickets you sold. “I remember in the 1970s, we had a Joni Mitchell tour and a Crosby, Stills & Nash tour at the same time,” he told me, “and Joni got three times as much as they did. You would get $10,000 to $15,000 for CS&N, and Joni was getting $35,000 a show. She played bigger buildings, like colleges, which had 10,000 seats—while CS&N played 3,000-seat theaters. When Linda [Ronstadt] was on Capitol, and David [Geffen] signed her to Asylum Records, she had a bigger deal than the Eagles.”
So even when the stars are so famous that they can get dressed in free gowns from Balenciaga or Balmain or Givenchy, we’ve arrived at a time when the ensembles are getting skimpier; half naked is the norm. (It’s funny to remember that there was once a time in the 1970s when Linda Ronstadt raised eyebrows performing onstage wearing an adorable Boy Scout uniform with little shorts.) These days it’s hard to find someone other than Billie Eilish or Adele who is fully clothed in concert. All that cleavage baring and butt flaunting has reached a level that eschews any mystery whatsoever and leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. |
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