'70s Teen Pop

Teen pop is a sub-genre of popular music marketed to tweens and teens. Its melodic yearning and veneer of sincerity appeal to an emerging romantic eroticism and autonomy. But tweens and teens buy music that isn't primarily marketed to them, too. Teen pop encompasses several kinds of musical styles, not limiting itself to just one-teen pop wants to play.

During the 1970s, teen pop sometimes worked subversively, challenging the status quo it seemed to represent. Male pop stars such as David Cassidy were shown suggestively in popular magazines and female pop stars such as Cher had their own TV shows. Teen magazines, pin-ups, comics, films, and TV programs provided luscious visual stereo, promoting fashion styles, lingo, and dance moves, signaling individual identity but also community. The music provided a way for young people to believe they had something all their own, an authenticity experimenting with sexuality and social conduct, all dressed up in glitter and satin, blue jeans and boom boxes, torn fishnets and safety pins and, magically, their dreams. Cartoon pop and made-for-TV bands! Bubblegum pop! Glam! Hip hop! Hard rock and pop rock and stadium rock! Punk! Disco! Teen pop reinforced aspects of the counterculture it absorbed as the music kept playing-and playing back.

Although it's very difficult to attain and maintain social progress and play it forward-there are so many tragedies-'70s Teen Pop examines how liberation and a true counterculture can be possible through music.

Author: Lucretia Tye Jasmine
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 10/05/2023
Pages: 168
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.41lbs
Size: 7.75h x 5.12w x 0.14d
ISBN: 9781501383502

About the Author
Lucretia Tye Jasmine earned a BFA in film from New York University and an MFA in Critical Studies from CalArts, USA. Her work is recently published in Women Who Rock: From Bessie to Beyoncé, Grrrl Groups to Riot Grrrl (2018), and Let It Bleed: How To Write A Rockin' (2017). Lucretia's currently working on the Groupie Feminism art series, and two oral history mixtape zines: riot grrrl Los Angeles 1992-1995, and The Groupie Gospels.