“I Don’t Play Girly House Music”

Abstract

This chapter explores the assignment of particular gender stereotypes to sound and performance in contemporary electronically produced dance music, focusing on the sonic quality of 'fluffiness'. It underscores this exploration with a critique of idealistic theorisations of electronic music, in which machines have the potential to liberate us from the limits of traditional gender frameworks. The chapter aims to unpack some of the vagaries of dance music participation that identify so-called femininity as a sonic or bodily phenomenon. It suggests that Nina Kraviz rarely moves in ways that typify simplistic understandings of 'female DJing'. Cilla, a DJ from Malmo, Sweden, used the phrase 'girly house music' with reference to music that she avoided playing in her DJ sets in order to prove that her tastes, and by extension her skills as a DJ, matched those of her male DJ peers: CillaI don't play girly house music.

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