Lucy O'Brien (born 13 September 1961) [1] is a British author and journalist whose work focuses on women in music.
Lucy O'Brien (born 13 September 1961) [1] is a British author and journalist whose work focuses on women in music.
O'Brien was born in Catford, London and grew up in Southampton. [1] In 1979, whilst attending a convent school in Southampton, she formed a punk band aptly named "the Catholic Girls". [2] She left the band in 1980 to attend University in Leeds, and The Catholic Girls continued for a while under the name Almost Cruelty before splitting up. [3]
At university she played with a number of bands before giving up performing to write instead. [4] She became music editor of the University of Leeds magazine, Leeds Student, [5] and after graduating in 1983, she submitted gig articles to the music paper the New Musical Express ( NME ), which then published Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent. She has since written about the "intimidating" office culture at NME in the 1980s, and the extent to which female music journalists were ostracised and not taken seriously by the paper. [6] Her best-known contribution to the paper may be the notorious "Youth Suicide" cover article. [7]
Forming an alliance with fellow soul and socialism heads Stuart Cosgrove and Paolo Hewitt, O'Brien became part of a leftist faction at NME which was eventually discharged by incoming editor Alan Lewis – an IPC troubleshooter instructed to de-politicise the magazine and boost sales. [7]
During her early years at NME , O'Brien also wrote for the feminist magazine, Spare Rib , whose offices she had first visited in 1980. [8] In 1984 she co-wrote a cover story for them about women in the music industry. She was shocked to discover just how few women had record deals or were in the charts compared to men [9] and this discovery would inspire her later work, particularly She Bop.
After leaving NME , O'Brien worked as Music Editor at the London listings magazine City Limits . [10] It was here that she interviewed Dusty Springfield, an interview which led to her being contacted by the publishers Sidgwick & Jackson, and to her being offered the chance to write Springfield's biography.
By 1990, O'Brien had gone freelance, going on to write for The Guardian and The Independent , and music magazines Q Magazine and MOJO , amongst others. Her reputation as a writer and commentator was seriously established by the publication of her first book Dusty – a best-selling biography of British soul legend Dusty Springfield (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989). The book was instrumental in the rediscovery and reappraisal of Springfield's work, and was the foundation for O'Brien's reputation as an authority on female artists and soul music.
Her next music biography, Annie Lennox (St Martin's Press, 1993), was also published in the United States. O'Brien charted Annie Lennox's career from the early troubled days of The Tourists through to the global success of Eurythmics to Lennox's decision to take a pop sabbatical at the height of her career to work on behalf of the homeless.
In 1995, O'Brien took a broader look at female musicians in She Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Rock, Pop & Soul (Pan, 1995). Using a personal, polemical, and thematic approach, the book begins with the Blues and Jazz Age, and ends with chapters on protest pop and the business side of the music business, taking in chapters on fifties girl pop, sixties girl groups, rock chicks, punk and its feminine descendents, including riot grrrl, singer/songwriters, Madonna, MTV and the power of image, artistry, androgyny and the lesbian question, Disco and the dance scene, rap and reggae, and world music along the way.
The second edition of Dusty appeared in 1999 and covered events up to Springfield's death, while the updated She Bop II was published in 2002 by Continuum Press, [11] including more recent artists and a chapter on girl power. [12]
In 2007, O'Brien wrote an in-depth biography of Madonna, entitled Madonna: Like an Icon . This was published on 28 August 2007 in the UK and later, on 6 November 2007, in the USA. [13]
O'Brien's books, notably She Bop, have led to frequent television appearances as an authority on rock music. These include appearances on Channel 4's Top Ten... franchise, and work for BBC2's The Ozone in the late nineties (including a feature exploring the concept of girl power, and an interview with Yoko Ono.) [14] amongst others. O'Brien also co-produced the Channel 4 documentary Righteous Babes, on rock and new feminism, [13] and in 2002 adapted She Bop II as a two-part documentary for BBC Radio 2.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchy alternative rock, in reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the US-led grunge music and the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dramatic ballads, with French chanson, country, and jazz in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak, she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic. Her image – marked by a peroxide blonde bouffant/beehive hairstyle, heavy makeup and evening gowns, as well as stylised, gestural performances – made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
The Tourists were a British rock and pop band. They achieved brief success in the late 1970s before the band split in 1980. Two of its members, singer Annie Lennox and guitarist Dave Stewart, went on to international success as Eurythmics.
Nick Kent is a British rock critic and musician, best known for his writing for the NME in the 1970s, and his books The Dark Stuff (1994) and Apathy for the Devil (2010).
Dusty in Memphis is the fifth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield. Initial sessions were recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, while Springfield's final vocals and the album's orchestral parts were recorded at Atlantic Records' New York City studios. The album was released in March 1969 in the United States by Atlantic Records, and Philips Records distributed the record outside the U.S. Springfield worked on the album with a team of musicians and producers that included Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd, conductor Gene Orloff, backing vocalists the Sweet Inspirations, bassist Tommy Cogbill, and guitarist Reggie Young.
Ian Geoffrey Levine is a British songwriter, producer, and DJ. A moderniser of Northern soul music in the UK, and a developer of the style of hi-NRG, he has written and produced records with sales totalling over 40 million. Levine is known as a fan of the long-running television show Doctor Who.
Sister George were an English band from London, recognised as being significant in the 1990s queercore scene, who formed in 1993.
Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist and broadcaster. He has worked on the New Musical Express and many other magazines and newspapers, and has been interviewed for a number of television documentaries and reports on music.
Penelope Ann Valentine was a British music journalist, rock critic, and occasional television personality.
Juliana Luecking is an American musician, spoken-word artist and video maker. QueenJuliana is her YouTube channel where People Are a Trip, a series filmed in public places in New York City, is featured. Luecking's videos were instrumental in Picture New York's 2007 fight to protect the rights of NYC artists to shoot video and take pictures free of police harassment. Punk rocker Kathleen Hanna described Luecking as a mentor and instrumental to her development as a feminist. Luecking's name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic". In 1993, Luecking performed in Washington, DC for the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.
The Lana Sisters were a British vocal group formed by Iris Long in 1958, with Lynne Abrams. They put an advert in The Stage for a third member and got a reply from Mary O'Brien, who would go on to solo success a few years later as Dusty Springfield.
"Slowdive" is a song by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was released in 1982 by record label Polydor as the first single from the band's fifth studio album, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.
"What Have I Done to Deserve This?" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys and soul singer Dusty Springfield, taken from the duo's second studio album, Actually (1987). The song was released as the second single from the album on 10 August 1987.
The Springfields were a British folk-pop vocal trio who had success in the early 1960s in the UK, Australia, US and Ireland. They included singer Dusty Springfield and her brother, songwriter Tom Springfield, along with Tim Feild, who was later replaced by Mike Hurst.
"Oh Bondage Up Yours!" is the debut single by English punk rock band X-Ray Spex. Released in September 1977, it is regarded by critics as a prototypic example of British punk, though it was not a chart hit.
Madonna: Like an Icon is a biography by English author Lucy O'Brien, chronicling the life of American singer Madonna. The book was released on 27 August 2007, by Bantam Press in the United Kingdom, and on 18 October 2007, by HarperCollins in the United States. Madonna: Like an Icon chronicles the life of the singer from her birth, up to the release of her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, in 2008. Initially critical of her work, O'Brien had become a fan of Madonna after seeing her perform on television for The Virgin Tour in 1985. From that point of time, the author followed Madonna's career closely, attending her concerts, and collecting interviews, magazines, and albums.
Hearts and Flowers is the twelfth studio album by British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading. The album was written, arranged and produced by Armatrading; recorded at Bumpkin Studios, her own studios in the grounds of her home; mixed at The Grey Room in Los Angeles and mastered at Sterling Sound, New York. Armatrading began writing the album in 1989 and finished it in April 1990. It was released on 4 June 1990 by A&M Records.
Lorraine Silver is an English singer known for her single Lost Summer Love (1965), which came to be regarded as a classic of Northern soul.
Our Troubled Youth is the Huggy Bear side of a split album they released with Bikini Kill. It was released on International Women's Day 1993 on Catcall Records in the United Kingdom, and on the Kill Rock Stars label in the United States.
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