Empty Bed Blues Analysis

Where rock targets a white youthful audience, Hamilton examines the way that the making of the blues tradition also had sexual connotations, however not as male-dominated. The blues emerged from a black culture and demonstrates the sexualisation and sexuality of this culture. Hamilton (2000, 132) opens the article with lyrics to Bessie Smith’s song ‘Empty Bed Blues’, a song about sex and the absence of her lover. Towards the end of the 1920s, Smith’s song ‘Empty Bed Blues’ was full of sexual innuendos and set the scene for the 1920s and 1930s that released many blues songs with sexual connotations, from both men and women; unlike the rock scene, where women's’ roles were limited through the male notions of their capability (Frith and McRobbie
Barlow explains that the ‘vaudeville-based novelty songs’, the folk-blues, are a product of commercialization and used to arouse an audience to buy the products. Barlow called this ‘a burlesque of African-American sexuality’ (Hamilton 2000, 134). The obscene sexual references that emerged within the blues echoed what Barbara Ehrenreich (as cited in Hamilton 2000, 158) called the “male ‘flight from commitment’” in the 1950s. This is around the same time that the feminization era was happening in the rock scene, and there is a correlation between the two genres and their treatment of women and sex. Through the feminization era, women were to categorise their sexual feelings as feelings of romance, and during this time in the blues scene men were staring to infuse romance into their music. With the infusion of romance came bluesmen being affected by their inner feelings, and becoming more vulnerable to women. This vulnerability led to less obscene sexual connotations, however the black community was still heavily sexualised in
Rebollo-Gil and Moras examine the misogyny that is present within the rap culture, and the place that both men and women occupy in relation to one another within the genre (2012, 119). Rap started in the 1970s when minorities grouped together to express their apathy to politics, and is now strongly affiliated with direct references to sex. Within the rap scene, much like the rock scene, men hold primary power in the industry, however this genre has always been feminine (Rebollo-Gil and Moras 2012, 124). Much like rock and the blues, men use the music to express their sexual power over women, and try in some ways, to win said women over. Whilst rap is feminine, it has strong influences of misogyny in the lyrics that often degrade women in graphic and crude sexual representations. According to Katheryn Russell-Brown (as cited in Rebollo-Gil and Moras 2012, 123) white America’s conception of the black Americas as being hyper-sexual and heavily erotic, marginalizes them and pertains to their treatment of women as the way that they are perceived because of their race. Despite the rap scene having degrading lyrics, many women still support the industry and buy the music. Women are also part of the rap scene, and black women rappers are often subject to not receiving equal financial support, and have slim chances of receiving