The music genre of hair metal serves as a fascinating portrait of the 1980s. I found in hair metal a set of very concerning beliefs about masculinity, freedom, and consumption that reflect the essential values, beliefs, and mores of the 80s. Functioning as a response to changing gender roles and a shifting economic environment, hair asserts masculine liberty and helps its listeners assuage any fears they may have about threats to the status quo or their way of life.

My creative thesis project is titled “NOTEworthy HERstory: A Feminist Exploration of Prominent Women in Pop Music.” Specifically, I seek to answer this research question: what is the dynamic, reciprocal relationship between these prominent female artists’ music and careers with feminist theory? In other words, I am exploring how feminist theory influenced their work, and also how their work influenced feminist theory and our societal understanding and appreciation of women’s lives. This topic incorporates history, sociology, musicology, and feminist theory. I have presented my findings about specific female artists through a series of four podcast episodes. I selected Carole King, Tina Turner, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift as the subjects for the episodes because they each jumped out to me as being highly connected to specific feminist themes: waves of feminism, patriarchy, intersectionality, and power, respectively.

This thesis examines the representation of female Korean pop stars in music videos, specifically looking into how these music videos serve as a medium for communicating gender ideals. I examine K-Pop's damaging presentations of women and the multilayered ways that such representations shape the “ideal” woman, societal expectations, societal treatment, and its consequences. South Korea, as a country of total media saturation and high technological advancement, leaves individuals surrounded with various ways to “learn” gender and properly enact it in their daily life. This builds and reinforces gender constructs on systemic and personal levels. K-Pop is unique in its strict organizational structure and emphasis on conformity, and both of those aspects lend to an even more intense and streamlined depiction of what a South Korean woman is meant to be. The music video is an ideal cultural artifact to examine due to the overlapping audio and visual elements, including lyrics, choreography, makeup, and outfits.

Social media and digital marketing has become a gateway for musicians and artists to share creative content virtually changing cultural practices, and evolving musical exposure and development. In the year 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the social media platform TikTok revolutionized the world becoming the most influential application for music curation, social engagement, and digital marketing. This social platform has new demand for consumer-artist digital relationships and acts as a promotional vehicle for rising artists. Case studies analyzing TikTok influencers such as Dixie D’Amelio, Loren Gray, Bella Poarch, and Jxdn show how they used their vast social media following and the limiting factors of the Covid-19 pandemic to shift their social media presence, transitioning from influencers to prominent musicians signed to record labels.