Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture

Vice UK editor Ewens elevates female music superfans to superstardom in this passionate, smart take. At age 10, a friend “as much of a weirdo as me” introduced Ewens to music fandom, which “paradoxically gave me both the invisibility cloak I desperately wanted and... the only identity that felt like it fitted comfortably.” In defining female fans as a “community... on a collective journey of self-definition,” Ewens notes that “being a fan is serious business.” She decries the way female admirers have been belittled by the misogynistic “hysterical fan” label that’s been applied to fans of everyone from the 19th-century heartthrob-composer Franz Liszt, who inspired “classic stereotypical fangirling behaviours,” to Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, and One Direction. Ewens immersed herself in fangirldom by befriending London teens sleeping outside in line for concert tickets; Japanese girls flooding Tokyo’s Haneda airport to glimpse a teen star; a young couple living in the late Amy Winehouse’s former apartment, which has become a tourist destination; and members of the Beyhive, Beyoncé’s fiercely protective global fan club. A madcap climax finds Ewens and two middle-aged fans—a spin-class instructor and a high-powered lawyer—stalking Courtney Love at a rehearsal in an upstate New York performance space with nervous teenage glee. Fangirls—and pop music fans in general—will jump on this adrenaline-fueled tour. (Aug.)