This is a past event
The Department of Music will be hosting PopGirlz Scotland in guest lectures in two courses. We are opening the first of these to the public, which will take place as part of a seminar in the MMus course Research Communication. Everybody is welcome to join via Zoom.
In November 2019 Rachel Johnson, an interdisciplinary artist from Edinburgh, formed 'Popgirlz Scotland' - a feminist activist support group for women in the Scottish Music Scene. PopGirlz currently has almost 150 members, ranging from new, upcoming artists to well-known acts such as Honeyblood, Siobhan Wilson and BeCharlotte. Rachel works closely with fellow Popgirl Josephine Sillars in networking and expanding the group.
"In our lectures we analyse our 'Scotify' Campaign, which was a social media campaign we ran in 2020 to highlight the lack of diversity within the 'Scotify' Spotify playlist (and Spotify algorithms). The campaign was successful, creating a radical change of diversity within the playlist (pre campaign it was only 33% female, and now it is 49%).
We are extremely passionate about equality in music and looking for more opportunities to share our work with PopGirlz. We are currently working on new data examining playlists such as "We Are Glasgow", and building on Jawad Iqbal's research which we spoke on in our last lecture, which examines sexism within algorithms (average listeners for example must listen to 7 or 8 songs on shuffle before the algorithm plays a non-male artist). We are also working with our members to examine the statistics in other intersections such as race, disability and class and how these issues affect young musicians."
You can find out more about PopGirlz here:
- https://www.instagram.com/popgirlzscotland/?hl=en
- The Skinny: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/interviews/hen-hoose-the-f-list-and-popgirlz-on-their-plans-for-2021
- PRS: https://www.prsformusic.com/m-magazine/features/since-yesterday-the-unsung-pioneers-of-scottish-pop/
- Bella Caledonia: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/11/25/girls-who-play-guitar/
- Hosted by
- University of Aberdeen Department of Music
- Venue
- Online Event
- Contact
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For more information or any other queries, please contact Dr Jane Forner, Teaching Fellow in Music.