We Oughta Know
How Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah Ruled the ’90s and Changed Music
- Publisher
- ECW Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2024
- Category
- Pop Vocal, Popular Culture, Women's Studies, History & Criticism
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770417748
- Publish Date
- Oct 2024
- List Price
- $24.95
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Where to buy it
Description
A lively collection of essays that re-examines the extraordinary legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated ’90s music and changed the industry forever
Fully revised and updated, with a foreword by Vivek Shraya
In this of-the-moment essay collection, celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner explores the ways in which Céline Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah McLachlan became legit global superstars and revolutionized ’90s music. In an era when male-fronted musical acts were given magazine covers, Grammys and Junos, and serious critical consideration, these four women were reduced, mocked, and disparaged by the media and became pop culture jokes even as their recordings were demolishing sales records. The world is now reconsidering the treatment and reputations of key women in ’90s entertainment, and We Oughta Know is a crucial part of that conversation.
With empathy, humor, and reflections on her own teenaged perceptions of Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah, Warner offers us a new perspective on the music and legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated the ’90s airwaves and influenced an entire generation of current-day popstars with their voices, fashion, and advocacy.
About the authors
Andrea Warner (she/her) writes and talks. A lot. She's the author of Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography and We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the '90s and Changed Canadian Music. She's the co-writer and associate producer of the 2022 documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On and co-hosts the the weekly feminist pop culture podcast Pop This!. She lives in Vancouver, BC.
Vivek Shraya is the author of the young-adult collection God Loves Hair, the novel She of the Mountains, the poetry book even this page is white, and the children's picture book (with Rajni Perera) The Boy & the Bindi (all published by Arsenal Pulp Press), as well as I'm Afraid of Men and What I Love About Being QUEER. She is editor of the Arsenal Pulp Press imprint VS. Books, dedicated to work by young black, Indigenous, and writers of colour. Vivek was the 2014 recipient of the Steinert & Ferreiro Award for leadership in Toronto's LGBTQ community, the recipient of Anokhi Media's inaugural Most Promising LGBTQ Community Crusader Award in 2015, a 2015 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist, and a 2015 recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour of Distinction. Originally from Edmonton, she now lives in Calgary, where she is an assistant professor in the University of Calgary's Department of English.
Editorial Reviews
“From the mind of one of our country’s finest writers, We Oughta Know is a history lesson in how misogyny marked the stratospheric careers of Canada’s four biggest female music superstars. A fascinating, fun, and infuriating read.” — Tegan Quin, Tegan and Sara
