Cyborgs in the Studio: Transhuman Vocal Approaches in Gender Nonconforming Recording Artists by Frances Pinkham A thesis accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Musicology Thesis Committee: Zachary Wallmark, Chair Lori Kruckenberg, Member Drew Nobile, Member University of Oregon 2024 2 © 2024 Frances Pinkham 3 THESIS ABSTRACT Frances Pinkham Master of Arts in Musicology Title: Cyborgs in the Studio: Transhuman Vocal Approaches in Gender Nonconforming Artists This project explores the means by which trans and gender nonconforming (GNC) artists use technological manipulations to vocal performance to signify their gender experience. The introduction and literature review (Chapter 1) situates the discussion in the disciplines of voice studies, embodied cognition, and post- and transhumanism. Chapter 2 examines three songs by genderfluid artist Dorian Electra (they/them): “Career Boy,” “Adam and Steve,” and “Ram It Down,” arguing that timbral shifts accomplished via post-production modification provide a means of “dragging” genderfluidity. Chapter 3 examines three songs by transfeminine artist Cleo McKenzie (she/her) aka TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE: “MFW MIRRORZ :3 :P xD,” “i’m two years on hormones and i’m still sad i want a refund,” and “mirrorsong*.” I situate the analysis of these works in discussions of glitch art as politics and explore notions of embodiment of glitched sounds. Chapter 4 examines two songs by cisgender artist Merrill Garbus (she/her), “Now as Then” and “Colonizer,” which use the post-production techniques of spatial positioning, layering, and reverb to critique white femininity. I close with a brief epilogue in which I propose a model for viewing transness through the lens of transhumanism. 4 CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Frances Pinkham GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, Musicology, 2024, University of Oregon Master of Music, Horn Performance, 2016, Southern Methodist University Bachelor of Music, Horn Performance, 2010, University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Queer Theory Music Cognition PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Adjunct Professor of Horn, Wright State University, 2021-22 Second Horn, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, 2017-22 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Roy and Sue Johnson Award in Honor of Dr. Herbert Turrentine for excellence in the area of music history, Southern Methodist University, 2016 Meadows Artistic Award, Southern Methodist University, 2014-2016 Kemp Memorial Horn Scholarship, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, 2010-2014 5 PUBLICATIONS: “Effects on Temporal Perception of Repetitive Vocalization in a Group Setting,” poster presentation at the 2015 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition. “Mudang, Hwarang, and Han: Tracing Decolonial Expression in eddy kwon’s UMMA- YA,” panelist presentation at the 2023 American Musicological Society Conference. 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to pursue this project through its many wonderful twists and turns over the past two years. I want to express special thanks to my advisor and mentor Zachary Wallmark, who is an inspiration to me as a scholar, writer, teacher, and all around human being. I am also grateful to my committee members Lori Kruckenberg and Drew Nobile, who supported and challenged me throughout this process, and for the valuable feedback they offered along the way. To my cohort: I am so lucky to know you all and to have shared in this adventure with you. I know you all have exciting things ahead and I look forward to keeping in touch. To Annie, the most patient DM and spectrogram expert; Emily, who taught me that you can solve most problems with chips and queso (or by simply turning into a walrus); and John, who somehow does not begin every conversation with the fact that he was in Bridesmaids. Extra thanks to Coltan and Jude for supporting me, bringing me snacks, and listening to me talk about gender and cyborgs (a lot). Thanks also to Charley and Alex for introducing me to Dorian Electra’s music, and to Cleo McKenzie for generously sharing her time. I would not be where I am today without the support of my family. I am so grateful for my parents, who have always encouraged me to pursue my passion and never batted an eye at any of my harebrained schemes. Starfishes to both of you. To Laura and Avery: you inspire me every day with your strength and love. To my students, past, present, and future: thank you for teaching me. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................ 12 Concerning the Voice ............................................................................................ 15 Gendering the Voice .............................................................................................. 20 Antecedents: Vocal Androgyny in the 1980s and ’90s .......................................... 22 Physical Approaches to Androgyny: Joan Jett and the Black Hearts’ “Androgynous” ................................................................................................ 23 Physical and Mechanical Approaches to Androgyny: Prince’s “Kiss” and the “Camille” Voice .................................................................................. 24 Real-Time Technological Mediation: Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” ...... 26 Post-Production Technological Mediation: Cher’s “Believe” ......................... 28 Posthumanism, Transhumanism, and the Boundaries of Embodied Cognition ..... 30 Critiques of Trans- and Posthumanism .................................................................. 34 Summary of Chapters ............................................................................................ 37 II. DORIAN ELECTRA AND POLYGENDROUS ABUNDANCE ......................... 39 “Career Boy” .......................................................................................................... 42 “Adam and Steve” .................................................................................................. 45 “Ram It Down” ...................................................................................................... 50 Conclusion: Dragging Genderfluidity .................................................................... 53 III. GLITCH AS DYSPHORIA IN THE MUSIC OF TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE .......................................................................................................... 55 Glitch Art as Politics .............................................................................................. 56 Glitch Art Approaches and Embodied Listening ................................................... 62 8 “MFW MIRRORZ :3 :P xD” ................................................................................. 65 “i’m two years on hormones and i’m still sad i want a refund” ............................ 71 “mirrorsong*” ........................................................................................................ 74 Conclusion: Re-embodiment of the Glitch ............................................................ 76 IV. MERRILL GARBUS’S CRITIQUE OF WHITE FEMININITY ......................... 79 Femininity and Whiteness ...................................................................................... 80 Merrill Garbus and Whiteness ............................................................................... 81 “Now as Then” ....................................................................................................... 82 “Colonizer” ............................................................................................................ 87 Conclusion: Positionality of Sound and Self ......................................................... 89 V. EPILOGUE: TRANSNESS AND TRANSHUMANISM ..................................... 91 Critiques and Caveats ............................................................................................ 94 9 Chapter Page APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. 98 A. COMPLETE LYRICS OF CASE STUDY SONGS ........................................ 98 B. SOUND FILES ................................................................................................. 110 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 111 10 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Gradual abstraction of the body in Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” ................. 27 2.1 Spectrogram of the isolated voice in “Career Boy,” 0:52-0:55. ............................ 44 2.2 Formant shifting in “Adam and Steve,” 0:16-0:17. ............................................... 47 3.1 Examples of preview images for glitching videos ................................................. 58 3.2 Left: Nam June Paik, Magnet TV (1965), right: Jamie Faye Fenton Digital TV Dinner (1979) ....................................................................................... 59 3.3 Michael Betancourt, Glitch Art in Theory and Practice ........................................ 63 3.4 Dramatic stoppage of sound, “MFW MIRRORZ :3 :P xD,” 0:35-0:41 ................ 68 5.1 TC-Helicon Hardtune and Pitch Correction Pedal ................................................. 94 11 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1 Electra’s Vocal Paradigms in “Adam and Steve” .................................................. 49 2.2 Genre Chaos in “Ram It Down” ............................................................................ 52 3.1 Analysis of “MFW MIRRORZ :3 :P xD”.............................................................. 66 3.2 Analysis of “i’m two years on hormones and i'm still sad i want a refund” .......... 73 3.3 Analysis of “mirrorsong*” ..................................................................................... 75 12 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1990: two women stand on a cloudy, windswept beach in New York. One has close- cropped hair, large earrings, and a yellow swimsuit. She smiles and explains, “In ’84, I’ve had a nose reconstructed job, I’ve had my cheekbones risen, I’ve had a chin implant, and breast implants.” Her friend encourages her, “Yes, tell them like it is!” “The most important factor in my life that has been completed recently is that I’ve had a transsexualism operation. That means I’ve had a sex change. I’m no longer a man. I am a woman. I feel great.” Her friend lights a cigarette. “She has to rub it in.” “I am very happy, and I feel like the part of my life that was a secret is now closed. I can close the closet door, there are no more skeletons in there. And I’m as free as the wind that is blowing out on this beach.” She breaks into giddy laughter and twirls away toward the ocean. Her friend turns and looks conspiratorially into the camera. “Except that voice is still there.” The two proceed to break into a comedic falsetto, “I am what I am, I am my own natural creation.”1 This scene from Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning is brief yet deeply significant. Like many of the individuals featured in the film, these two trans women 1 Paris Is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston (1990; Toronto, Off-White Productions), film. 13 were members of the storied New York drag scene, specifically the House Xtravaganza. Of particular concern to many in this culture was the concept of realness, or ability to pass as a cisgender person outside of the walls of the drag house. In the context of the competition, participants are silent, relying on makeup, sartorial presentation, and physical mannerisms to communicate the markers of their desired gender presentation. Any minor slippage in these potent signifiers compromises their realness, which is reflected in their competition scores. For Brooke and Carmen Xtravaganza, featured in the scene described above, realness entailed a curated wardrobe (denim mini-shorts, bikini tops, and earrings) and surgical modifications (facial reconstruction, breast implants, and sex reassignment surgery). In spite of these modifiers, however, one gatekeeper remains to their seamless integration into society as women: “That voice is still there.” Gendered modifications to one’s visual presentation are often readily accessible. A change of wardrobe, an application of makeup, or a haircut can quickly signify one’s gender in a legible way. For those with the access and ability, there are a wealth of options for cosmetic surgeries which are pursued by cisgender and transgender individuals alike. The scene above, however, demonstrates the precarity of the visual presentation in gender signification. All of the efforts to project one’s interiority can be undone in a single utterance. What tools do trans individuals have to aurally signify their interiority? For transmasculine individuals, testosterone therapy may lower the fundamental frequency (F0) of the voice, contributing to a timbre which is more legibly masculine. Transfeminine individuals, however, do not experience similar effects from estrogen therapy. Vocal feminization surgery, such as glottoplasty and laryngoplasty are available, but carry the risk of permanent damage to 14 the vocal mechanism, and furthermore may produce only temporary results. Only about 1% of transfeminine individuals pursue this surgery.2 Speech therapists offer gender-affirming care for individuals seeking to project a masculine, feminine, or androgynous voice, but there are limitations to the amount of pitch and timbre modification that can be achieved with these therapies, especially by individuals whose voices are on the more extreme ends of the vocal spectrum.3 Given these challenges and limitations, the recording studio becomes fertile ground for aural signification of interiority. This intervention serves the purpose of articulating one’s self- concept more dramatically, artistically, and seamlessly than many of the physical interventions available to gender nonconforming (GNC) individuals.4 The aim of this project is to examine the ways that GNC artists use vocal processing technology to signify their experience of gender. I explore the work of three artists in depth: Dorian Electra, TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE, and Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards. My analysis of their work emphasizes the use of timbre, prosody, and mixing effects as tools to telegraph a specific gender experience. I have selected artists who write and produce their work and demonstrate a tendency toward autobiographical songwriting. The songs I have selected feature lyrical content addressing gender and/or queerness specifically. The following literature review begins with an overview of the voice as an object of sound studies and embodied cognition. I then proceed to examine the ways the voice is gendered 2 “Voice Feminization Surgery,” Cleveland Clinic, April 1, 2024, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/procedures/voice-feminization-surgery. 3 Karine Schwarz et al., “Speech therapy for transgender women: an updated systematic review and meta- analysis,” Systematic Reviews 12, no. 128 (2023): 1–º19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-023-02267-5. 4 The designation of gender nonconforming in this paper is an umbrella term for a multitude of identities lying outside of the gender binary. These are including, but not limited to, non-binary, genderfluid, transgender, and agender identities. Although GNC is most often applied in queer settings, it can also apply to cisgender individuals who do not conform to normative gender presentations (see Merrill Garbus, Chapter 4). It is not my intention to totalize or homogenize these identities, but to provide an exploration of vocalities outside of cisnormative modes of performance and listening. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/procedures/voice-feminization-surgery https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-023-02267-5 15 in speech and musical contexts, followed by a series of short musical case studies of works by Joan Jett, Prince, Laurie Anderson, and Cher that illustrate some gendered vocal approaches. The latter two case studies feature voices that have been perceptibly modified by technology through Vocoder and Auto-Tune. Given the significance of technological mediation as a means of signifying gender in these contexts, the analyses in this thesis are situated in the broader discipline of posthuman and transhuman studies. In these spaces, artists blur the line not only between binary concepts of gender but between human and machine. We are challenged to interrogate what constitutes humanity as a discrete entity, and whether we are always already cyborgs, as described by philosopher Donna Haraway. An overview of post- and transhuman studies will close this introductory chapter. Concerning the Voice Imagine you have discovered a new podcast. After a few episodes, you feel a connection with the host, and in time you would recognize their voice anywhere: the topography of their cadence, their idiosyncrasies of phrasing, the way their consonants land. If somewhat unclear, you most likely have a general vision of what they look like: your mind sculpts an image to pair with the voice. Do they have a strong jawline? Do they wear glasses? Are they white? Are they in a smart blazer or an ironic t-shirt? Eventually, you become curious enough to look them up. How does their image stack up to your imagination? Numerous articles muse on this phenomenon, particularly with NPR hosts. Given the homogeneity of the public radio broadcasting style, the diversity of hosts’ appearances often comes as a surprise to listeners. “Do You Know What Your Favorite NPR Hosts Actually Look 16 Like?” asks a Buzzfeed quiz.5 “Every self-respecting snoot in America knows the exact timbre of Carl Kasell’s voice, but could you pick him out of a lineup?” quips Vanity Fair.6 Vocal music heightens these questions, bringing in further layers of cultural conditioning. Black musicians phrase like this. Female voices sound like that. Gay artists adopt a particular timbre. The question of the sexed voice is often the most quickly answered in the mind. Most cultures acknowledge a correlation between voice types and sexual dimorphism: female voices have a higher fundamental frequency range than male voices. Androgynous voices invite a listener to pay closer attention as the mind attempts to categorize the voice. The world of recorded sound is replete with these questions of expectation. Nina Sun Eidsheim calls this the acousmatic question: “Who is speaking?” In the absence of visual cues, we surmise what philosopher Adriana Cavarero deems the “elementary givens of existence: uniqueness, relationality, sexual difference, and age.”7 In cases where these elementary givens are not immediately clear, the listener may experience a category crisis. Conversely, in cases where one’s voice belies the elementary givens of their existence, for instance, their gender identity, this can be a source of dysphoria. Philosophers of the voice often speak to its erotic nature due to the intimacy of physical information that is telegraphed to the listener via the fleshly context of production. Perhaps the most iconic text addressing the erotic voice is Roland Barthes’s essay “The Grain of the Voice.” Here Barthes eschews the fixation on adjectives to describe the voice, arguing instead for a concept of sound as action and embodiment, as subject rather than predicate. He proposes the 5 Tanner Greenring, “Do You Know What Your Favorite NPR Hosts Actually Look Like?” Buzzfeed News, November 13, 2014. 6 Bill Bradley, “The Faces of NPR,” Vanity Fair, November 9, 2010. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/photos/2010/12/npr-slide-show-201012. 7 Adriana Cavarero, “Multiple Voices (2005),” in The Sound Studies Reader ed. Jonathan Sterne, (New York: Routledge, 2012), 525. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/photos/2010/12/npr-slide-show-201012 17 term grain to denote the unique qualities of a voice which are produced by the body of the singer. The voice in this framework is itself a signifier, distinct from the language it carries. It supplies empathetic embodiment in the listener, bringing awareness to the actions of the body via the lungs, teeth, lips, throat, and other physical mechanisms involved in the generation of the voice.8 This emphasis on embodiment is borne out in studies that demonstrate empathetic embodiment of vocalized sound through the mirror neuron system. Perceiving an action, in this case, hearing a vocalization, stimulates the neural systems would be used to perform that action. This covert mimesis is a crucial part of cognitive development broadly and music perception specifically, as argued by Arnie Cox in his mimetic hypothesis. Overt behavioral imitations observed in children persist as covert behavioral imitations across the lifespan. Evidence of this comes from studies of mirror neuron activation in the supplementary motor area (SMA) while viewing a particular action and is similarly present with aural stimuli. As “embrained bodies” (per Cox’s conception), we are constantly engaging with our world through the empathetic questions, “what is it like to do that?” and “what is it like to be that?”9 Kate Heidemann echoes this notion in her four-part embodied comprehension model, in which listeners perceive a voice with embodied perception via (1) vibration of vocal folds, (2) positioning of the mouth and throat, (3) breath support and muscular engagement, and (4) sympathetic vibrations which occur in the listener, namely in the nasal passages, front of the face (mask) chest, and head.10 8 Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). 9 Arnie Cox, Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), 3. 10 Kate Heidemann, “A System for Describing Vocal Timbre in Popular Song,” Music Theory Online 22, no. 1 (March 2016), 4, https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.22.1.2. https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.22.1.2 18 The production and perception of sound, however, are not unidirectional. As a speaker/singer produces sound, they perceive and modulate their own vocalizations according to cultural conventions, consciously or unconsciously striving to adhere to social expectations. In this way, the performer becomes another listener. This recursive relationship is explored in Eidsheim’s The Race of Sound. In this work, Eidsheim shifts the focus from the producer of sound to the perceiver. Without denying the impact of anatomical features and hormones on vocal timbre, Eidsheim argues that speech patterns and timbres are largely entrained: “Vocal tissue, mass, musculature, and ligaments renew and are entrained in the same way as the rest of our bodies.”11 She thus constructs a listener-speaker model reflecting a feedback loop of production and perception that is shaped by cultural norms and expectations. It is through this entrainment, Eidsheim argues, that voices come to sound raced and gendered. Evidence of this can be found in the gendered perception of children’s voices. Eidsheim notes that while “there are no statistically significant physiological differences” between male and female prepubescent voices, they are still perceived as gendered due to differences in “word choice, intonation, speed, rhythm, prosody, level of nuance, and so on.”12 Zachary Wallmark proposes a framework to describe the recursive process of performance and perception, with the performer-as-listener experiencing their voice and modulating their performance accordingly. Wallmark’s paradigm of Action, Sound, Perception, Experience, Concept, and Sign, or ASPECS, reflects the responsive relationship between performer and receiver. A performer’s action generates sound which is then perceived by the listener (and the performer-as-listener) almost instantaneously (in the order of 100–200 11 Nina Sun Eidsheim, The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2019), 6. 12 Ibid., 220. 19 milliseconds) and assigned a positive, negative, or neutral valence (in one second or less).13 It is then sorted within categories of experience, conceptualized, and perceived as a signifier. I propose an application of ASPECS to gendered performance: since gender is culturally situated, both cisgender and GNC individuals modulate their vocal performance to conform to a particular concept of gender. For example, a transgender woman may soften and pitch her voice upwards to conform to Western cultural notions of femininity. Conversely, transmasculine individuals may pitch their voice down and flatten their prosody to signify a masculine self-concept. In a musical context, this may entail pitching a voice upward or downward using recording technology. This signification can be accomplished physically or mechanically, and often includes a combination of both. This brings us to the primary aim of this thesis, which is to examine the ways GNC musicians modulate their voices both physically and with external technology to signify their interior concept of gender. In a recorded musical performance, individuals can craft their projected identities with intention and specificity. Two axioms rooted in queer and gender studies inform the following exploration: 1. Gender is prosthesis.14 Individuals construct their gender presentation both consciously and unconsciously via external tools. This can be as overt as the use of makeup and hairstyles or as subtle as adopting enculturated vocal patterns. Modification of the voice through training, medical intervention, or digital means is just one more example of this prosthesis. 13 Zachary Wallmark, Nothing but Noise: Timbre and Musical Meaning at the Edge (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022). 14 This framing is indebted to Paul B. Preciado and Legacy Russell. 20 2. Gender is a process. In the words of Simone de Beauvoir, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”15 The same is true of all gender expressions. Each is culturally constructed and gains meaning through interaction and cultural context. The gender expressions explored here are no exception. The goal of this project is to capture the means by which trans and GNC individuals signify their identities as they exist in this historical moment, that is to say in the United States during the first quarter of the 21st century. It is not meant to be a definitive cross- cultural statement on what constitutes a feminine, genderfluid, or androgynous voice. Gendering the Voice When we refer to a masculine or feminine voice, what characteristics are implied? At first blush, the simplest answer seems to be the pitch of the voice. On average, adult female-bodied voices sound in the frequency range of 165 to 255 Hz and adult male-bodied voices are in the range of 85 to 155 Hz.16 Gendered vocal characteristics are not confined to register, however, and many pop songs occupy a similar vocal range, regardless of gender. While male and female vocal frequencies may overlap, they can be distinguished by timbre, prosody, and word choice. Femininity is often associated with a dramatic prosodic contour and uptalk: pitching upward toward the end of a sentence as if asking a question. Vocal fry is observed in both male and female speakers, but when employed by female speakers it is variously associated with sexuality, masculine authority, and vapidity, among other social signifiers.17 By contrast, male voices are 15 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Knopf, 2011). 16 Stephanie Watson, “The Unheard Female Voice,” The ASHA Leader 24, no. 2 (February 2019): 44–53. https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FTR1.24022019.44. 17 Zachary Wallmark, “Analyzing Vocables in Rap: A Case Study of Megan Thee Stallion,” Music Theory Online 28, no. 2 (June 2022). https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.10 https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FTR1.24022019.44 https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.10 21 associated with flat prosody, declamatory speech, and emphasis through loudness rather than pitch modification.18 While male and female speakers employ all of the techniques listed above, they bear cultural associations with masculinity and femininity which serve to telegraph gender in social settings. Historical examples of vocal descriptions illuminate the ways that sex, gender, and sexuality are linked through the voice. Anne Carson traces this phenomenon in Glass, Irony, and God. Texts dating from ancient Greece designate high-pitched voices to women and effeminate homosexual men, both of which were considered irrational and dangerous.19 By contrast, the lesbian Gertrude Stein’s “hearty” voice and her “laugh like a beefsteak” were disparaged as unfeminine and implicitly considered a product of her unruly body and sexuality.20 Jen Manion details the lives of 18th-century individuals assigned female at birth who passed as men in England and colonial America in her historical work Female Husbands: A Trans History. Upon revelation of their assigned sex at birth, these individuals were described in newspapers as “female husbands,” indicating a conundrum around sex, gender, and social roles.21 The volume is replete with examples of the voice as evidence of their gender transgression, with descriptions of “shrillness” and “weak[ness]” as factors that betrayed their femininity.22 Conversely, when community members expressed surprise at these unmaskings, their description of the subjects’ voices as “coarse” served as evidence of masculinity. Today, speech-language pathologists coach transgender individuals on ways to masculinize or feminize their voices, with or without surgical and hormonal intervention. 18 Mayo Clinic Staff, “Gender affirming (transgender) voice therapy and surgery,” Mayo Clinic, March 23, 2024. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transgender-voice-therapy-and-surgery/about/pac-20470545. 19 Anne Carson, Glass, Irony, and God (New York: New Directions Books, 1995), 119. 20 Ibid., 121. 21 Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 22 Ibid., 125, 132. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transgender-voice-therapy-and-surgery/about/pac-20470545 22 YouTube offers a wealth of videos coaching individuals on various physical exercises to manipulate the vocal mechanism as well as prosodic techniques to sound more legibly gendered. Training the voice is a crucial element of transition for many individuals. Voice-related gender dysphoria can negatively impact one’s safety and overall quality of life.23 Throughout this thesis, legibly gendered approaches to vocality are understood to telegraph a corresponding gendered presentation to the listener. This perception is, of course, contingent on the listener’s enculturation and lived experience. Given the socially constructed nature of masculine, feminine, and androgynous performance, the performer, the listener, and the performer-as-listener experience gender signification in the context of their social environs. In the case of the artists explored here, the gendered vocal expressions are read in the context of twenty-first-century American culture. It is assumed that legibly gendered vocal performance will be read as such by the listener. Antecedents: Vocal Androgyny in the Music of the 1980s and ‘90s The GNC artists examined in the body chapters of this project are not without antecedents. Here again, the recording studio offers fertile ground for gender signification. In the modern popular music realm, aspects of prosody, effortfulness, and embodiment of vocalization are variously gendered. Consider the shouting and growling of the rock, punk, and metal genres commonly associated with masculinity and the breathy, intimate, or melisma-laden hallmarks of the pop diva. 23 Richard Adler, et al., “Gender Affirming Voice and Communication,” American Speech-Language- Hearing Association. Accessed May 8, 2024. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/gender- affirming-voice-and-communication/. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/gender-affirming-voice-and-communication/ https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/professional-issues/gender-affirming-voice-and-communication/ 23 With these vocal signification processes in mind, let us turn now to some musical examples from previous decades in which artists transgress the boundaries of gender norms with their voices to cultivate an androgynous performance. The examples considered below will bear increasingly perceptible markers of technological mediation. Joan Jett’s approach to cultivating vocal androgyny is almost entirely physical, while Prince combines physical and technological approaches. The works of Laurie Anderson and Cher contain the most technological mediation, approaching a transhumanist sensibility to vocal performance by blurring the boundary between human and machine. As we enter the realm of post- and transhumanism, I will close this introduction with a brief overview of these discourses. Physical Approaches to Androgyny: Joan Jett and the Black Hearts’ “Androgynous” Joan Jett’s 2006 cover of the 1981 Replacements song “Androgynous” is emblematic of some of the physical means by which female singers perform masculinity vocally. The song’s lyrical content celebrates androgynous gender performance, casting it as both a “revolution” and an “evolution.”24 A 2009 live performance of this song showcases Jett’s use of various vocal qualities associated with masculinity.25 She introduces the song by dedicating it to “those of us that like to straddle and blur the lines a little bit.”26 These words are delivered in a low vocal fry, which is associated with masculinity and sexuality when employed by women.27 She also uses vocal fry and growling at various points in the sung portion of the performance, particularly on the word “mad” at 1:37.28 Jett’s prosody is generally flat in both her speech and singing (the 24 Joan Jett and the Black Hearts, “Androgynous,” by Paul Westerberg, recorded 2006, Blackheart, track 7 on Sinner, CD. 25 Jettigre1, “Joan Jett – Androgynous (LIVE),” December 3, 2009, video, 3:44, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gTB2235M1E. 26 Ibid. 27 Wallmark, “Analyzing Vocables.” 28 Jettigre1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gTB2235M1E 24 entire range of the song is within a single octave and primarily situated in a low tessitura). Additionally, Jett’s male backup vocalists harmonize with her at a higher pitch than she reaches in her vocal line. The comparatively low range, flat prosody, and use of vocal fry and growling combine in this performance to signify a celebration of androgynous gender presentation. It is important to note that the subjects of this song are not described as trans or nonbinary. In fact, the lyrics specifically note that the female subject is “happy the way she looks / she’s happy with her gender.”29 Thus, this song is not necessarily reflective of a trans experience but demonstrates ways in which women can modify their dress and voice to perform androgyny. Physical and Mechanical Approaches to Androgyny: Prince’s “Kiss” and the “Camille” Voice Perhaps one of the most iconic androgynous artists of the late 20th century, Prince’s performances evoked erotic desire in fans across the gender spectrum. Embracing the fluidity of his presentation, Prince begins his song “I Would Die 4 U” (1984) with the lyrics, “I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I am something that you’ll never understand.”30 This flexibility and ambiguity is reflected in his vocal performance of “Kiss” (1986), which oscillates between masculine and feminine stylings. The bulk of the song is delivered in a breathy falsetto, which is embellished with whines and screams, all associated with feminine sensuality. Susan McClary’s 2000 analysis of this song points to the intentionally restrained quality of the falsetto voice here; combined with the slow harmonic motion of the blues progression that underpins it, “Kiss” 29 Ibid. In the live performance, Jett gestures at her crotch at this point, signifying a conflation of sex and gender which is increasingly problematized in queer scholarship and community. 30 Prince, “I Would Die 4 U,” by Prince Rogers Nelson, recorded 1984, Warner Bros., track 7 on Purple Rain. 25 revels in tension, denial, teasing, and prioritizing extension of erotic energy over release.31 Toward the conclusion of the song, however, the voice makes a rapid descent through an expansive register, cascading from a screamed A5 to a resonant chest voice A3. Additionally, the song is punctuated with the occasional “yeah” in a markedly lower register. This expansive range, in concert with the various non-speech sounds such as screams, whines, and kissing sounds, cultivate a sensual, androgynous aesthetic. The music video for “Kiss” underscores this eroticism and gender play by subverting expected gendered physical roles. While a woman plays guitar (a traditionally masculine role in the world of rock), Prince dances sensually in revealing clothing (usually the purview of women). McClary argues that Prince subverts masculine expectations of the voice and body and offers in their place “the experience of gender and sexuality as performance—always mutable, always open to invention.”32 Although higher vocal registers are generally associated with femininity, falsetto in itself is not inherently feminine. Nina Eidsheim argues that the distinct timbre of the falsetto register sets it apart from the male singer’s “natural” voice, placing it in “timbral scare quotes.”33 Falsetto thus creates distance between the masculine body and the feminine register via a timbral shift. Throughout his oeuvre, Prince does not limit high register performance to falsetto. In addition to his physical manipulations of the voice to cultivate variously gendered associations, Prince employs studio technology to craft a female alter-ego named Camille, accomplished through the “chipmunk” effect of speeding up the vocal track, thereby raising the pitch. The Camille voice occurs multiple times in the 1987 album Sign O’ the Times: on the song “U Got the Look” in the form of a whispered intro setting the stage for a song about heterosexual courtship, and on “If I 31 Susan McClary, Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 153–57. 32 Ibid., 157. 33 Eidsheim, Race, 108. 26 Was Your Girlfriend,” which assumes a feminine perspective.34 Prince had recorded an entire album under this feminine persona, which was released posthumously. This action is not without timbral consequence, however; the voice is somewhat uncanny and chipmunk-like, sounding more like a low voice altered by helium than a naturally higher voice. Perhaps there was some desire to place timbral scare quotes around this performance of femininity, as well. It may be tempting for modern listeners to ascribe a nonbinary identity to Prince, especially given the lyrics from “I Would Die 4 U” quoted above. We cannot with any certainty, however, project this identification onto the artist. He continues to be celebrated as a paragon of androgynous style, skillfully challenging the binaries of both race and gender in his visual presentation. As biographers Hawkins and Niblock describe: Prince’s self-fashioning with femininity, in relation to his performance and sometimes even his voice, can be interpreted as providing and drawing on a pleasurable array of feminine identifications. His visual references to female performers provide a site of identification that problematizes reductive binary oppositions between male and female in circulation at that time in popular culture…. Prince’s brand of dandy-ness serves to destabilize his corporeal reality within the diegetic space which problematizes any gendered look.35 Regardless of his self-concept, unknowable to us, Prince demonstrates an approach to a male femininity/androgyny and signifies this with his voice. His Camille persona also serves as an early example of crafting a gendered voice using studio technology. Real-Time Technological Mediation: Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” If Prince and Joan Jett trouble the constructed binaries of what constitutes the masculine and feminine voice, Laurie Anderson troubles the very boundary of what it means to be human. Her 34 Prince, Sign O’ the Times, Paisley Park, 1987. 35 Stan Hawkins and Sarah Niblock, Prince: The Making of a Pop Music Phenomenon (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2011), 52–53. 27 iconic piece “O Superman” (1981) features the use of a Vocoder, which modifies the voice in real time. In this case, Anderson’s voice is doubled at lower pitches, producing an uncanny timbre that straddles the boundary of male/female and human/machine. When Anderson shifts to a feminine character, the voice of a mother on an answering machine, she adds more dramatic prosodic contour and uptalk, both associated with femininity. In the accompanying video, Anderson wears a sharply angled suit and her characteristic short, spiky hair. She uses angular, stereotypically masculine gestures, flexing her arms while keeping her lower body perfectly still. A sense of dissolution of the physical body permeates the work both visually and sonically. Susan McClary offers a nuanced analysis of Anderson’s embodied performances in Feminine Endings, suggesting that Anderson’s androgynous presentation and rigid physical movements indicate a desire to be separated from the masculinist designation of the female body as an object of display.36 Beyond this move toward androgyny and refusal, Anderson projects a disintegration of the body altogether. Her shadow moves independently from her body, and at 2:32–2:53 her silhouette dissolves into a shape that begins as vaguely humanoid and gradually becomes abstract (Fig. 1.1). Figure 1.1 – Gradual abstraction of the body in Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman”37 36 Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 138. 37 Laurie Anderson, “Laurie Anderson – O Superman [Official Music Video],” Nonesuch Records, May 20, 2016, video, 8:27, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkfpi2H8tOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkfpi2H8tOE 28 This abstraction is mirrored in the vocal production as Anderson’s voice melds with the Vocoder sound. Additionally, the “ha” syllable which underpins the song becomes less perceptibly human as it is repeated ad infinitum. It shifts from a human vocalization to an instrumental ostinato, further troubling the delineation between human and technology. Lyrically, the piece reflects Cold War anxiety about looming planes and bombs and the replacement of maternal comforts with mechanical arms. In a 2022 interview, Anderson distills the subject of the piece: “This is a song about how, basically, technology cannot save you.”38 She resists, however, the wholesale demonization of technology, given its importance in her artistic approach. In another interview, Anderson observes, “I think many people have missed an important fact: those songs themselves [“Big Science” and “O Superman”] are made up of digital bits. My work is expressed through technology—a lot of it depends on 15 million watts of power.”39 Anderson’s use of the Vocoder, a device originally devised for military purposes, reflects both the permeation of military might in daily life and the transgressive potential to repurpose tools of violence for artistic ends. “O Superman” and other Vocoder-based projects remind us that technology itself is neutral and gains meaning through use. Post-Production Technological Mediation: Cher’s “Believe” While the Vocoder modifies the voice in real time, various post-production methods can also be applied to vocal tracks to generate novel timbres. A popular example of post-production vocal manipulation is the now pervasive Auto-Tune, a digital audio workstation plug-in that modifies pitches to fit them into predetermined slots. Initially conceived as a subtle correction tool, the 38 Anderson Cooper, “How Laurie Anderson created ‘O Superman,’” 60 Minutes, April 4, 2022, video, 2:01, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX4MdK16j7I. 39 Adam Block, “Laurie Anderson in Her Own Voice,” Mother Jones 10 (August/September 1985): 44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX4MdK16j7I 29 producers of Cher’s 1998 hit single “Believe” took the effect to its extreme, producing a unique sound which became known as the “Cher Effect.”40 When applied to the vocal line in this manner, Auto-Tune removes any subtle bending or portamento between pitches, generating perceptible breaks between the notes. The result is a sonic hybrid between vocal and mechanical production that transcends the boundaries of gender altogether. Cher is no stranger to vocal androgyny. In a 1978 televised special, she staged a twelve- minute rendition of West Side Story in which she performed the role of every character. Oscillating in her vocal and sartorial presentation, Cher moves seamlessly from masculine to feminine in this impressive display of vocal prowess that transcends gender norms.41 At times, she performs as multiple characters at once through the use of green screen technology, allowing her to transcend what is physically possible in a live performance. Preceding “Believe” by twenty years, this performance indicates a fascination with utilizing technology to exceed the limitations of the body for artistic ends. The lyrical content of “Believe,” which addresses breaking through boundaries and overcoming obstacles, is underscored by the new sonic possibilities available with this application of Auto-Tune. The post-production space thus becomes a site of generative timbre construction, allowing artists to transcend the limits of the physical body. In the examples above, Joan Jett and Prince manipulate their vocal production via physical means to signify femininity, masculinity, and androgyny. They treat their bodies as instruments by manipulating air speed, pitch, resonating chambers, and other physical aspects of 40 Sue Sillitoe, “Recording Cher’s ‘Believe,’” Sound on Sound, February 1999, https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-cher-believe. 41 Woman in Revolt, “One Woman Show – Cher – West Side Story,” Facebook, video, 12:45, July 5, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=824554997927555. (This is the only complete video available online. Several shorter selections are available on YouTube.) https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-cher-believe https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=824554997927555 30 sonic production. Laurie Anderson and Cher take a different approach, seeking to transcend, dissolve, and augment the body through technological means. The novel timbres they generate through real time and post-production modifications exceed traditional gender presentations and trouble the very boundary of what constitutes a human voice. It is this ethos of transcending the body that situates this thesis in the broader philosophical strands of post- and transhumanism. Posthumanism, Transhumanism, and the Boundaries of Embodied Cognition The philosophical branches of posthumanism and transhumanism share overlapping discourses but are ultimately distinct disciplines. Posthumanism denotes writings which decenter the human by interrogating boundaries between human/animal, human/environment, and human/machine. Scholars in this discipline ask the fundamental question of what constitutes a human and how this notion is conceived. Transhumanism denotes an exploration of the next evolutionary step for humans as our relationship with technology leads to a singularity: a fusion of human and machine so complete that it renders us unrecognizable. Throughout this project, the discourse of transhumanism informs our understanding of a cyborgian relationship with technology when it comes to gender expression. For the artists examined here, technological manipulation of the voice serves an important tool for gender expression. The posthumanist writings of Haraway and Wynter demonstrate the political nature of the word “human” in itself as raced, gendered, and subjective. They call us to see ourselves as always-already cyborg, whether in our identity or in our relationship with tools. This may trouble our understanding of humanity as a discrete, bounded concept circumscribed by the body, both in our relationship to technology and our relationship with one another, as mimetic 31 engagement with the recorded voice (discussed in more detail below) invites the listener not only to empathize with the singer but to physically embody their vocalizations. Posthuman theorist Sylvia Wynter traces the various “descriptive statements” designating humanness, problematizing the overrepresentation of Western philosophical answers to this question. Per Wynter, the throughline of the descriptive statements of humanity throughout Western history has included the following concepts: theocentric (human as distinct from Christian deity), rational/political (human as possessing capacity for reason), biocentric (human as a product of evolution), and economic (human as neoliberal subject).42 Each of these concepts of humanity have justified the subjugation of colonized and racialized subjects, and have been subsequently overrepresented as objective truth among various global cosmologies. For example, colonizing countries using a theocentric concept of humanity argued that land occupied by non- Christian subjects was considered terra nullius and subject to seizure by Christian nations.43 The biocentric descriptive statement fueled Social Darwinism and cast Afrodescendant peoples as “dysselected” by evolution.44 Thus, Wynter argues for posthumanism as a response to Western concepts of humanity, critiquing the very notion of how we conceive of the human. Posthuman philosopher Donna Haraway interrogates the boundaries between human and machine in her landmark 1985 text, “A Cyborg Manifesto.” Though we may view our bodies as discrete entities, Haraway troubles this conventional wisdom by pointing to the increasing embeddedness of technology in our lives. She allays the anxiety around the supposed inhumanity of the cyborg (a portmanteau for cybernetic organism) by advocating for a certain “pleasure in 42 Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 257–337. 43 Ibid., 293. 44 Ibid., 301. 32 the confusion of boundaries” between human and machine.45 Haraway celebrates the “both/and” nature of the cyborg, combatting notions of dualism between human and machine and purity of the organism. She extends this conversation to discussions of identity categories, noting the inextricability of gender, race, and class, especially in an increasingly globalized society.46 By conceiving of the identity “woman” as inherently cyborgian, she also seeks to dispel the notion of women as more connected to nature and averse to technology. In other texts, Haraway questions the divisions between human and animal and our designation of scientific findings as objective fact, noting the impact of political, economic, and social theories on the ways these findings are interpreted.47 Throughout her oeuvre, Haraway troubles the boundaries we use to delimit humanness, highlighting their porosity. Transhumanist Andrew Pilsch has theorized what he believes to be the coming synthesis of human and machine. Pilsch conceives of this shift as the move from human as tool user to human as “tool imbiber,” thereby creating a new “technological body.”48 What distinguishes human feats from transhuman potentiality in this conception is largely the capacity for veridical engagement: the ability to imagine a human body performing a particular act. When human engagement with technology renders our actions unrecognizable to human capacities for movement, cognitive ability, or longevity, we enter the transhuman realm. Cox’s mimetic hypothesis, described above, ultimately interfaces with notions of veridical engagement, as we 45 Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Socialist Review 80 (1985), PDF page 7. 46 Zoë Sofoulis, “Cyberquake: Haraway’s Manifesto,” in Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History, ed. Darren Tofts (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2002), 85. 47 See Haraway’s works Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991) and “The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Determinations of Self in Immune System Discourse” in Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader (1999). 48 Andrew Pilsch, Transhumanism: Evolutionary Futurism and the Human Technologies of Utopia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017), 8. 33 embody to the best of our abilities what it is like to “do that” or “be that” through mimetic engagement. Philosopher Thomas Nagel explores the limitations of our capacity for this type of embodied engagement in his 1974 essay, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Here, Nagel argues that our particular human embodiment limits our ability to understand what it is to inhabit a non- human form (a bat, in this exploration). All the same, “the distance between oneself and other persons and other species can fall anywhere on a continuum…. The imagination is remarkably flexible.”49 While one cannot fully conceive of what it is to exist as something other than human, we can use the imagination to form a “rough or partial” understanding. This is particularly true in our engagement with the human voice. When hearing a singer whose voice is unmediated or imperceptibly mediated by technology, we can imagine a human body performing that action. Perceptible technological mediation such as the sound of Cher’s hard Auto-Tuned voice, however, challenge our mimetic engagement. We can roughly and partially imagine what it might be like to make such a sound, but it is ultimately impossible for us to embody. Cox notes, however, that mimetic motor action such as subvocalization (minute activations of the vocal mechanism while imagining or perceiving a sound) occurs upon perception of both vocal and instrumental sounds.50 This activation is indicative of our capacity to mimetically engage with non-human timbres, even those that exist at the limits of our capacity for embodied cognition. Although we may not be able to imagine what it is to be, or even play, a flute, we can experience empathetic engagement with its sound via subvocalization. Just so, although we may not be able to know what it is to produce the sound of an Auto-Tuned, glitched, 49 Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435–450. 50 Cox, Music and Embodied Cognition, 28–29. 34 or noise-filtered voice, we imagine what it might be like to do so. I argue that despite our inability to completely embody these sounds, we still experience mimetic engagement with them; it is their existence at the edges of our capacity for this engagement that makes them so striking. The embodiment we experience upon hearing these heavily manipulated voices challenges our understanding of the limits of the body and highlights our cyborgian potential for embodied engagement with technology. This also challenges the identities we project onto the body and accept as biological fact, producing empathetic resonance with a variety of timbres at varying levels of gendered embodiment and human ability. For the purposes of this project, I will refer to the sound of mediated voices that challenge the limits of veridical engagement as transhuman timbres. Critiques of Trans- and Posthumanism The discourse of transhumanism is often accused of functioning as a neo-religion, given its salvific language with regards to technology and its promises of eternal life. Pilsch summarizes the biological aims of transhumanism as “hack[ing] the human biocomputer to extend life, enhance welfare, and enhance the human condition.”51 Problematically, this aspiration privileges human life over all others, with little discussion of the resources necessary to maintain this purported immortality, let alone its impacts on non-human life. Even human life is not universally valued, however. The production of technology that makes this evolution possible relies on subjugated and undervalued human labor. In spite of the liberatory feminist potential of cyborg theory, Haraway notes that the production of modern technology is “a matter of immense 51 Pilsch, Transhumanism, 1. 35 pain in Detroit and Singapore,” where critical elements of these machines are produced by a disproportionately impoverished and female labor force.52 Put more sardonically by another author, “Ooowww look at us girlies we’re all digital divas whether we’re slaving away in a chip factory or whether we’re suffering from [repetitive] strain injury or carpal tunnel syndrome.”53 Nor is the supposedly utopian virtual world free of systemic racism and sexism. Image recognition schemas dehumanize and essentialize non-white individuals when they are recognized at all.54 Search engine and social media algorithms privilege racial stereotypes and disproportionately censor images of Black female bodies.55 Voice recognition software privileges an American English accent (distinct from African American Vernacular English), producing a mechanized version of what Eidsheim calls “accented listening.”56 The technologies associated with enabling transhuman potential are not neutral; they have the capacity to reproduce systems of oppression in the virtual space. All the same, Legacy Russell highlights the liberatory potential of transcending the physical body in the virtual realm. As a young, queer, Black woman, Russell experienced multiple intersectional marginalizations. Cultivating online personae allowed Russell to live in a world apart from her daily embodied experience. While experiences that take place outside of Internet communications are often described with the shorthand “irl”—in real life—Russell resists this designation, using the term “AFK”—away from keyboard—instead. Identities crafted 52 Haraway, “Cyborg,” 13. 53 Sofoulis, “Cyberquake,” 100. 54 Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (New York: Verso, 2020), 27. 55 Nosheen Iqbal, “Instagram ‘censorship’ of black model’s photo reignites claims of race bias,” The Guardian, August 9, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/09/instagrams-censorship-of-black- models-photo-shoot-reignites-claims-of-race-bias-nyome-nicholas-williams 56 Nina Sun Eidsheim, “Rewriting Algorithms for Just Recognition: From Digital Aural Redlining to Accent Activism,” in Thinking with an Accent, ed. Pooja Rangan (Oakland: University of California Press, 2023), 134–150. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/09/instagrams-censorship-of-black-models-photo-shoot-reignites-claims-of-race-bias-nyome-nicholas-williams https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/09/instagrams-censorship-of-black-models-photo-shoot-reignites-claims-of-race-bias-nyome-nicholas-williams 36 in the virtual space, she argues, are no less real than those that take place offline. Anonymous chatrooms allowed Russell to explore facets of her identity denied by the world AFK.57 I was a young body: Black, female-identifying, femme, queer. There was no pressing pause, no reprieve; the world around me never let me forget these identifiers. Yet online I could be whatever I wanted. And so my twelve-year-old self became sixteen, became twenty, became seventy. I aged. I died. Through this storytelling and shapeshifting, I was resurrected. I claimed my range.58 This description begs the question of what constitutes authenticity and identity—two deeply fraught terms whose definitions are rife with racialized, gendered, and otherwise enculturated implications that ultimately exceed the scope of this project. The central question framed by Russell’s statement is whether the body is the final word on our identity. Can we truly embody any lived experience we want online? Are these adopted identities just as real as our own embodied experiences AFK? Instances of “digital blackface,” in which non-Black individuals imitate Black vernacular or pose as Black individuals online, are problematized as tone-deaf appropriation at best and nefarious manipulation at worst.59 In the case of those with racialized or otherwise marginalized identities, however, online spaces offer opportunities to transcend the oppressive societal conditions that limit one’s capacity for self-expression AFK. In the case of the artists explored in this thesis, vocal modulation technology allows trans and GNC individuals to reflect a gender experience that they feel resonates deeply with their identity but is limited by their embodied state. These manipulated voices allow individuals to project a selfhood that is in fact more aligned with their interiority than their bodies may allow outside the context of the recording studio. This is reflected in the feelings of euphoria that 57 Russell, Glitch Feminism, 15. 58 Ibid., 2. 59 Consider white supremacist organization “The Daily Stormer” encouraging adherents to pose as Black individuals online in order to sow distrust within the Black community. 37 individuals describe upon hearing their voices in a timbre that is aligned with their gender identity based on cultural parameters. Chapter 3 explores this in depth with artist TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE, and chapter 5 addresses the use of gendered vocal filters on social media as a means of gender signification. Thus, in these instances, I argue that technologically manipulated voices are no less authentic to one’s identity than the unmediated voice. The recording studio allows for multiple self-presentations to unfold, all of which are contained within the artist. Summary of Chapters The first body chapter of this project focuses on the work of Dorian Electra (they/them), a genderfluid numetal/hyperpop artist. I examine their tracks “Career Boy,” “Man to Man,” and “Adam and Steve,” from their 2019 debut album Flamboyant. I argue that Electra’s vocal approach embodies the concept of “polygendrous abundance” as articulated by Nadine Hubbs.60 Their physical and technological approaches to the voice signify the mutability of their gender experience, effectively using the voice to “drag” genderfluidity. The arguments for this chapter come primarily from timbre and prosody analysis, as well as Electra’s own description of their vocal approach from a 2019 Reddit AMA.61 Additionally, I craft a reception history through YouTube comments on the corresponding music videos for these songs. 60 Nadine Hubbs, “Vaquero World: Queer Mexicanidad, Trans Performance, and the Undoing of Nation,” in Decentering the Nation. Music, Mexicanidad, and Globalization, ed. Jesús Ramos-Kittrell (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2020), 77–98. 61 The Reddit AMA – “Ask me anything” – is an interview format in which Reddit users can pose questions to public figures including celebrities and politicians. The interviewees respond via comment replies. 38 In Chapter 3, I examine three songs by Cleo McKenzie (she/her), aka TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE, a transfeminine glitchcore/hyperpop artist. Drawing from her 2020 mixtape FEMININITY.EXE and 2022 debut album i guess i'm a woman now… the songs “MFW MIRRORZ :3 :P xD,” “i’m two years on hormones and i’m still sad i want a refund,” and “mirrorsong*” form a three-part conceptual arc united by shared musical material. Each song features dramatically different vocal approaches to articulate the experiences of gender dysphoria and transitioning via hormone therapy. I pay special attention to production techniques used to alter the timbre of the voice. This chapter is buttressed by an interview with McKenzie that explores her production techniques and personal experiences in transition. The analysis of these tracks is placed in the context of glitch theory as articulated by the manifestos of Rosa Menkman and Legacy Russell, as well as the taxonomy of approaches to glitch art as described by Michael Betancourt. Chapter 4 explores how experimental pop artist Merrill Garbus (she/her) uses physical and technological approaches in her recordings to critically examine her experience of white femininity. Given the inextricability of race and gender as societal constructs, Garbus’s music provides a compelling example of self-reflection for these intersecting experiences. I pay particular attention to her physical approaches to singing in addition to her use of layering, reverberation, and spatial positioning of the voice as a means of displaying the weaponized cultural power of white femininity. Appendix A includes the complete lyrics for each of the case studies explored in this thesis. Appendix B contains hyperlinks to sound files and video examples as indicated throughout the text. 39 CHAPTER II DORIAN ELECTRA AND POLYGENDROUS ABUNDANCE While binary gender presentations—both visual and vocal—have received abundant attention in cultural, gender, and sound studies, discussions of nonbinary presentations are comparatively nascent. The designation “nonbinary” reflects a multitude of gender experiences outside of the binary male/female division. Genderfluidity, a specific category of nonbinary identity, connotes a gender experience that is not confined to a particular area of the gender spectrum, but oscillates enough to resist stable categorization. Genderfluid pop artist Dorian Electra (they/them) describes their gender as constantly fluctuating, at times changing “from minute to minute.”62 Given this variability, what does it mean to have a genderfluid voice? Electra’s artistic output offers a possible paradigm for artistically expressing genderfluidity, employing both physical and technological means to signify an interiority that is often in flux. Electra often embodies a drag king aesthetic in their visual presentation, sporting a painted-on pencil-thin mustache, slicked back hair, and dramatic masculine facial contouring. They both celebrate and satirize a variety of masculine tropes, dressing in turn as an armor-clad knight, a flamboyant matador, a bruised, shirtless boxer, and a basement-dwelling gamer complete with fedora, trench coat, and two-liter Mountain Dew bottle. This aesthetic invites a comparison to Judith Butler’s concept of gender as performative drag. Butler’s iconic text Gender Trouble casts gender as a socially constructed category that generates behavior, as opposed to shared behaviors constructing gender. She argues that gender is “a corporeal style, an 62 Dorian Electra, “Hello this is Dorian Electra please AMA…” Reddit, 2019. Accessed May 23, 2024. https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/cvrl2s/hello_this_is_dorian_electra_please_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/popheads/comments/cvrl2s/hello_this_is_dorian_electra_please_ama/ 40 ‘act,’ as it were, which is both intentional and ‘performative.’”63 It is also “the disciplinary production of the figures of fantasy through the play of presence and absence on the body’s surface … a series of exclusions and denials, signifying absences.”64 Thus, gender performance is as much about absence as it is presence, at least in a binary context. As a genderfluid person, however, Electra defies the exclusion and absence of any gender presentation, embodying an “all of the above” aesthetic in both their vocal and visual presentations. They sport angel wings and bikini tops, mustaches and muscle suits, and their voice, as I will explore below, is equally expansive. In this way, Electra exemplifies Nadine Hubbs’s concept of “polygendrous abundance.” In her essay, “Vaquero World: Queer Mexicanidad, Trans Performance, and the Undoing of Nation,” Nadine Hubbs explores expressions of gender and sexuality in Mexican American reuniones vaqueras. These celebrations of queerness and cowboy culture in the Mexican diaspora feature multifaceted competitions ranging from fashion shows and musical performances to mechanical bull-riding. This collective diasporic experience constructs a community that Hubbs calls “Vaquero World.”65 Here Hubbs draws upon Susan Stryker’s distinction between analog and digital notions of gender, with “analog” describing a gender concept which aligns with prescribed physical characteristics, while digital gender is more ephemeral and divorced from bioessentialism: “Back in the analog era … a person’s social and psychological gender was commonly assumed to point to that person’s biological sex in the exact same way: Gender was considered a representation of a physical sex. But a digital image or 63 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Tenth Anniversary Edition, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 177. Emphasis in original. 64 Ibid., 172. 65 Nadine Hubbs, “Vaquero World,” 78. 41 sound is something else entirely…. It might in fact be a complete fabrication built up pixel by pixel or bit by bit.” 66 In this case, fabrication does not connote artifice but creativity. Hubbs also makes note of presentations in defiance of queer stereotypes that still exist in a binary construct, namely the lesbian propensity to adhere to masculine or feminine characteristics. Butch lesbians are commonly associated with a more masculine aesthetic, opting to wear men’s clothing, bind or minimize their chests, and eschew feminine accoutrements. In Vaquero World, however, Hubbs notices several instances of “butch cleavage,” showcasing traditionally feminine attributes (in this case, décolletage) while maintaining an otherwise masculine aesthetic. It this presentation that inspires Hubbs to coin the term polygendrous abundance, which “visibly thwarts essentialist gender binaries … combining multiple markers of masculinity with bodily curves that have long been feminized.”67 The “all of the above” ethos of butch cleavage and other forms of polygendrous abundance defy gender binarisms and present new possibilities for more fluid expressions of gender. Electra is hyperconscious of their artistic performance of their genderfluidity; they deliberately modulate their voice both physically and with technology to signify the “minute to minute” shifts in their interiority. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, multiple fans asked Electra about their vocal presentation and approach to modulating their voice. While technological mediation is present, much of Electra’s performance stems from physical manipulation. When one fan asked about Electra’s “natural voice,” they responded: a lot of the weirdness you hear is created by my own voice in the vocal performance (as well as digital production) – I honestly have no idea what my “natural voice” would even mean or sound like?!68 66 Susan Stryker, quoted in Hubbs, “Vaquero World,” 80. 67 Hubbs, “Vaquero World,” 90. 68 Electra, “Hello.” 42 This response is reminiscent of Victoria Malawey’s discussion of the “fiction of the natural” in the context of the recorded voice.69 Malawey proposes a wet/dry continuum of recorded vocal sound, with “wetness” denoting voices that bear more perceptible technological mediation. All the same, Malawey notes that “all recorded sounds—no matter how seemingly dry—are indeed technologically mediated” by microphones, amplifiers, and audio interfaces, not to mention playback devices.70 Electra’s response highlights the dubiousness of this binary between natural and unnatural voices and the pivotal roles that both physical performance and studio production play in their vocal approach. Below are three case studies from Electra’s output: two songs from their debut album Flamboyant (2019) and one from their sophomore album My Agenda (2020). In each song, Electra demonstrates an ethos of polygendrous abundance in both their visual and vocal stylings. At times, Electra employs approaches that are legibly masculine or feminine, while in other moments their presentation is more ambiguously gendered. Their fluidity is noted and celebrated in comments on their videos, reflecting the voice as a tool for expressing a shared gender experience. Links to sound files paired with associated spectrograms can be found in Appendix B. “Career Boy” Propelled by a dreamy ‘80s synth line, “Career Boy” satirizes a modern pillar of masculinity: the career-driven office worker. The music video for this song, directed by Charlotte Rutherford, features Electra alone in an office tower, “working overtime” in suspenders and a necktie while 69 Victoria Malawey, A Blaze of Light in Every Word: Analyzing the Popular Singing Voice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 127–129. 70 Ibid., 129. 43 consuming copious amounts of black coffee. The relationship between the subject and his job becomes increasingly sexualized as the song progresses, reflecting a dominant-submissive archetype. Electra takes a literary approach to their lyrics, referring to the bridge of a song as its “thesis.”71 In the case of “Career Boy,” the bridge makes the subject’s masochistic relationship with work explicit. This moment in the video features Electra chained to two overstuffed file cabinets, self-flagellating and punching a stapler into their own hand while sporting a choker made of paperclips. In clipped, orgasmic bursts they sing: I’m addicted to the work, I – I love the way it hurts, I – The suits and pencil skirts I get what I need ‘cause I’m greedy for it ‘Cause I’m addicted to the pressure Yeah, but the burden is a pleasure Come on, hit me with your ledger Close to the edge, face down on the desk, I’m – Career boy72 “Career Boy” embodies a sense of playful emasculation, casting the toxic masculinity of the corporate world as latent submissive desire. Their vocal production signifies this relationship by juxtaposing a masculine vocal approach with a more stereotypically feminine one. This is especially evident in the chorus, with the words “mind” and “time” delivered with an open throat and forced down larynx to produce a more resonant, lower pitch. Electra punctuates these moments with the word “yeah,” in a whiny, sexualized feminine voice with a pronounced glottal stop at the front of the word. This juxtaposition signifies an emasculated submission on the part of the titular career boy. Electra clearly applies distinct physical approaches to achieve this contrast, but the sonic effects seem to be aided by some form of technological mediation that amplifies the distinction. 71 Electra, “Hello.” 72 Dorian Electra, “Career Boy,” track 2 on Flamboyant, Dorian Electra, 2019. 44 The vocal line bears the hallmarks of formant shifting throughout, a post-production technique that alters timbre by modifying the harmonics of a sound without altering its pitch. The timbre of Electra’s voice seems to morph and shift throughout “Career Boy,” with moments of dramatic juxtaposition such as the transition from “time” to “yeah” (see 0:52-0:55, as graphed in Figure 2.1). This production technique heightens the physical effects Electra employs, crafting a transhuman timbre through vocal fluidity and instability that exceeds the capacity of the unmediated voice. Figure 2.1. Spectrogram of the isolated voice in “Career Boy,” 0:52–0:55 A spectral analysis of this juxtaposition (Figure 2.1) elucidates the timbral differences between these two words. “Time” features a density of harmonic energy in the second through fourth partials, and a high degree of harmonic regularity, indicating a rich, clear sound. “Yeah,” however, is more diffuse, indicating a breathy quality. This high degree of contrast underscores the dramatic shift from the masculine to the feminine. One commenter on the YouTube video for “Career Boy” indicates that Electra’s feminine voice triggers an unexpected feeling of attraction: 45 “I’m just a straight guy, the moment I heard the first ‘yeah’ my heart melted completely and I thought this is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”73 Thus, it is the affected femininity of the voice that gives this viewer permission to be attracted to Electra, signifying femininity in spite of their androgynous presentation. YouTube viewers frequently make note of Electra’s timbral contrast in their comments: “The vocals are constantly shifting between high-pitches [sic] feminine to a lower masculine tone. Das genius.”74 Others express an affinity with Electra’s presentation: “as one transmasc/nonbinary musician to another, you make me feel so much more confident in my voice. thank you for being the role model that allowed me to shriek and sing however the fuck I want.”75 Identification, attraction, and appreciation for vocal fluidity are common themes in the audience reception of Electra’s videos. The combination of their visual and vocal presentation in this work resonates with genderqueer viewers and listeners, providing representation of an oft- overlooked gender identity. Electra demonstrates the power of vocal timbre in signifying the masculine and the feminine, and crafts new ways to perform fluidity between the two. “Adam and Steve” In this track, Electra takes on the homophobic aphorism, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Electra utilizes Christian imagery throughout the video including the Garden of Eden, a priest poring over scripture, and an attempted exorcism which culminates in Electra sprouting wings and ascending to heaven where they are flanked by queer and trans pole dancers 73 jonathansmallboy1635, comment on Dorian Electra, “Dorian Electra – Career Boy (Official Video),” directed by Charlotte Rutherford, June 1, 2018, video, 3:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDDukLyXY-M. 74 Artistluke4, comment on “Career Boy (Official Video).” 75 MandyKessler, comment on “Career Boy (Official Video).” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDDukLyXY-M 46 Miles Woods and Daphne Von Rey.76 The lyrics to “Adam and Steve” include biblical references to the Christian creation story as related in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning, there was the Word / In nothing but darkness, God made the world.”77 Throughout the video, Electra employs a variety of vocal timbres, some of which are described in their Reddit AMA as follows: I definitely have a few weird go-to voices like the Gregorian monk chant, whiny emo, super formant-shifting/vocal fry-y thing, and then like my strained puberty falsetto boy voice, and then like my very occasional britney spears on testosterone moments. but yeah i have def felt self conscious about it ESPECIALLY because of how related voice is to gender expression and often not wanting to sound ‘too feminine’ by default.78 A close listen to “Adam and Steve” reveals several moments in which Electra applies these vocal paradigms. For the first fifteen seconds of the song, Electra embodies the “Gregorian monk chant” paradigm, featuring a somber melody and a dark, open voice achieved by dropping the larynx and expanding the pharynx, as well as heavy use of reverb.79 Across the ensuing line, “the four- letter word, L-O-V-E meant nothing to me,” Electra’s voice slides seamlessly upward (likely via post-production formant shifting) to a brighter, more palatal sound, emblematic of a bright pop vocal style. The formant shift occurs in “word,” and is evident in a spectrogram as the harmonic energy shifts upward, indicating a timbral shift (Figure 2.2). Through mimetic motor engagement and subvocalization, the listener embodies a shift from a more resonant, open vocal approach to the brighter, more palatal approach to follow. While this shift is imitable through physical means, post-production manipulation aids the timbral shift and makes the fluidity more seamless. 76 Dorian Electra, “Dorian Electra – Adam & Steve (Official Video),” directed by Dorian Electra and Weston Allen, October 31, 2019, video, 3:05, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mViZtUHqDg8. 77 Dorian Electra, “Adam and Steve,” track 10 on Flamboyant, Dorian Electra, 2019, AIFF audio file. 78 Electra, “Hello.” 79 Heidemann, “System,” 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mViZtUHqDg8 47 Figure 2.2. Formant shifting in “Adam and Steve,” 0:16-0:17 Following this moment, Electra shifts to a breathier delivery akin to falsetto before slipping back to the Gregorian chant style. When they defiantly declare “God made me,” they shift to a shout that is nearly devoid of pitch, which may embody their self-described “strained puberty falsetto boy voice.”80 These five shifts occur in just thirty seconds (see Table 2.1). The lyric, “God made me” is repeated numerous times throughout the song, with various vocal approaches applied to the phrase. A particularly complex moment of vocal layering occurs following the bridge, in which the lyric is delivered in a heavily Auto-Tuned voice, the Gregorian monk chant voice, the strained puberty falsetto boy voice, and a breathy feminine pop voice (2:16 – 2:45). The multitude of presentations in this section seems to declare, “God made me in all of my complexity, fluidity, and multiplicity of presentations.” As in “Career Boy,” while much of the vocal approach is physical, post-production techniques help smooth and exaggerate these timbral shifts in both recorded and live 80 Electra, “Hello.” 48 performances. In a 2019 live performance of “Adam and Steve” at the Village Underground in London, Electra moves deftly between these vocal approaches, supported by a backing track that provides harmonic and timbral support.81 This synthesis of physical and technological approaches to the voice reflects a cyborg ethos, a symbiotic relationship between the organic and the mechanical in alignment with Haraway’s “pleasure in the confusion of boundaries.”82 Per Cox’s mimetic hypothesis, the listener experiences empathetic engagement with these voices, embodying the open throat of the Gregorian monk paradigm and the tension and effort of the strained puberty falsetto boy voice through subvocalization. Thus, Electra not only conveys their own sense of fluidity through these vocal modulations but takes the listener along with them through these various presentations In the particularly perceptible moments of technological mediation, such as “word” addressed above, the shift from coded masculine to coded feminine timbres is so distinct that it invites a striking embodiment in the listener, offering a deep and artistic insight into the experience of genderfluidity. Electra accomplishes a transhuman timbre by heightening vocal shifts through the use of technological mediation. In doing so, they telegraph an ephemeral, shifting gender experience that stubbornly resists stable categorization. This allows listeners who do not identify with this gender experience to momentarily embody this presentation, and resonates deeply with genderfluid listeners, as evidenced by comments from GNC listeners on “Career Boy” discussed above. 81 Dorian Electra, “Dorian Electra – Adam and Steve live Village Underground,” spandaumole, video, 2:19, performed November 19, 2019, uploaded November 21, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7p3FMPfVA8 82 Haraway, “Cyborg,” 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7p3FMPfVA8 49 Table 2.1. Electra’s Vocal Paradigms in “Adam and Steve” 0:00-0:30 Section Timestamp Lyrics Vocal Paradigm Verse 1 0:00 – 0:16 In the beginning, there was the Word, in nothing but darkness, God made the world. In the beginning, there were just two, made from the dust like all of us. In the beginning, the four-letter word, Gregorian monk chant 0:16 – 0:19 “L-O-V-E” meant nothing to me pronounced formant- shifting and vocal fry 0:20 – 0:26 But made in his image, we were born, two of a kind, the beginning of time Gregorian monk chant Chorus (beginning) 0:27 – 0:30 And God made me strained puberty falsetto boy voice Of Electra’s videos, “Adam and Steve” elicits a particularly emotional response from commenters. The religious imagery and content of the song paired with the assertion that queer and GNC individuals are divinely created strikes an emotional chord in those with trauma from religious upbringings, exemplified by the three comments below: I grew up deeply religious and it gives me chills and makes me almost cry every time I hear this song. I have struggled for so long to accept myself as gay and this encapsulates my pain. this is true art. I grew up believing God/Jesus would hate me for being queer…I never thought Christianity and queerness could be together…If only I could show this to younger me, who believed Got hated me for who I was. But God made me, and He loves me 50 As an LGBT woman raised Catholic, who went to Catholic school during my young formative years, I still struggle with the feelings of shame and ‘wrongness’ about my sexuality…I still ask myself if God would love me…I really felt on the verge of tears watching this video. This was beautiful, poignant, and artistic.83 While the emotional resonance of Electra’s videos is evident in other comment sections, the invocation of spirituality adds depth to this video and elicits particularly vulnerable responses from listeners. Electra’s proud and defiant assertion of their queerness, underscored by their vocal approach, provides a space of healing, catharsis, and representation for those with spiritual trauma. “Ram It Down” Electra’s sophomore album My Agenda (2020) explores homophobia and sexism in society, portraying caricatures of the stereotypical masculinist gamer culture and the Alex Joneses of the world who believe that a secret cabal is poisoning the water system and “turning the freaking frogs gay.”84 Electra deliberately plays into these fears on some tracks, including the titular song (“My agenda / My freaky gender / Out here flexin’ in my rainbow suspenders … We’re out here turning the frogs homosexual”). The penultimate song on the album, “Ram It Down,” is a response to those who encourage the queer community to conform to heteronormative society and keep their identities a secret (“Love who you want, but just don’t ram it down my throat”).85 Electra’s response is defiant. They meet societal shaming with the most bombastic song imaginable. 83 thatnerdyblondeboy8702, susceptivegalaxy, and reallynewusername, comments on “Adam & Steve (Official Video).” 84 Alex Jones, “Alex Jones ‘Turning the Freaking Frogs Gay,’” Terrance Giles, video, 1:10, February 18. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ePLkAm8i2s. 85 Additionally, Ram It Down is the title of a 1988 Judas Priest album. Heavy metal’s hypermasculine associations are particularly salient here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ePLkAm8i2s 51 While “Ram It Down” features Electra’s characteristic vocal fluidity, the song also features a parade of genre signifiers, including a Baroque keyboard style, a crisp pop delivery, screaming death metal, and techno dance beats. Vocal techniques range from a deep, open masculine voice with pronounced consonants to shout-singing and paralinguistic sounds such as gasps, choking, and giggles. Electra’s vocals are punctuated by featured artists Lil Texas and Lil Mariko, who supply highly masculine and feminine voices to the track, respectively. Table 2.2 below elucidates the song’s rapid fluctuations between genres and vocal styles. One of the hallmarks of the (loosely defined) hyperpop genre under which Electra is typically categorized is the rapid transition between genre signifiers within or between songs. Hyperpop musicians tend to demonstrate prowess in performing multiple genres, signifying a skepticism of rigid musical boundaries. Electra leans into this tendency in “Ram It Down,” shifting mercilessly between both genres and vocal styles. The longest consistent pairing of genre and vocal approach occurs in the first verse and lasts only fifteen seconds. Otherwise, the vocals tend to shift every few seconds, with genre markers remaining stable for a maximum of 32 seconds in the first chorus. Electra’s response to the homophobic appeal to “Keep … your secret behind closed doors” is a defiant display of both gender and genre fluidity (creating “genre trouble,” if you will). By embracing multiple styles, they perform a shameless act of refusal. YouTube commenters call “Ram It Down” a “GENDERLESS BANGER,” remarking on the “powerful homoeroticism” and their own “gender envy” of Electra’s style, which is especially androgynous in this video.86 One commenter sympathizes with recipients of this type of homophobia: “As a 86 alixschard, SinBsCat, and wahwah2597, comments on Dorian Electra, “Ram It Down (Official Music Video),” Dorian Electra, May 14, 2021, video, 2:35, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxkhwJCoq84. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxkhwJCoq84 52 Texas queer, hate when people say this shit bless you for these songs.”87 In “Ram It Down,” Electra’s resistance to performing stable categories of gender and genre epitomize an ethos of resistance to any parameters of confinement. In their multitude of feminine, masculine, and androgynous presentations, Electra reflects a polygendrous abundance that defies categorization. Due to the critical and/or satirical nature of some of their lyrics, it could be tempting to ascribe an anti-masculine sensibility to their work. Electra’s performance, however, is often caricature but not mean-spirited mockery. They project genuine euphoria in their masculine presentations, describing them as “liberating and fun.”88 Even their most critical presentation of the gamer stereotype is flamboyant and playful. In each of these performances, Electra whole-heartedly embraces the masculine costume while maintaining a sense of humor and a critical eye. Similarly, their vocal approach highlights the pure performativity of gender, leaning into tropes of the vocal masculine (dark, open timbre, crisp consonants) and feminine (bright, palatal timbre, whines, giggles) without claiming either as a given truth. Table 2.2. Genre Chaos in “Ram It Down” Section Timestamp Genre Vocal style Intro 0:00 – 0:05 Baroque keyboard -- 0:06 – 0:08 Rock -- Verse 1 0:09 – 0:24 Pop with harpsichord punctuation Bright pop vocals Pre-chorus 0:25 – 0:30 Death metal Screaming Chorus 0:31 – 0:41 Techno Dark, open vocals 0:42 – 0:44 Shout singing 0:44 – 0:47 Dark, open vocals 0:48 – 0:50 Shout singing 87 cybermammal, comment on “Ram It Down (Official Music Video).” 88 Matt Moen, “Dorian Electra Squares Up in ‘Man to Man,’” Paper, December 12, 2018. https://www.papermag.com/dorian-electra-man-to-man-2623136865.html#rebelltitem26. https://www.papermag.com/dorian-electra-man-to-man-2623136865.html#rebelltitem26 53 0:51 – 0:55 Dark, open vocals 0:55 – 0:56 Gasping, choking 0:57 – 1:03 Dark, open vocals Verse 1 1:03 – 1:16 Pop with harpsichord punctuation Heavily distorted, almost unintelligible vocals 1:17 – 1:19 Panting Pre-chorus 1:20 – 1:24 Death metal Screaming Chorus 1:25 – 1:30 Techno Dark, open vocals 1:31 – 1:33 Shout singing 1:33 – 1:36 Dark, open vocals 1:36 – 1:39 Shout singing 1:39 – 1:43 Dark, open vocals 1:44 – 1:45 Gasping, choking 1:46 – 1:50 Dark, open vocals 1:51 – 1:52 Shout singing Interlude 1:53 – 1:58 Baroque keyboard -- 1:58 – 2:00 Rock -- Outro 2:01 – 2:03 Techno Dark laughter 2:04 – 2:05 Masculine shout (Lil Tex) 2:05 – 2:09 Feminine spoken in Japanese (Lil Mariko)89 2:09 – 2:10 Distorted, noisy vocals 2:10 – 2:19 Noise Screaming 2:20 – 2:22 Feminine spoken and giggling (Lil Mariko) 2:23 – 2:32 Screaming Conclusion: Dragging Genderfluidity If, as Butler argues, gender is performative, how does one drag genderfluidity? Electra demonstrates that the flexibility of the voice makes it a powerful signifier of the genderfluid experience. While visual gender presentation is readily apparent, it is not as immediately mutable 89 Western culture broadly, and specifically hyperpop, frequently code the Japanese female voice and manga style visuals as expressions of hyperfemininity. This is evident in “Ram It Down,” as well as in the work of TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE, discussed in Chapter 3. This is a topic worthy of further exploration and critique that is outside the scope of this project. 54 as the voice. (It takes a long time to get into and out of full drag!) Electra embodies this fluidity in their physical approach to the voice, but the effects are exaggerated and the transitions smoothed in post-production through various timbral manipulation techniques. Their live performances, while demonstrating their vocal flexibility, are augmented by backing tracks to support transitions between vocal approaches. Thus, technological mediation serves as another means of gender performance, facilitating a sonic portrayal of polygendrous abundance. Fan reactions reflect the importance of artistic representation of the genderfluid experience. Throughout Electra’s Reddit AMA and in the comment sections of their YouTube videos, listeners repeatedly express gratitude and feelings of validation through Electra’s presentation. The fluidity of Electra’s vocal timbre is a common topic in many of these reactions. This fluid approach to singing has implications for vocal coaches, speech therapists, and musical producers, who can become familiar with means of amplifying genderfluid expression through the voice. For those who are trans or GNC, vocal training is often one part of gender-affirming care and may be an important supplement for those who do not have access to hormone replacement therapy due to health concerns, personal preference, or legal barriers. Polygendrous vocal approaches via physical and technological means or a synthesis thereof may help craft a euphoric and socially legible presentation of genderfluidity. The transhuman timbre of Electra’s vocal shifts, whether seamless or jarring, exemplifies new avenues for artistic gender performance. 55 CHAPTER III GLITCH AS DYSPHORIA IN THE MUSIC OF TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE Since launching her career in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic with “nothing but an old laptop and a gender identity crisis,” trans artist Cleo McKenzie creates music in the famously fluid genre of hyperpop and glitch punk. Her sound has been described as “pure chip tune madness” and “a chainsaw made of candy.”90 The 2022 release of her first full-length album garnered attention from several independent online publications and zines including Cat Scratch Magazine, Idle Class Magazine, Prelude Press, and Music Mondays. McKenzie’s bandcamp bio simply reads, “so girly it hurts” and her visual stylings feature cartoon depictions of femininity reminiscent of manga.91 Her music, like many other artists in the hyperpop genre, is heavily processed and employs aesthetics of early 2000s Internet culture. In her first mixtape, she turns to programming language to describe gender, titling the collection FEMININITY.EXE. McKenzie released the mixtape within three weeks of realizing her gender identity, using the project as a means of processing this revelation. In the trans community, such realizations are often referred to as “egg cracking,” thus leading to the name TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE, in reference to the popular egg-shaped electronic gaming device of the late 1990s. FEMININITY.EXE reflects the deep internal turmoil of a gender awakening (as an eighteen-year-old living in the isolation of COVID lockdowns in rural Arkansas) but maintains a sense of humor. Her first full-length album released in early 2023 is titled i guess i’m a woman 90 Cleo McKenzie, “TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE,” accessed December 3, 2023. https://tamagotchimassacre.online/ 91 Cleo McKenzie, “TAMAGOTCHI MASSACRE.” bandcamp, accessed December 3, 2023, https://tamagotchimassacre.bandcamp.com/?label=2768672774&tab=artists https://tamagotchimassacre.online/ https://tamagotchimassacre.bandcamp.com/?label=2768672774&tab=artists 56 now… reflecting McKenzie’s continuing transition through hormone replacement therapy and wrestling with the meaning of femininity. Her lyrics highlight some of the darker aspects of the trans experience, including gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, fear of failing to pass, and a complicated relationship with femininity. Throughout her oeuvre, McKenzie uses a variety of sonic distortions including bit depth reduction, noise, formant shifting, pitching the voice up, and placing unexpected breaks or skips in the vocal track. These highly produced moments employ a glitch aesthetic. As a self-described glitchcore musician, this aesthetic is central to McKenzie’s artistic output. What follows