With the debuts of highly popular artists such as Matsutōya Yumi, Nakajima Miyuki and Takeuchi Mariya, Japanese popular music of the 1970s saw a rise of young female singer-songwriters. Not only were they notably successful commercially but they were also respected as creative artists. This recognition and valuation of female professional creativity was extraordinary from a gender point of view. Furthermore, their position as active social agents defied the social expectations for women in Japan at that time. In this respect, they can be conceptualised as a musical embodiment of the movements pursuing female emancipation in the 1970s. While the musical significance of these female singer-songwriters has been recognised in previous studies, the gender point of view has remained largely unaddressed. By drawing from theories about female musicians and canon formation, this article re-assesses the social significance of Japanese female singer-songwriters of the 1970s.

The ‘1968 years’ (1968–1981) witnessed a resurgence of interest in the late 19th-century singer-songwriter and cabaret performer Aristide Bruant (1851–1925). This article explores the social and cultural origins of this Bruant ‘moment’, arguing that it was linked both to a culture of marginality that emerged during the events of May–June 1968 and to a culture of nostalgia (‘la mode rétro’) first identified in 1973. It focuses on five performers who revived or renewed Bruant's legacy during the 1968 years: Mouloudji, Francesca Solleville, Marc Ogeret, François Béranger and Renaud.

In the performance of bluegrass fiddle tunes, each repetition of the tune is generally played on a different instrument. I argue that the degree to which the instrument can influence the motivic material in improvised passages is beyond idiomaticism – where phrases might suit one instrument more than another – to the point where melodic pitch collections are shaped by the instrument itself. By combining post-human philosophies with music theories that emphasise instrument–player relationships, this essay shows how non-humans exercise agency in bluegrass improvisation. The resultant instrument-influenced passages contrast with each other, as each is played on a different instrument. This can help to signify formal structure within a performance, while the recurrence of particular instrument-influenced elements can be seen as a genre marker in bluegrass.

I present a thematic overview of sex work and ribaldry in recorded blues songs for the period c.1920–1942. My ambition is primarily documentary, to take up Paul Oliver's insistence that discussion of the blues must ultimately revolve around its ‘libidinous hub’ and to concretise Abbott and Seroff's characterisation of blues as ‘unabashedly licentious a music form as America has ever produced’. Ribald sex work songs are common in the blues archive, but have not been a focus of sustained study. A grasp of the significance of sex work provides a key to decoding creative wordplay, even as the relation between blues performers and real sex work must remain obscure.