CCM Professor wins UC Research Award for book project on Yoko Ono
Professor Shelina Brown is recognized for her research on Yoko Ono’s music and activism
Story by CCM Graduate Assistant Lucy Evans
Each Year, UC's Office of Research recognizes eight professors with the University Research Council (URC) Faculty Scholars Research Awards, which recognizes early-career faculty members “who are proposing transformative, future-shaping ideas” in their fields. This year, CCM’s own Shelina Brown, Assistant Professor of American Music, is one of the awardees. Brown’s proposed book Queen of Noise: Yoko Ono’s Music and Feminist Activism will reexamine the legacy of the iconic singer.
Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Photo/ Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty
Known to many primarily as “the woman who broke up the Beatles,” Yoko Ono’s work as a musician is often overlooked. Brown seeks to add nuance and context to the discourse surrounding the influential artist. “My proposed book project aims to examine the profound significance of Yoko Ono’s voice and her contributions to late 20th-century music and feminist activism,” she says. It will be the first scholarly work to center on Ono's musical contributions and feminist politics.
“A major impetus behind my work is to transform our shared understanding of music history with the aim of undoing the systemic erasure of countless women innovators of the past,” continues Brown. “In the year 2024, popular music studies as a discipline continues to be dominated by white male perspectives,” she says. With her book, Brown aims to join the effort of feminist scholars to “recognize and honor the influence of women—and in particular, women of color—in both popular and experimental music.”
Though she was raised in Japan, Brown was unfamiliar with Yoko Ono’s music until she discovered the riot grrrl movement—a punk subculture that emerged in the United States in the 1990s. “As I delved into the underground world of riot grrrl zines, I discovered that many feminists of the ‘90s found inspiration in Ono,” reflects Brown.
Yoko Ono in 1971. Photo/Michael Putland/Getty Images
In particular, the artist’s recording of “Don’t Worry Kyoko” sparked a moment of recognition in Brown, who was drawn to Ono’s use of extended vocal techniques to express raw emotion. Ono’s voice “resonated with me unlike anything I had experienced before,” Brown recalls.
She adds that Ono's musical innovation was profound, reminiscent of boundary-pushing artists like Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa from the same era "but arguably more groundbreaking, given that Ono's work predates both artists."
Brown began asking questions. Why had such a significant artist been marginalized from mainstream historical narratives and vilified by the media? Why did nearly every underground and experimental musician acknowledge Ono’s influence, while broader public opinion seemed steeped in animosity towards her? Why hadn’t anyone published a book on the topic of Ono’s music?
A major impetus behind my work is to transform our shared understanding of music history with the aim of undoing the systemic erasure of countless women innovators of the past.
Shelina Brown
Brown’s fascination with Ono continued as she progressed through her research, though she never encountered an academic source which adequately addressed Ono’s significance. Her proposed book follows every era of Yoko Ono’s career through the present, an era Brown coins “Yoko Ono Revivalism.”
"I felt that I might be able to shed light on Ono’s experience of cultural 'in-between-ness' that shapes her musical oeuvre and feminist activism," Brown says. "With a bilingual background in Japanese studies and popular music studies, I believed I could leverage my own 'in-between' positioning in my approach to Ono’s work."
The book will weave together a range of theoretical frames drawn from Japanese feminisms, Asian American feminisms, Anglophone [English-speaking] feminisms and global popular music scholarship. Centering Ono as a groundbreaking figure in music history, the book will be the first academic publication to “comprehensively examine her influence and lasting impact as a musician and cultural icon.”
Yoko Ono in a performance that bids farewell to NYC record store Other Music. Photo/ Chona Kasinger/ Rolling Stone
Shelina Brown. Photo/Provided.
Brown teaches Women in Rock, a dual-enrollment class between CCM and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) that is offered as an arts elective class available to all UC students. The class reveals the role women played in the emergence of Rock and its subcultures, ranging from early garage rock to grunge and queercore. Additionally, she teaches Gender Studies and Music, an introduction to feminist methods and how they can be used in the discipline of musicology. Both classes will be taught again in spring 2025.
To learn more about Brown’s project and the other URC Faculty Scholars Research Awardees, visit the UC Office of Research website.
Featured image at the top: Yoko Ono performs on stage. Photo/Getty.
Lucy Evans
CCM Graduate Assistant, Marketing + Communications
Lucy Evans is an artist diploma student studying Opera-Vocal Performance at CCM. She is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and was recently an Apprentice Artist with the Santa Fe Opera.
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