Editors’ Note

Scholars are institutionally motivated revisionists, but our era’s interest in vaunting the underrepresented has fueled that fire. So, too, however, has the political drift right, raising questions about popular culture efficacy that have constrained old school rock and roll ballyhoo about music producing meaningful change. Both sentiments find voice in this issue. Norma Coates, elsewhere the subject of a Leah Branstetter “from the vaults” look at her early 2000s manifesto on women as “low Other” of rock, reviews Jenn Pelly’s book on the Raincoats, asking: “Who gets to be a part of history and why, and in what capacity and to what extent?” Gina Arnold, thinking about the recent film Cold War, finds in it a “poignant indication of the limits of popular music to change, to heal, and ultimately shape people’s life experiences.” And in the most close-to-home version of Field Notes yet, a discussion from the annual...