A phenomenal journey through different music eras with a focus on female musicians. Journalist Lisa Robinson’s work reflects conversations she had with 40+ famous female musicians and the challenges she faced. It’s a treat for anyone wanting to explore the industry in-depth.

I received this copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fun insight into 'behind the scenes' stories of women in the music business; touched on important points of gender inequality

Lisa Robinson is an incredible music journalist who's covered basically every musician you could think of - including and especially the big names - since 1969. I don't even want to list how many celebrities she name-drops, because the list would be endless - the point is, if you've heard them on the radio, Lisa probably knows them.

The book begins with this fantastic line: "Nobody ever asked me about the girls. Until now." The premise is that, in her decades-long career writing about musicians, people always asked Robinson about the big stars - What was it like meeting Michael Jackson? Is Jay-Z normal? Tell me about Mick Jagger! Yet no one asked her about the girls - the women who have had history-making careers, both big and small, despite those women having to overcome many obstacles of not only breaking into a male-dominated industry, but dealing with the challenges of love and life and kids while doing it.

Women musicians have blown up lately, with figures like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, and more topping the charts without fail. Robinson brings insights from these modern stars, but also from the stars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, like Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks, etc. She's spent probably thousands of hours getting to know the biggest musicians of our days, not just through interviews, but really getting to know them as people, as women, as wives and mothers and individuals. Nobody is better suited to tell this story than Lisa Robinson.

The book is organized by theme rather than by artist - instead of giving linear biographies of the dozens of women musicians in the book, Robinson structures the narrative around their shared struggles. Although the paths and directions that these women took to get to where they are now differed, many of the issues they had to deal with are similar. She discusses the topics we hear about often - hair and makeup, body image, fame, sex, and drugs - and many that are intensely private and difficult - abuse, motherhood, love and marriage. She doesn't just tell you what the tabloids and newspapers tell you - she gets into the details of what's often not revealed to the public, the private struggles that women have to go through to try to balance fame and public recognition with their own personal growth and success.

Overall, if you like music and you like women, this is probably one of the defining books about the intersection of these two topics. You'll certainly learn something new and come away with a greater respect for women in this industry. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley!

Lisa Robertson pulls from her decades of experience as a musical journalist and as well as previous interviews in order to discuss the pitfalls of being female and famous. While I expected the book to be set up as interviews with (or chapters on) individual artists, the author chose to divide the book into sections (Abuse, Drugs, Sex) and compiles anecdotes and quotes that fit the topic. Unfortunately, this set-up makes the book seem scattered and less in depth than it is or could be. I wish we got more than an interview pulled apart and scattered across the book. The author also has a habit of choosing and glorifying her favorite female artists, her "kindred spirits", and trashing others for reasons that are never really clear, other than their success or ambition. In some cases, she spends pages indulging in the very behavior she wants to condemn in the book. I wanted to like this so much more. As it is, "Nobody Ever Asked..." is just okay.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for providing me with a copy of this book in return for my honest opinions.

I do not feel I can give this book the review it deserves. . This book was awesome!!! To read about female artists in their own words, of how the were treated and what they had to deal with to do what they felt in their souls that they wanted to do. Lots of name dropping, in a good way. After reading this book, I hope the industry has changed some for female artists, but if we look at the news today, we know it has not. Very well written and engrossing. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

Reknowned rock journalist Lisa Robinson has written the definitive biography of women in rock. Culled from her interviews as well as her own personal relationships with rock music's most notable women, there are so many first-hand accounts of all aspects of life as a woman in the music world. Creativity, band relations, managers, the gigging life, touring, sexism, personal relationships, friendships are all addressed in detail by the women who helped create the soundtrack of our lives. Highly recommended.

Over a career that spans almost a half century, journalist Lisa Robinson has gone on tour with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. She’s interviewed giants of rock and rap, including David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and Van Halen. “Women really didn’t count in this world,” she notes. As artists like Beyonce, Rihanna, and Jennifer Lopez have dominated the charts, Robinson takes stock of how times have changed for female artists in her intriguing, but ultimately frustrating, new book Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls.

Through her work at Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Robinson has gotten access to some of the biggest names in music. Her interviews with superstars like Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Alanis Morrisette, and Lady Gaga—among many others—are the backbone of the book, and the access she gains to these stars is impressive. (The first chapter of the book opens with “Bette Midler was sitting in her fabulous New York apartment with spectacular views of Central Park. We were sipping champagne.”) The trusting relationships Robinson has fostered with her subjects come through in Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls, as these artists open up about their scariest, most vulnerable experiences in the industry. As the foremost chronicler of rock stardom, Robinson has developed a keen eye for how fame works, a sharp perspective that helps readers to understand what goes into this kind of celebrity. Because Robinson is writing about such a rarified celebrity experience, the book has a blinkered feel; readers might miss the perspective of smaller artists like Feist or Jenny Lewis who achieved a measure of fame in the 2000s.

Though the interview excerpts give Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls an intimate tone, the book on the whole has a more scattershot approach. There’s not much of a thesis beyond Robinson’s claim in the prologue that she wanted to survey women in rock over the past 50 years. The chapters are loosely organized around subjects like the nature of fame, women’s physical appearances, abuse, and romantic relationships. Robinson has drawn her sources from a deep well of interviews, which means that some chapters read like a series of interesting quotes grouped around a vague idea. This is both effective and a little numbing in the chapter about abuse, in which many of the subjects we’ve come to know talk at length about their experiences with partner violence and with men in the industry exploiting their power. These brief testimonials hammer home the prevalence of abuse within the music industry but, because Robinson doesn’t provide much emotional or narrative depth, the pain and fear in these artists’ stories come off as gratuitous. In other chapters, her observations are witty and speak to larger issues of fame. “You would be extremely surprised at the number of famous women who have bemoaned the fact that they can’t go grocery shopping anymore,” starts one excerpt about a common theme in interviews she’s conducted.

Robinson deconstructed the idea of the girl who could hang with the guys (and laugh off their casual misogyny) long before Gillian Flynn immortalized the Cool Girl in Gone Girl. Readers hoping for a more enlightened feminist angle on the vagaries of fame may feel let down. Her statements about Taylor Swift—who Robinson met when Swift was starting out, and who “lasered in on me like something out of The Exorcist” when Robinson introduced herself—stick out for their weirdly personal tone. “She’s relentless,” Robinson observes, “like something buzzing around you that you want out of your range of vision.” In other parts of the book, Robinson belittles the troubled pop star Britney Spears and depicts the ambitious soul singer Solange as flighty and image obsessed. (“In the middle of getting her makeup done, Solange burst into tears and ran out of the building.… I don’t think it was the makeup, but you never know.”)

Robinson has enough name recognition to veto extensive edits, and that is unfortunate. Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls could have used a tighter editorial hand. Her observation about how celebrities commodify their children shows up twice, and she frequently compares the tiny, sparkly dresses some artists wear on stage to the Ice Capades. Even some small mistakes got past the fact checkers; Patti Smith’s first comeback album, Dream of Life, is said to have been recorded in 1997—three years after its producer died.

Robinson has earned her place in the pantheon of rock journalists, and many of her interviews and scene reports are well regarded to this day. Yet this book reads like an afterthought or an effort to cash in on the female superstars whose careers have defined the past decade. Given this writer’s history, access, and journalistic skill, that makes Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls a wasted opportunity.

Robinson is a journalist and has covered rock stars since the 1970s, interviewing and hobnobbing with the highest echelon of celebrities from the past 40 years. In this collection, she dug into her 5000 hours of taped interviews to ferret out quotes from famous women singers including Tina Turner, Lady Gaga, Joni Mitchell, Adele, Beyonce, Stevie Nicks, and more, about the state of women in the world of rock and roll.

I wasn't sure about the format as the topics didn't seem to be in any linear format but once I got into the style, I was pretty much glued to the pages. The insights into the world of these particular singers were fascinating, candid, and intimate. It was obvious from the author's somewhat snarky attitude towards Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey that she wasn't very impressed with their talent and attitudes, but there was also much admiration for many of the others such as Beyonce, Joni, and Adele.

This is a good book for anyone who wants a little more insight into how women have struggled with developing and keeping their success in the world of what seems to be a man's world of rock and roll.

I loved this book. I read Lisa's first book as well but I devoured this in two days. I liked the format of toggling quickly through different artists' perspectives centered around a single theme per chapter. Lisa is a legendary music journalist and this was a pleasure to read.

My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.
Lisa Robinson brings the wealth of her interviews with the top female pop and rock stars to the pages of this fascinating read. Arranged by topic, this is a treasure trove of comments, opinions and stories told by Bette Midler, Lady Gaga, Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, Stevie Nicks and Joni Mitchell to name only a few. They shares the highs and lows of superstardom, insights into their families and often the men in their lives, sexual harassment within the industry, their ambitions and hard work. It’s all within the covers of this book and told beautifully, openly and honestly.
Lisa’s true talent lies in the trust she is given by the women she interviews and she has the uncanny ability to reveal who they are layer by layer.
This was an entertaining and inspiring read and one that is much needed.
Thank you Lisa Robinson for this very highly recommended book.

It's about time! Growing up I always wondered why so few of the women (Joni Mitchell, Kinda Ronstadt, Suzi Quattro, Madonna, etc...) never warranted an article in Rolling Stone, Creem, Crawdaddy...etc... Quick mentions are all I can remember. What a shame, or rather, SHAME ON THEM! So much drivel wasted on the men of rock's bad behavior. It' wonderful, and somewhat sad, but about time (!) someone has written about them who actually interviewed them.
I enjoyed reading their stories! As much fun as their biographies and even autobiographies. Clapton's and Richard's autobiographies left soooo much to be desired (imho. and I am a fan of both,) This book was so informative and entertaining. It gave me pause to think about how wrong women were treated in entertainment. And gave me insight as to why the entertainment industry was so lame. The corporate world of music was just so sad. I can't say I was sorry to see it taken down. I'm just glad the ladies of Rock are finally having their hour!
Thank you, Ms. Robinson! great read!

Lisa Robinson has been a rock writer forever. She's hung out with all legendary bands when it was sex & drugs & rock'n roll. In this book she writes about the women in rock music. The woman of today's chart toppers and those who started out in the 70's. She relies on past interviews with Chrissie Hynde, Lady Gaga, Blondie, the Go-Go's, Joni Mitchell,, Bonnie Raitt, Taylor Swift, etc. and weaved them into chapters like Sex, Family, Abuse, etc.
She has it in for Madonna , from plastic surgery to her coffee table book "Sex". Same with Mariah Carey.
I found this book a refreshing take on a rock writer to not always be writing about the bad boy antics and how different it is to be a woman in rock. Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt for the ARC.

I read Ms. Robinson’s 2014 book “There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll”. It was a well written summary of her career as a magazine writer and connoisseur of rock music. She told stories of her time with different music acts and artists covering her decades in the business.

Ms. Robinson’s latest offering is “Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music and Fame”. The book is broken into chapters such as Hair & Makeup, Abuse, Family, Drugs. The stories are mostly told as direct quotes from her 5000 hours of saved interview recordings. The book covers female music artists that span from the 1960s -current day.

For me there wasn’t a lot of new information since I’m frequent reader of rock music history. But for the average reader, the stories are interesting and informative.

This is an amazing book. It's a compilation, a culmination of not only Lisa Robinson's life work as a music writer and reviewer, but of the many artists she's interviewed over her (30?40? year long) career. The greatest thing about this book, imo, is that is a written record of female artists in their own words for the past 40-ish years. This is archive material. It is musical history. <blockquote>"In the more than a thousand interviews I've done with women, I've heard all their stories. The paths they took were different. The level of talent was different. Their luck was different. The effect of success or failure on their lives was different. But their goals and struggles were often similar. To be heard. To be seen. To be loved. To be famous."</blockquote> We get to hear from artists like Bette Midler, Mary J. Blige, Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, Adele, Mariah Carey, Madonna on a swath of topics ranging from sexual freedom to sexual harassment. Success, failure, gains and losses. We hear about their families, their businesses, their empires. Their hard work and blood, sweat and tears. We learn things about Alicia Keys, Brittney Spears, Dolly Parton, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston. Robinson covers Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and JLo. She even has some scathing commentary about specific artists (and even how the term is used to loosely) and serious side-eye opinions about Taylor Swift. I don't know what that's about, but Robinson's observations and opinions added a good dash of flavor to this info dump of musical history.

Because the book is broken up into topics rather than artists, it takes a while of getting through the book to feel like you've gotten anywhere in time. But it is there, time goes on even though the commentary jumps from the 70's through the late aughts. Another amazing quality of the book is reading about artists who were influenced by other artists who we also get to read about in this book. We get to read about Adele breaking down in the presence of Stevie Nicks, and later about how Stevie Nicks would lay on her bedroom floor for 10 days listening to a new Joni Mitchell album - and reading about how Joni Mitchell was passed over during a jam session, being the only woman in the room, but applauded in the theater during a screening of <i>Rolling Thunder Revue</i>, Scorsese's film about Bob Dylan's 1975 tour. It's multi-generational. Granted the generations may spawn faster in the music industry, but it is wonderful to have compiled and connected here. And even though this is a book about the women of music, of course through them, we learn things about many of the men in the music industry as well -the good, the bad, and the (though they're never called it) ugly.

Would absolutely recommend to any fan of music, female musicians, musical history at all, non-fiction, or any of the MANY artists written about and quoted within -many more than mentioned in my review.

Thank you to the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., for giving me an e-copy via Netgalley.

This book is broken up into chapters by subjects like Fame, Money, Love, etc; and Robinson uses her vast catalogue of interviews with female artists to weave their musings in with hers. At first I was disappointed that it wasn't just individual profiles of these women, but soon learned to enjoy the format.

It was great to hear from a mix of legends like Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler and Stevie Nicks and more unsung artists like Anita Baker and Mavis Staples. Current stars like Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Adele are present but so are smaller artists like King Princess and Romy Madley Croft of The xx. Overall a great mix that makes me want to seek out more of Robinson's writing.

I will be swooning about this book on my podcast Learning The Tropes closer to its release date.