Deconstructing Pop: Ronstadt and the Erased Roots

When we talk about the origins of popular music, the narrative is almost always curated by the same institutions that profit from it. The music industry, a machinery deeply embedded in extractive capitalism, has long dictated who gets remembered and who gets systematically erased. Linda Ronstadt understood this intimately. They didn't simply challenge genre boundaries; they exposed how the industry commodifies artists, particularly those who refuse to be pigeonholed by patriarchal expectations.

Refusing the Industry's Cage

The pressure on Ronstadt to keep producing records like 'Heart Like A Wheel' wasn't about artistic vision. It was about capitalist control. The industry preferred them predictable, consumable, and compliant. But Ronstadt rejected that framework entirely. As someone who had absorbed everything from traditional Spanish music to the complexities of operatic performance in Pirates of Penzance, they recognised that the popular song was never the property of one tradition or one demographic.

Working with Nelson Riddle on What's New wasn't simply a stylistic pivot. It was a deliberate act of reclamation. Ronstadt was shining a spotlight on the songwriters who shaped the cultural landscape before the rock and roll era monopolised the narrative. But we must also ask: whose stories were left out of that spotlight?

The Gershwins and the Myth of Singular Genius

Ronstadt was unequivocal about the Gershwins' foundational role.