Gina Arnold is an American author, music critic, and academic. A lecturer at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
and an adjunct professor at the
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
, she is the author of four books, including the
33⅓ book on
Liz Phair
Elizabeth Clark Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Phair was raised primarily in the Chicago area. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career ...
, ''Exile in Guyville.
Between 1981 and 2003, Arnold contributed to publications including ''
Spin'', ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
,'' the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', and the ''
Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...
.'' Additionally, she wrote columns for the ''
East Bay Express
The ''East Bay Express'' is an Oakland-based weekly newspaper serving the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is distributed throughout Alameda County and parts of Contra Costa County every Wednesday.
The ' ...
,'' ''
Metro Silicon Valley
''Metro'' is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California, based Metro Newspapers. Also known as ''Metro Silicon Valley'', as well as ''Metroactive'' online, the paper serves the greater Silicon Valley area. In addition to print ...
'' and the ''
San Jose Metro
''Metro'' is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California, based Metro Newspapers. Also known as ''Metro Silicon Valley'', as well as ''Metroactive'' online, the paper serves the greater Silicon Valley area. In addition to print ...
.'' Written in the
first person, her work was frequently controversial. "In the ten years that Gina Arnold wrote for this paper, no one received more hate mail," the ''East Bay Express'' wrote in 2003.
Early life and education
Arnold grew up in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
. She attended the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where she competed as a springboard diver on the university's swim team. She graduated with a degree in communications.
In 2011, Arnold was awarded a Ph.D. in modern thought and literature at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. Her doctoral dissertation, "Rock Crowds and Power: Race, Space, and Representation," drew on historical archives, literature, and films about counter cultural rock festivals of the 1960s and 1970s in addition to her own experience covering rock festivals in the 1990s.
Career
Arnold began writing about music as a college student. At UCLA she wrote for the ''
Daily Bruin'' and at Berkeley she wrote for ''
The Daily Californian
''The Daily Californian'' (''Daily Cal'') is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley, campus and its surrounding community. It formerly published a print edition four days a week on Monday, Tuesd ...
''. Following her graduation, she was hired as a stringer by the ''Palo Alto Times Tribune'' and the ''
San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...
.'' She later covered music for the ''Los Angeles Times,'' as well as several other daily papers. Arnold wrote regularly on alternative music and indie rock for ''Spin'' and ''Entertainment Weekly.''
Her weekly column "Fools Rush In" debuted in the ''East Bay Express'' in 1991 and ran through 2001. From 1996 through 2002, she wrote a column for the ''
Metro Silicon Valley
''Metro'' is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California, based Metro Newspapers. Also known as ''Metro Silicon Valley'', as well as ''Metroactive'' online, the paper serves the greater Silicon Valley area. In addition to print ...
'' named after
The Replacements album ''
All Shook Down
''All Shook Down'' is the seventh and final studio album by the American rock band The Replacements, released on September 25, 1990 by Sire Records.
Recording
This album was originally intended to be frontman Paul Westerberg's solo artist debu ...
''. With commentary that included the assertions that
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
were “ugly, lecherous and old” and that “the Replacements have influenced current music much more than the Stones have,” Arnold's columns often strove to be contentious. In 2000, ''SF Weekly'' columnist Dan Strachota wrote that "Arnold's writing usually contains three main items: fuzzy data, oversimplification, and half-assed reasoning," stating that her interest in music ended in 1994, coinciding with
Kurt Cobain's suicide."
In 1993, her book ''Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana'' was published by
Bloomsbury Press
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...
; in 1997,
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...
published ''Kiss This: Punk In The Present Tense''. Both books were controversial, and ''Kiss This'' received negative reviews, with ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'' writing that when her "informal, personal style" was "applied to larger topics about the cultural relevance of punk, for instance, Arnold's careless prose grows tedious. If not for Arnold's access to such famous rockers as Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, her book would be overwhelmed by her incoherent, self-contradictory arguments for and against contemporary punk."
In 1999, Arnold held a journalism fellowship at the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City.
Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...
. Although she continued to write about music for periodicals through the early 2000s, Arnold subsequently focused on her academic career.
Arnold's ''Exile in Guyville'' was published in 2014. It was described as "an engaging and enlightening example of criticism in the post-critical age" by ''
The Rumpus
''The Rumpus'' is an online literary magazine launched on January 20, 2009. The site features interviews, book reviews, essays, comics, and critiques of creative culture as well as original fiction and poetry. The site runs two subscription-base ...
.'' In ''The Believer'',
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.
Biography
Marcus wa ...
wrote: "Arnold is a wonderful writer: fearless, precise, full of doubt, never taking anything for granted."
The ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' described it as "charming and brave and unexpectedly moving."
''Half A Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella'' was published by
University of Iowa Press The University of Iowa Press is a university press that is part of the University of Iowa.
Established in 1969, thUniversity of Iowa Pressis an academic publisher of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. The UI Press is the only universit ...
in November 2018. Based on her Stanford dissertation, the book explores the history of large music festivals and examines their impact on American culture.
In popular culture
"Aroma of Gina Arnold" is the opening track of
Trumans Water
Trumans Water are an American indie rock band, hailing from San Diego, California. They have released over a dozen albums over their career, on which they collaborated with acts in genre, including Azalia Snail, Chan Marshall and Thurston Moore.
...
album ''
Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox & Ass''.
Revolver Distribution's 1995 catalog and zine, ''Gym Teacher'', featured a parody of "Fools Rush In", entitled "Cruel's Just In" by "Gianna Arnaud".
Personal life
Arnold is a competitive platform and springboard diver, and placed 7th in the Master's World Championships in 2014. She has one daughter.
Bibliography
*''Half A Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella'', University of Iowa Press, November 15, 2018,
*''Exile In Guyville'', Continuum/Bloomsbury Press, May 1, 2014,
*''Kiss This: Punk in the Present Tense'', St. Martin's Press, June 1, 1997,
*''Route 666: On the Road To Nirvana'', St. Martin's Press/Picador UK, September 1, 1993,
Further reading
a collection of Arnold's articles for Salon.com''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
''
*
ttp://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/authors/gina-arnold collection of ''Phoenix New Times'' articlesArnold's reviews for the ''Dallas Observer''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnold, Gina
American music journalists
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American women journalists
American women critics
Women writers about music
21st-century American women