Popular music, identity, and sexualization: A latent class analysis of artist types

A key ingredient of the production of popular music involves making decisions about the distinct character type of a particular artist. But there is a dearth of scientific studies that empirically examine artist images in a macro context, thus the range of gendered and sexualized artist types available in the marketplace is only known through interpretive studies contextually confined in scope. After collecting descriptive information on a sample of highly promoted artists played at least one time on monitored radio stations in an 18-month period (417 female and 1943 male popular music artists), I offer an empirical description of gendered, raced and sexualized artist types using Latent Class Analysis. I find 10 male types (Soul Singer, Leader, Romantic Singer-Songwriters, Thugs, Anti-Heroes, Absurd Extremists, Sophisticated Singer-Songwriters, Emotypes, Summer Party Jammers, and Others) and 6 female types (Femme Fatales, Models of Femininity, Pop Princesses, Chanteuse Singer-Songwriters, Underground Feminists, and Others). Suggestions for future research are given.