Siouxsie and the Banshees' Peepshow

Samantha Bennett

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781501321870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

In 1978, Siouxsie and the Banshees declared 'We don't see ourselves in the same context as other rock'n'roll bands.' A decade later, and in the stark aftermath of a devastating storm, the band retreated to a 17th-century mansion house in the deracinated Sussex countryside to write their ninth studio album, Peepshow. Here, the band absorbed the bygone, rural atmosphere and its inspirational mise en sc è ne, thus framing the record cinematically, as Siouxsie Sioux recalled, 'It was as if we were doing the whole thing on the set of The Wicker Man '. Samantha Bennett looks at how Siouxsie and the Banshees' Peepshow is better understood in the context of film and film music (as opposed to popular music studies or, indeed, the works of other rock'n'roll bands). Drawing upon more than one hundred films and film scores, this book focuses on Peepshow 's deeply embedded historical and aesthetic (para)cinematic influences: How is each track a reflection of genre film? Who are the various featured protagonists? And how does Peepshow 's diverse orchestration, complex musical forms, atypical narratives and evocative soundscapes reveal an inherently cinematic record? Ultimately, Peepshow can be read as a soundtrack to all the films Siouxsie and the Banshees ever saw. Or perhaps it was the soundtrack to the greatest film they never made.

Notes

mise en scène

1 . John Gibbs, Mise-En-Scène: Film Style and Interpretation. London: Wallflower, 2002, p. 5.

2 . Gibbs, Mise-En-Scène, p. 17.

3 . The 1987 Great Storm was one of the UK’s worst. On the night of October 16, 1987, an “extreme variant of an extra-tropical cyclone” (Risk Management Solutions Inc. “The Great Storm of 1987: 20-Year Retrospective.” London, 2007, p. 3) hit the south east region of England causing immense damage. Bob Prichard stated: “The path of the most ferocious winds spawned earlier in the night had reached all of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, with mean speeds of up to 60kn. By 0400 UTC, there were mean speeds of up to 65kn and many gusts of up to 90kn” (Bob Prichard, “The Great Storm of 16th October 1987.” Weather 67, No. 10, 2012, p. 256).

4 . Marcus K. Harmes, “The Seventeenth Century on Film: Patriarchy, Magistracy and Witchcraft in British Horror Films, 1968-1971.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies 22, No. 2, 2013, p. 67.

5 . Harmes, “The Seventeenth Century on Film,” p. 67.

6 . Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1993, p. 55.

7 . Sioux, in: Anon, “Siouxsie: Me & My Flat.” No1, No. 145, March 29, 1986, p. 22.

8 . In interviews, Sioux often referred to Forbes’s The Stepford Wives. The Creatures’ “So Unreal” was written about the film and Ira Levin’s novel of the same name on which the film was based. In an episode of ITV’s Video View on Night Network, which aired on July 30, 1988, Sioux describes 1980s band Prefab Sprout as looking “. . . like they’ve escaped from The Stepford Wives. It’s my worst nightmare, it’s supermarket music.” Episode available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMrCqLnzZds (accessed February 2018).

9 . Sioux, in: Mark Paytress, Siouxsie and the Banshees: The Authorized Biography. London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2003, p. 172.

10 . Curtis Schwartz, Pers. Comms. February 27, 2014.

11 . Ibid.

12 . Ibid.

13 . Budgie, in: Paytress, Siouxsie and the Banshees, p. 172.

14 . Severin, in: Ibid., p. 172.

15 . Klein, in: Ibid., p. 172.

16 . Schwartz, Pers. Comms.

17 . Klein, in: Paytress, Siouxsie and the Banshees, p. 171.

18 . Sioux, in: Ibid., p. 172.

19 . Sioux, in: Lucy O’Brien, “Siouxsie and the Banshees: A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.” In: Love Is the Drug—Living as a Pop Fan, edited by John Aizlewood, 86–99. London: Penguin Books, 1994, p. 94.

20 . O’Brien, in: O’Brien, “Siouxsie and the Banshees.” p. 94

21 . Barbara Creed, Pandora’s Box: Essays in Film Theory. Victoria: Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2004, p. 13.

22 . Severin, in: Mark Paytress, “Her Dark Materials.” Mojo 252, November 2014, p. 80.

23 . Peepshow is not Siouxsie and the Banshees first voyeuristic album title either: Kaleidoscope, Polydor, 1980; and, Through the Looking Glass, Polydor, 1987 are two further examples.

24 . Sioux, in reference to Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Peepshow. In: Ronnie Randall, “What the Butler Saw!” Offbeat, No. 1, September 1988, p. 24.

25 . Sioux, in: Ibid.

26 . Siouxsie and the Banshees, in: Jean Daniel Beauvallet, “La Fille Fraise.” Les Inrockuptibles, No. 13, October/November 1988, p. 74.

27 . Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, No. 3, 1975, p. 8.

28 . Laura Mulvey theorized “the male gaze” in one of the most acclaimed and cited contributions to film theory. See: Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” p. 11.

29 . For more on “trash aesthetics” and paracinema see: Joan Hawkins, Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 3–7.

30 . Ibid., p. 7.

31 . Mark Jancovich, Rational Fears: American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 268.

32 . Paul Morley, “Siouxsie and the Banshees: A World Domination by 1984 Special.” NME, January 14, 1978, p. 7.

33 . See: Martin Aston, “10 Questions for Siouxsie Sioux.” Mojo, No. 58, September 1998, pp. 22–23.

34 . Ibid.

35 . Morley, “Siouxsie and the Banshees,” p. 7.

36 . David Gavan, “Suburban Relapse: The Birth of the Banshees.” Record Collector 365, August 2009, p. 37.

37 . See: Paul Morley, “Siouxp.” New Musical Express, November 8, 1980, pp. 28–30; and, Tom Hibbert, “...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• Track Listing
• mise en scène
• Early Cinema
• Noir
• Musical
• Vaudeville
• Western
• Fantasy
• Horror
• Epic
• Acknowledgments
• Films Cited
• Notes
• Also available in the series
• Copyright