Dad Rock Is Our Daddy Now
Queer and trans people may seem like unlikely fans of the genre. But its essential earnestness may explain its appeal.
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In Niko Stratis’s debut memoir The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, the writer and music journalist draws a connection between her own journey of self-discovery as a trans woman and the undefinable genre of music that helped her get there.
Challenging the gendered origins and definitions of dad rock, Stratis opens up the genre to new interpretations. “Dad rock is a genre of loose origin and even looser definition, a box with blurred lines and fuzzy edges letting all things bleed in and out of it at will,” Stratis writes, purposefully refusing to define the kind of music that is usually associated with white, straight dads, and calling readers and critics to expand their understanding of both the scope of the genre itself and the identities of its fans.