Links & Bits for 12/17/10

The Social Construction of Age: How Old is Too Young (Sociological Images)

Delia B. sent along this 80s-riffic, apocalyptic music video featuring Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen singing Make Me Wanna Die. Momsen is a 17-year-old teen idol who strips naked over the course of the video. Her naked body is eventually obscured, but not before we get a good look at her in her bra and underwear.

In Celebration of all Rat Girls (Feminist Music Geek)

I know that Hersh’s book will be met with resistance. Some may think it’s just one structureless yarn from a talented white girl who’s making herself crazy. But I think her decision to write herself out of depression and soldier into her twenties with a band and a kid on her terms is pretty admirable. I believe the complicated ways in which she expresses and documents this exhilarating time is honest. I think she nails how time passes in life — that nothing seems to happen until everything transpires at once. For anyone who thinks they may relate to this great skein of an autobiography, I highly recommend it.

Nikki Lynette Defies All Kinds Of Labels (Bitch Blogs)

If Kanye West's new album is too self-centered and misogynistic for you, you can get fun melodies, great rhymes, and great samples from another Chicago-born artist, Nikki Lynette. She raps, she writes, she produces, and isn't afraid to throw genre to the wind. Putting tight beats and R&B melodies over electric guitar riffs, a mixtape called Roses 'N Guns, and a rousing update of Portishead's "Glory Box" are just some of the ways she crosses rap, pop, and rock boundaries.