ABSTRACT
As part of the USA Bicentennial jubilations, a score of The Disappointment: Or, the Force of Credulity was reworked for a performance on 29 October 1976 at Washington's Library of Congress. Reportedly written by a British army surgeon, Dr Richard Shuckburg, the tune would become known to most English speakers, resounding with the words, 'yankee', 'doodle', 'dandy' and 'macaroni'. Revolutionary upheavals in Europe during the late 1700s seemed right for the emergence of dandyism. Central to any discussion of the phenomenon of the British pop artist are the trademarks of social class, gender and ethnicity, confounded by the peculiarities of cultural identification. National identity, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class are some of focal points when deciding what constitutes the British pop dandy. Many other categories of course also objectify and complicate the dandy character. In many ways an ideal forum for contemplating the enactment of gender, pop music provides a key to understanding the representational forces invoked by mediation.
