Where are all the Women in Music?
Posted by Commoner on 17 August 2008 - 8:06am.
What is my point? Well (1) I feel our threads listing our choice artists inadequately list enough women artists (2) Having ripped all my CDs onto MP3 I realise I have too few woman artists (3) Recently on another thread I commented on the lack of front page female artist portraits on The Word mag. So, where are all the female musical artists...and who are they?
A few I recently enjoyed listening to are:
Regina Spektor (thanks Archie)
Emily Loizeau (Thanks to The Word)
Astrid Williamson...not sure where she came from..
Sibylle Baier (imagine a female german english speaking Nick Drake)
C'mon then, check your collections and share your favourites
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Not exhaustive,
and I'm not implying equal weight should be given, but here's a few to start with :
Amy W (more than just a tabloid headline); Aretha; Bettye Swann; Beverley Knight; Candi Staton; Dusty; Emmylou; Gillian Welch; Joni; June Tabor; Laura Nyro; Lucinda W; Shelby Lynne; The Supremes...
Thanks Nigel
Not familiar with a couple of those so i'll check those out...some nice familiar suggestions too
A few more......
Kathleen Edwards, Keren Ann, Emily Jane White, Kate Maki, Loane, Basia Bulat, Jolie Holland, Emiliana Torrini, Berry, Dawn Landes, Hello Saferide, Kris Delmhorst, Lizz Wright, Pieta Brown, Sharon Jones.
None of whom are ever likely to grace the cover of Word, but all have had very good albums out in the last year or so.
Again some new ones there to me
and I too have a healthy selection of Keren Ann & Emiliana Torrini tracks..
Is it obvious why they dont grace the cover? Is it the Dido affair?
hurrah!
I'd second many of the above (well, the names I know, there are some newies to me there too) and add Tori Amos, Rilo Kiley (and frontlady Jenny Lewis' cracking solo album), Joan as Police Woman.
I'm sure there's many more... will go have another ponder
Estrogen Enfused Musical Goodness
here are my recommendations
Aimee Mann, Bat For Lashes, Beth Rowley, Carina Round, Chantal Kreviazuk, Fiona Apple, Gemma Hayes, Heather Nova, Helen Boulding, Kat Flint, Laura Marling, Leona Naess, Nerina Pallot, Rachel Sage, Rosalie Deighton, Thea Gilmore, Tift Merritt & Tina Dico.
I can't believe I forgot Aimee Mann
she is very very splendid indeed
To which I'll add...
Eve Selis, Miranda Barber, Laura Cantrell, Laura Veirs, Uncle Earl, Beth Waters, Stephanie Kirkham, Edwina Hayes, Brooke Fraser, Catherine Feeny, Edie Brickell, Elin Ruth/Elin Sigvardsson, Lush/Sing-Sing, Emily Maguire, Gemma Hayes, Missy Higgins and Santa Dog.
Sorry to promote another music website but check out "Wears the Trousers" for some great writing exclusively about women in music. www.wearsthetrousers.com
A quick scan revealed more than 70
on my ipod - some solo artists, some female fronted bands, some bands where 50% of the line up was female (White Stripes, Von Bondies) some where there was a significant female presence (Pixies, Velvets).
New-ish stuff I have enjoyed: Feist, Clare and the Reasons, Emma Pollock, Cat Power, Dar Williams, Laura Viers, Kathryn Williams, Coco Rosie, Teagan and Sarah
I'm also a big fan of Shiina Ringo (or Shena as it is also written), P J Harvey, Tanya Donnelly/Belly/Throwing Muses, as well as the aforementioned Regina Spektor, Gemma Hayes, Joan as Policewoman, Bat For Lashes, Amy, Dusty, etc etc
One final recommendation - Six Day Riot - heard them on R4 last weekend, lively folky stuff.
Trying
I'm doing my best to listen to more music by women, black artists, and anything else that isn't white, male and generally rockist. To reduce my level of guilt and enable myself to share my musical tastes with others without shame, I am thinking of introducing quotas so that a healthy diversity in my music collection is acheived. I'm prepared to pay the price of listening to some tunes I do not really care for in order to live at peace with myself.
Seriously though I have not really given this much thought until now. For the record I recall recently listening to the following through choice:
Breeders, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Roisin Murphy, Aretha Franklin, Mamas and Papas, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground (Nico singing), CSS and Duffy, and various odds and ends from Word CDs. Feist - I like them. Hope that's of interest. Cover star? Bjork maybe?
Of interest it certainly is
and teasing aside the notion of equalities is on the margins of my work and I adopt the same jocular approach as you if only to challenge the assertion I need to be told to be open minded when in fact I (hope!) I already am......let the estrogen flow into the Ipods forevermore and for much the better
Encore
Emm Gryner has musical clips on her site. Lovely version of Nothing Rhymed on Songs Of Love and Death.
http://www.emmgryner.com/
Petra Haden
http://petrahadenmusic.com/sounds.html
Sarah Menage
http://www.myspace.com/sarahmenage
Not forgetting the fine female singists in Heart, Renaissance, The Reasoning, Mostly Autumn & Spirogyra
and more !
kathryn williams fantastic , emilliana torrini ( has a new album out soon ) and in the interests of not repeating all of the above try stina Nordenstam .
Most of my favourites have been mentioned already
but I'm still going to post them!
Generally my favourite type of music gets put in the *Americana* pigeonhole, but I find *that* pigeonhole almost all-encompassing.
Kirsty MacColl
Lucinda Williams
Kathleen Edwards
Sarah McLaghlan(sp)
Amy Rigby(ex-wife of Steve Earle drummer Will Rigby)
Amy Allison(daughter of Mose)
Tift Merrit
Mary Gauthier
Gillian welch
All of the above mostly because of the lyrics.
In smaller doses -
Janis Joplin
Aretha
Nina Simone
Randy Crawford
Sade
The Pretenders??
Eddie Reader
Sheryl Crow
I have a great cd by Jill Sobule called "Pink Pearl". I saw her a few years ago supporting Billy Bragg. She reminds me a bit of the above mentioned Amy Rigby.
Can't remember for the life of me the name of the female singer from Whiskeytown, but I've got an excellent cd by her called "While You Weren't Looking".........just remembered..Caitlin Cary.
Like Amy Rigby?
Anything similar to the magnificent Amy Rigby (new album with new husband Wreckless Eric due very soon!) is worth checking out.
Can I add two more from "on heavy rotation" on my ipod
Ingrid Michaelson
Devon Sproule
and has anyone mentioned Tanya Donelly?
...and I nearly forgot both Neko Case and Maria McKee.
some or most have been
mentioned but
The late but magnificent Lal Waterson
off course the mighty Kate Bush (please get Aerial)
Jane Siberry
Sarah Harmer
Mary Asquith ( a Manchester folk hero,one album 'Closing Time" she is very sick now but what an album.)
Laura Nyro
Nina Simone
Dinah Washington
Sarah Vaughan
Cath Carroll
Kate Rusby
judy Collin's trio 'In my Life, Wildflowes, Who knows where the
Time Goes'
Judee Sill
joni and you know we could go on and on.
Admittedly my iPod is male dominated but have these
amongst others already mentioned:
Dolly Parton
Carole King
Amy Winehouse
Sophie Ellis Bextor
Nancy Wilson
The Supremes
Michelle Shocked
Madonna
The Cardigans
I agree with Sven when he says
"I'm doing my best to listen to more music by women, black artists, and anything else that isn't white, male and generally rockist. To reduce my level of guilt and enable myself to share my musical tastes with others without shame, I am thinking of introducing quotas so that a healthy diversity in my music collection is acheived. I'm prepared to pay the price of listening to some tunes I do not really care for in order to live at peace with myself.".
----------------------------------------
I think this whole thread is rather patronising. I like what I like. If there are are men than women on my ipod, well so be it.
Patronising? Pah
I refer back to my original point...it was about wideing my music collection not feeling guilty about it gaps in it. Nothing like a bit of education to open your mind rather than sit on what you know
And I am still keen to know
Why of all these fab artists so few get to the Cover of Word Magaine. Like I say about 6 to 7 women since 2003. Now that maybe about quotas as you suggest - albeit sales quotas? I just dont know and that is why I asked and still waiting for insight.
Also I am keen to know why you think its patronising to discuss gender but you think posting threads about nationality and music is ok (bext scottish albums)....strange that
i'll weigh in behind Johan and Sven...
If there be gaps in your collection then that's fine, but to identify gaps based on something like gender doesn't sit right with me either. If there are gaps, it's *probably* 'cos that 'genre' hasn't actually grabbed you. I appreciate, Commoner, that it's not your intent to appear patronising, and i hope this response doesn't appear to be either, but think about it. Get into an artist 'cos they're 'good' - not because they fit into a niche.
I'm off to get a copy of Aerial by Kate Bush. I only know Wuthering Heights and Man with the Child in his Eyes by her, and based on the 'She's 50 and Christ i still would...' thread where the (mostly male...hmmmm) posters raved about it (and her), i'm gonna give it a shot. Not 'cos she's a female singer, y'see, but because she's an artist that's been recommended on her own merits; it's an aside that she's female...
I appreciate what you say
but I have not said you have to buy into a niche for the sake of it. Most Kate Bush interviews, and there are never enough, will contain Kates view on using the music partly to explore feminity and a womans perspetive and a womans art. Therefore it does matter that a woman is behind it.
And its that perspective I think opens the mind and adds value to the record collection. And without it, or enough it, we would be sadly missing something truly valuable.
Also Women artists provide awareness of a womans perspective in the same way World Music is a good gateway to raising cultural awarenees. But if neither claims are true why does Johan's thread list 75 great Scottish albums? Does it matter that they are Scottish? If not why bother listing them as such?
But given the long list of great female artists acknowledged on this blog entry I am still none the wiser why there is a low show of female artists on music mags cover pages?
good points, well made...
i'll still disagree with the sentiment that a music collection which omits, say, Kate Bush or, (ahem) World Music, or Jazz can be construed to be any less valuable than one which contains them. I'm not saying, by the way, that *you* are explicitly stating this to the exclusion of any other viewpoint!
As for the statement that "Also Women artists provide awareness of a womans perspective in the same way World Music is a good gateway to raising cultural awarenees"...fair play to you, old boy. But Jesus - sometimes don't you just want to listen to stuff 'cos it sounds good, not 'cos you want somebodys perspective!
I think that's what i'm getting at. Maybe i'm just not cut-out for having a quest to understand the culture/perspective/whatever of others, and it was that which prompted my first post.
I just likes me tunes...
For the record, i'll agree with you on the notion of great Scottish Albums. As an Irishman, it always galls me with bloody lists of great Irish albums in our media. To kinda half borrow from Wilde, an album is either well made or it's not; it doesn't matter if its Irish Trad, Kate Bush, Miles Davis, Alt Country or anything the hell else!
Wise man say...
A wise man once said "We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school". Sometimes it just happens that way it's not necessarily a conscious thing. I well remember my father saying that if only people sang about Physics on Radio One I might have got better grades at O-level!
Great voices one and all:
Nico
Lulu
Sandy Denny
Linda Thompson
Regina Spektor
Cilla Black
Dusty Springfield
Shirley Bassey
Karen Carpenter
Shirley Collins
All About Eve
Siouxsie
Kim Wilde
Shelagh McDonald
The Sallyangie
Nancy Sinatra
Suzanne Vega
Tanita Tikaram
Diana Ross
Mavis Staples
etc.
But they're all old aren't they. No one really new here. So indeed, the odd nu folkie aside, what's happened to women in rock?
Nothing would thrill the editor of Word more....
...than to be able to put some of those women on the cover because it as an established FACT of magazine publishing that women sell more than men on the cover of any kind of magazine.
However most of the ones you mentioned are simply not recognisable enough. And before you say "well, of course, they're not recognisable, that's because they're not on the cover", let me remind you that pioneers are dead men with arrows in their backs.
And the idea that there's any kind of anti-wimmin policy is laughable. The best selling issue of this magazine had a sixty year old Joni Mitchell on its cover. And I defy anyone else to have the, er, balls to match that.
The only one...
that comes to mind...
Jayne County
Thanks Mr Hepworth
and welcome back. I hope you realise though thats its curiosity rather than an accusation that I am putting forward. So what is the issue,that there are not enough women pionneers? Have I got it right? There is certinly no shortage of talent as the content of The Word advocates......
I am not sure where the anti-woman thing came from. I simply pondered why. And you answered it wisely, albeit defensively.
Signing off.
I think I wrote in my column in the current issue...
...that people respond to what they think you've said rather than what you actually said.
A case in point is my reference to pioneers. Here I was not talking about the artists but about the magazines that might choose to champion them.
There is not now nor has there ever been any "anti-women thing".
Anyway, I'm going away again.
Gender blindness
pioneers are dead men with arrows in their backs
Hang on there matey-boy, but I seem to recall a fair few women both living and dying on the pioneer trails of the Old West.
Ah, now I understand - women are invisible so their pictures simply wouldn't show up on the cover even if you put them there!
The lovely Cerys
Put her on the cover! She's recognisable & she's got a tale or two to tell, and tell well. New album out soon. Here's a lovely taster from Loose Women. Anyone know the song?
ignoring the misunderstandings
Amy allison ,
well said Bigsteviecook , certainly the voice is an acquired taste but really enjoyed her album ' everything and nothing too ' and the Smiths cover on it. Is this her best album as i have not heard any others ?
an aside
if Commoner had not posted would we have discussed some of these great artists.
would it be wrong to discuss 'best scandinavian albums of the last four years ' as it hones down the debate somewhat ?
I'm not familiar with that record....
....so it'll be off to Amazon after this!
Yes, her voice is an aquired taste....sounds like she's singing through her nose.
I saw her solo acoustic in Edinburgh about 5 years ago on a bill with Amy Rigby and Neal Cleary. Mark Spencer(lap steel with Jay Farrar)backed each one in turn. I think they had all just signed for spit and polish records out of Glasgow. For the encore, they all got on stage(joined by Davy Scott(Pearlfishers))and did "Every Day Is Like Sunday". Is that the Smiths cover you speak of I wonder?
I have 2 of her CDs...Sad Girl and No Frills Friend. My favourite is Sad Girl.
I also have a promo copy of No Frills Friend that I got as a freebie. Since you're the only person I've ever met(?)whose even heard of her, I'd be happy to send it to you if you contact me off this blog.
try
HMV , just checked its £4.99 and no postage fee . yes it does include ' Every Day is like sunday' ! thanks for the Recommendation . would be interested in the freebie thank you. how do we manage the off the blog thing ?
If you click on my name
you should be able to contact me by email.
If anything...
... my problem is that I listen mainly to women artists, to such a degree that recently I've been making an effort to up the testosterone levels in my music selection.
But to add to/back up the lists (because I AM a bloke...) above of great female performers around now:
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset (who I've just been to see at the Jazz Cafe and were wondrous). Worth punting a few quid on for the Mercurys, I reckon.
Marissa Nadler
Tift Merrit
Candi Staton
Inara George (fab new Van Dyke Parks-arranged album due out nowish)
Cortney Tidwell
Francoiz Breut
Gamine
Jackie de Shannon
Kathleen Hanna
Last Town Chorus (with Megan Hickey's great lap steel & vocals)
Laura Marling
Laura Veirs
Paris Motel
Lavender Diamond
Q Mag
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a post on this very forum, just a few months ago, slating Q Magazine's "previously unchartered depths of ignorance" (or words to that effect) for having a magazine cover on this very same topic?
A few more
Christine Collister (best singer in the country)
Caroline Trettine
Annabel Lamb
Shawn Colvin
Rose Polenzani
Pooka (their album Spinning is a lost masterpiece)
My own few
My iPod tells me that I have a lot less songs by women or women-fronted groups than many previous posters. But here are a couple that might not have been mentioned:
Laurie Anderson - mad/genius is such a fine line. An acquired taste, and more a performance artist than singer. But no-one else's mind works like hers.
Lisa Gerrard - the most extraordinary voice in the world. No argument.
Mirabilis - just beautiful.
Dark Sanctuary - French and very moody, featuring a singer called Dame Pandora. And why not?
Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is essential.
Loreena McKennitt - a tad pretentious, but great songs.
Qntal - you can never have too much Latin or medieval English, German and French, I say.
All About Eve - lovely folk-goth sound.
The Birthday Massacre - as if the '80s never ended.
Chumbawamba - forget that awful Tubthumping tosh and listen to their more recent protest songs.
Clannad - none more atmospheric, and wonderful live.
Has anyone mentioned...
Laura Veirs. All others I would mention, already have been.
Unmentioned so far, all in an ethereal mood...
Vashti Bunyan - before and after the wilderness years,
Louise Rutkowski from This Mortal Coil and follow-on project The Hope Blister
Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins - is that solo album ever going to come out??
what about...
Amanda Palmer
Amazing live...and she does a great cover of Death Cab's 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark'.
Also - Ani DiFranco, Missy Higgins, Bree Sharp, Patty Griffin, Mindy Smith, Tanya Donnelly, Brandi Carlile, Kasy Chambers, Shannon McNally...the list goes on.
Just realised I have *way* more women on my ipod than men : )