Where Are The Women?
Posted by Skrud at Tuesday, September 26th 2006 at 9:35pm
Here is a question that’s been boggling my mind at least throughout the summer. I was reminded of it last night when I discovered that All That Remains, the supporting group for last night’s Dragonforce concert, has a female bassist.
Where are all the female musicians?
Specifically, I’m talking about rock and popular music, not classical or orchestra music. There are plenty of female singers; enough so that femme-fronted rock groups form a subgenre of their own, a lot of them are fantastic bands, too. There are also a number of all-girl bands, however more often than not an all-girl rock band is more gimmick / marketing than anything else, like Kittie or Live.on.release.
Avril Lavigne doesn’t count. We all know she’s a record label-manufactured “artist” who doesn’t actually write her own songs, and while she’s holding a guitar in some of her videos, I don’t think she ever actually plays it. So she falls under the “singers” category.
Until last night, I thought the only girl in rock was Melissa Auf der Maur, and that covers both Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. Maybe Courtney Love too, even though she’s more of a “singer”. We can add D’arcy Wretzky to the list, since she was the bass player that Melissa replaced in the Pumpkins. And finally All That Remains’ Jeanne Sagan, too. So that’s four.
So seriously, where are the women? It’s not like the talent isn’t there, clearly, it is. You just don’t see it so often. And here I was thinking software was a mostly male-dominated field.
Can you think of any more female musicians (not singers)?
Alanis morissette?
It’s actually pretty sad if you think about it. There are really no real female musicians in the mainstream music scene anymore.
Unfortunately, record companies are too busy selling the sex factor of these “female singers” instead of actually looking for legitimate artists.
Alanis Morissette is in the same boat as Tori Amos: They’re both primarily singers, and they’re solo artists; not in a band.
To like so many things predominantly male must make you some beef-ass macho dude!
Grrr! Smashes stuff
If you’re talking about mainstream, Top 40 music, Alicia Keys comes to mind. Suzanne Vega isn’t Top 40, but she’s more talented than the Top 40 combined. Kaki King comes to mind. Back in the day, the Pixies, Breeders, Jawbox, Black Flag, Girlschool, Sonic Youth. For music more underground – the list is endless. In metal, for example – Ludicra, Deeply Confused, Gallhammer, 13, Electric Wizard, Warface, The Great Kat, Jennifer Batten, Michelle Meldrum, ASRA, the list goes on. These all have seriously talented female musicians. If you don’t see ‘em, you’re not looking hard enough!