I realized recently that I have been listening to a lot of artists fronted by female vocalists. I then realized that this is atypical behavior, at least for myself. So I decided to spend this week’s post talking a little about female musicians. I also just remembered that I am blogging for Her Campus and that this post is probably way past due.
Like I said, I was surprised to realize the number of female artists on my “Recently Played” iTunes playlist, which included Cranberries, Nico, Rilo Kiley and Crystal Castles. I then checked my Top 25 Most Played. 21 of the 25 are sung by men and three are sung by women. (I’m striking one of the songs because it’s a mash up my 14-year-old sister created on Garageband for her dance class. If I had the technological prowess I’d post it on here because it’s actually pretty hype).
To be honest, I felt a little embarrassed by this. As a female I feel like I should be listening to more female-oriented music. Unfortunately, my recent listens of female artists seem to be just coincidence seeing that so few of my Top 25 plays are sung by women. I asked my friend to check her Top 25 list just to compare. We discovered that women sang only five of her top plays. I understand that this is a small and biased sample to go off of but I continued on by checking the top 25 purchased songs on iTunes. Here, women sang 13 of the 25 songs but the type of artist represented was different.
To summarize, the female artists found on the iTunes list are the kind you would get down to at a Pause dance (Katy Perry, Ke$ha etc). Yet the artists on my list as well as my friend’s list included artists that could be lumped under the huge umbrella known as “independent music.” I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these popular artists. I myself cannot get enough of this jam (although the video is terrible):
Although I enjoy plenty of female artists and vocalists, it just seems odd that none of them are quite “good enough” to make the cut into my highest play rankings. Further, the female artists the general iTunes public do seem to like are so one-sided: the industry generated pop stars that rack up millions of YouTube views. This is in no way backed by extensive observation but I think it is a trend worth more careful examination.
Enough conspiracy though, below are a few songs (all with female vocalists that aren’t pop singers) that are really great. The Breeders-Saints song comes from the Breeders album Last Splash which I have talked about on this blog before. In case you forgot, the Breeders are fronted by Kim Deal who prior to forming the Breeders was the bassist in the Pixies (who I had the privilege of seeing in concert with my dad on Easter Sunday).
Crystal Castles-Pap Smear (ignore the title) this song is actually really good. Pap Smear comes from Crystal Castles eponymous second full length album. If you are offended by lyrics, don’t worry about this song. I looked up the lyrics and I’m pretty sure that singer Alice Glass doesn’t actually talk about pap smears. There may be some metaphors that went completely over my head though. Still, listen to it!
Best Coast singer Bethany Cosentino’s lyrics aren’t too hard to crack (she’s really good at rhyming crazy with lazy). But if you are looking for a catchy song, look no further. Best Coast is also great at making you feel like its summer out even when it’s not. Speaking of, I just checked the weather. Let’s see, May 2. Ah yes, 35 degrees. Sounds about right.