Singing with the Enemy?

34 thoughts on Singing with the Enemy?

1. It’s always happened. Look at Clara Schumann, everything she wrote was originally attributed to her husband. People also forget that Mozart’s sister was a very accomplished musician in her own right, but that her father chose to focus more on pushing his son.

2. The rumours of people saying Notorious B.I.G writing Lil Kim’s raps when they were together really pissed me off because it was like people were insinuating that because she was a woman that she could not write rhymes.

   Hey, I’m not the biggest Lil’ Kim fan, but she’s hard core! How could anyone say she couldn’t rap! Now I’m offended for her!

   I think the summary of most of music’s feelings toward women was summed up really well with the whole Dixie Chicks thing, that they just needed to shut up and sing. Nothing they could say, as women, was important. So they needed to sit there, look pretty, and strum their guitar.

3. It is just so embarrassing for us to be constantly compaired as if we have to be like men or something. I remember this one song by Khia called ‘My Neck, My Back’. It was raw beyond comparison and I felt like she challenged the stereotype of what female rappers should be like (she wasn’t great but the song was colossal in terms of the reactions it got). Can’t women be tough with their music without being seen as rip-offs of men?

4. I LOVED ‘My Neck, My Back’ because it was such a reversal of the usual power dynamics in mainstream hip-hop. My fave line?

   “You might roll dubs, you might have G’s,
   But so what player, get on your knees.”

   Hee!

5. Speaking of women not getting credit, Courtney Love has faced accusations both that Kurt Cobain wrote her music AND that Billy Corgan did while he was dating her.

   I’m not actually a Courtney Love fan, but come on now. And we can’t just pawn this off on her drug problems, because clearly there are plenty of male musicians with serious addictions and no one questions their ability to write their own music.

6. I find this really interesting because I listen to and enjoy tonnes of different music, and I too am always hearing the same nonsense about music created by women, especially in the hard rock and heavy metal genres. I’m not an expert, but for a long time in the music biz, it seemed as though those women that were in it didn’t have much control over their careers, other than providing a nice voice to sing songs written and produced by men. Of course, in the 1940s and 50’s, there were also many male singers whose job description was limited exclusively to being “the voice”, and songwriting was left to others.

   I’ve never heard of this band, this Lethal Fixx, but they’re just spouting the same shit we always hear, and I’m wondering if it’s not at least partly because bands of that nature are expected to be misogynistic, and they want to maintain an image. Not that I don’t believe they actually hold those views, of course, just that it’s possible they’re exaggerating the extent somewhat.

   I get the feeling some men would prefer going back to the days when women were little more than a pretty voice and a pretty face in the music biz, and that may also be what this is about; there’s so much great woman created music out there that they have to know their complaints about women’s musical abilities ring false.

   I lost quite a bit of respect for Kate Bush when I read a comment she made about how she was proud to make “male” music, as opposed to what she considered “female” music. Blech.

   I think you’re right, Meggygurl, about the music industry’s attitude toward women. I happen to think they should shut up and sing, and so should men. I just don’t think people who spend their lives in la la land (the entertainment industry) should try and discuss serious issues, because they aren’t qualified.

7. Hey everyone, me again. I was just thinking about this,and I remembered something Martina McBride said a while ago in an interview. Something about how a magazine published an interview with her, good enough so far, except they decided to add a little bit of false information. She was discussing a cd she had made and the
   writer included a bit about her husband and producer. In fact, she produced her own work. Apparently, some people are dumbfounded by the idea that a woman can be in charge of her career.

8. I covered the Warped Tour in Chicago is summer, shooting pictures for Alternative Press. The only women I saw on stage were Haley of Paramore and Meg+Dia. I’ve always really liked female vocalists (I still have a soft spot for Debbie Gibson), but it does seem like, especially in various rock genres, that women are still a “novelty.” I can still remember many of the women that were in hardcore bands in the 90s because there were so few of them. That isn’t to say there aren’t lots of great bands with women: Rainer Maria, The Gossip, Mates of State, Erase Errata, Mika Miko, Mono to name a few. But still, there seems to be even less of a popular role model now than in the 80s: The Go-Go’s, The Bangles, Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Pat Benetar, Heart, etc. This number still pales in comparison to the number of men, however. I wonder why that is?

9. @getitgirl:

   Debbie Gibson wrote or co-wrote all of her songs and produced many of them. Tiffany also shared writing and production credits on many of her early songs. Both singers set records in the mid-80s for their chart-topping success at such an early age. Just FYI.

10. I’m not an expert, but for a long time in the music biz, it seemed as though those women that were in it didn’t have much control over their careers, other than providing a nice voice to sing songs written and produced by men.

    Actually, in the good ol’ days of the 1950s and 1960s, there were a lot of women songwriters — Carole King comes to mind immediately, who co-wrote “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” and other hits and went on to a successful solo career as a singer/songwriter. Even further back, you have Dorothy Fields, who wrote the lyrics for “The Way You Look Tonight” and “A Fine Romance.” And there are dozens more whose names aren’t nearly as well-known.

    Of course, the two Fields songs I referred to above are usually referred to as “Jerome Kerns’ songs” because he wrote the music and she “only” wrote the lyrics. You can’t win for losing.

11. Imagine VU without Moe Tucker. We had Black Flag without Kira Roessler, and I think we all would agree that they were better with.

    Kim Deal, and three quarters of the Breeders.

    Joan Jett. She can sing, play and work a crowd at fifty years of age. (Also? Huge crush. No, I have no reason to believe she plays with boys. Le sigh.)

    Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8.

    Sleater Kinney.

    I just don’t see how there’s a debate. Can women sing? Aretha Franklin. Can women write music? Ani Defranco. Can women play guitar? Carrie Brownstein. Can women work a crowd? Beth Ditto.

    Why are there not more women at the forefront of some genres, like the hard rock genres? IBTP.

    While I’m on the subject, I have been listening to a lot of Celtic Rock and Celtic Punk. There are tons of women playing more trad Celtic; I’d love to see an outfit like Real McKenzies or the Tossers fronted by a woman. They are not wholly absent, but there’s a long way to go.

12. And another thing. There are obviously great instrumentalist women out there. I would love, love to see a woman in a position of pure instrumentalist, non-sex-object, in a man-fronted band. A woman like Leslie West: Not pretty, not there for show, just a shut-up-and-play virtuoso. (The closest that come to mind, in fact, are Tucker and Roessler.)

13. It’s just like every other piece of publicity oh-so generously awarded to women…’yeah, but is she haWt???’

    My collection used to be dominated by male vocalists until I wondered why, and went to find the females. I blame the media for my ignorance.

    I think that unless you’re making a concerted effort, all you’re going to see is men in the media, and it’s kind of hard to rise in power when you’re being overlooked and your ratings are low. You don’t have to choose between P.J. Harvey and Britney Spears, I promise! Encourage your friends to buy/see/support more female singers and bands! Bring the percentages up!

    Here’s a starter list (with many punk, hard rock and metal females), feel free to contribute:

    Be Your Own Pet
    Made Out Of Babies
    Switchblade Symphony
    Operator Please
    Lita Ford
    Giant Drag
    Cadaveria
    Queen Adrena
    Watch Me Burn
    Danielle Dax
    Lee Aaron
    Joan Jett
    Retching Red
    Siouxie Sioux
    Cranberries
    Mazzy Starr
    Lene Lovich
    The Breeders
    L7
    Baby Monoxide
    Nina Hagen…

14. There was also Lisa Germano.

15. I’m wondering whether this predominance of males in the music industry plays a part in the feeling I and several friends have that a lot of popular music has little variation.

    As for some singers/groups I would like to add to the commenters list:

    Joan Baez

    Dolores O’Riordan

    Heart

16. If you’re into moderately obscure Japanese rock/heavy metal bands, both Inugami Circus-dan and Onmyo-za have female vocalists. I’m personally a big fan of ICD.

17. Guess this is as good an opportunity as any for me to make the move from regular reader to poster. I’m a university prof and my main research and teaching is on women in music, especially popular music. As such, I’m naturally far too verbose and long-winded to come up with a snappy, cogent explanation for the sexism apparent in this news story! But I’ll try to offer some useful ideas:

    In the ideologies of the music world, we tend to consider composers the most important and creative parts of the enterprise – the person who “just” sings doesn’t have a whole lot of cultural prestige. At the same time, the performers are the ones who typically get the most fan adulation, so this creates tension and resentment. The person who writes and performs his/her own material is seen as the ideal, consummate musician.

    For composers in the classical music world, formal training is essential, and this is an avenue typically difficult for women throughout history. In the 19th century, for example, few women musicians had access to orchestras that were ready and willing to perform their works, and since orchestral works were/are viewed as more Important than chamber works (like songs for voice & piano), it was difficult for music critics and audiences to recognize women as composers.

    What’s more, the anxieties about women performers (whether actors, dancers, musicians) making spectacles of themselves and being sexually available meant that no respectable woman would pursue this as a career. Maybe it’s just me, but I think some aspects of this thinking linger today. It’s just not “ladylike” to play drums or electric guitar, and touring with a band is not something a Nice Girl wants to do. And the required training in this context usually involves hanging out in clubs till all hours, following specific musicians with devotion and hoping for an opportunity to play with them and learn from them. When women try to do this, we call them groupies, not apprentice musicians.

    Rock music, esp. hard rock and heavy metal, are all about a certain kind of masculinity, and the electric guitar is a very obvious symbol of phallic power. What’s more, the masculinity presented in hard rock borrows heavily from black culture and from female clichés for its power – think of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, performing blues tunes and prancing around with long hair and scanty clothing, acting out fantasies of difference. This was/is liberating for them and their main audience, young men feeling oppressed by rigid middle class conventions.

    So an actual woman or black person entering this arena makes things very complicated, and is usually greeted with hostility and contempt. Apart from Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, there are very few performers in the classic rock canon who aren’t straight white men. Someone like Courtney Love is routinely suspected of being a vampire, stealing the genuine artistry of her boyfriend, passing it off as her own, and then – worst of all — having the nerve to survive after his suicide!

    Yikes – very long-winded, sorry. Am I this tedious in class, I wonder? Sure hope not …

18. One band member even said that women don’t make good rock music.

    I don’t know how anyone can say that when there are such artists as Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dresdan Dolls, and No Doubt. Of course, it depends on what type of rock you’re talking about. I have a hard time thinking of any female-led punk-rock or heavy-metal bands. However, the fact that women excel in other areas of rock (and in all genres of music) shows that they have something to add, although I think male and female singers have different strengths in terms of their sound.

19. Hey, I really, really, REALLY love PJ Harvey, even if her last album is a little… dull. Some of the songs have ideas which aren’t exactly feminist, but it’s in a framework of extreme dysfunction in general — she’s a wailing banshee who’ll tear out her own heart to give it to you. And you’d better take it, too, or you’ll end up dismembered or drowned. 🙂 She’s worked with male producers, and her band is generally male, but I’ve always gotten the impression she was making the music she wanted to make (or at least, directing herself in making her music).

    L7 is loud and awesome. Bikini Kill, Babes In Toyland, etc. “Riot grrl” music got sucked into pop culture and made into something cute-n-spiky, but the basic idea that if women want to to have awesome music made by women they’re probably going to have to do it all themselves still holds. It seems like it should be a lot easier to do it now with the internet and recording with computers than it was with tapes and zines.

    The thing with Courtney Love is especially funny given that at the time she got together with Kurt, /she/ was a much better known musician.

    I’m not sure whether she was “haWt” or not, but when the (only)female member of the Toadies left, they ended the band because they felt they couldn’t replace her. (She didn’t sing.)

    Melanie Safka is an old guitarist/singer/songwriter from the seventies, with one of the most effortlessly powerful voices I’ve ever heard. Some of her stuff is hippy music (and Buddha Records really pushed her as flower child) and some of it is bluesy (oh she can howl) and some of it’s just decent pop. She does covers sometimes, but mostly writes her own stuff. Her husband was her producer, and in the early seventies they started their own label. Men tend to find her annoying, and what better recommendation can I give her? 🙂 She also has a quote that seems appropriate to the conversation: “I bet some of you think this is a really cute song. A lot of people think this is a really cute song. Actually when I wrote it I had a lot of social commentary that I wanted to share with the world. It just turned out so, so cute, that nobody really got to this verse. This is the verse that has the social commentary. This reveals what I was really trying to say the whole time,” and then she continues on with the song (Brand New Key).

20. My experience as a female musician in an all-female rock band has been that once you’ve established yourself as a credible musician, most people (men and women) who come to see your band live will judge you by your music. That’s how it goes in my city anyway. Establishing yourself as a credible female musician… well, that can be difficult.

    The media is partly to blame for that. All-female bands get featured in (local) music magazines in specials about ‘style’ or ‘girl rock’, grouped together with other all-female bands. Gets a leeeetle bit annoying when it happens for the third time in a row, and it’s all the coverage you get. All you want to do is talk about your music, and all you are asked about is what you like to wear on stage.

21. One of the things about women in popular music is that they are subjected to “Highlander” rules — i.e., there can be only one “type” of a given pop culture person at a time. When Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Christina Aguilera were all vying for the top of the pop charts, they were each compared to the other two in the entertainment press — which one would end up being the superstar, and which two would fade into obscurity? The same dynamic has played out again and again — would Madonna or Cyndi Lauper be the superstar of emerging MTV? Would Lady Miss Kier be the “new Madonna” and dethrone the Queen of Pop? What about Gwen Stefani? Britney Spears?

    Nobody asks who’s going to dethrone U2. No one compares Blink 182 to Green Day to some other band of pop-punk white dudes to see who will end up having a real career. No one insists that Justin Timberlake and Usher compete in some pop culture zero-sum game with one winning and the other losing. They each get to have their own careers, finding their own niche in their own rights, whereas women get to compete to have a single niche as the token female act in a given genre.

    Women contribute to this phenomenon, of course. When Kate Bush released “Aerial,” her first album in something like 10 years, “Bust” magazine’s music reviewer made mention of how the album was so great that it showed how Tori Amos had been a pretender as compared to Bush. Made me so very sad and angry to see a magazine that otherwise does promote women’s music perpetuate the idea that there can be only one slot — in this case, overwrought, virtuoso, allusion pop — and that if Bush was back, Amos was out. If a magazine that leans feminist can’t find space for two female musicians, well, how can we expect the wanking boyfests at Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and such to do the same?

22. Oh, man, this is an issue that has always been hot with me. In my youth (not that I’m old now, but it my early teenage years) I became annoyed with how few female-fronted or all female bands/artists I heard on the radio, and became determined to find my own. Well, I did. Actually, as I write this, I’m listening to Arch Enemy, a metal band currently fronted by the amazing Angela Gossow from Germany.

    Some of the many, many female artists and bands in my playlist:

    Kittie
    theSTART
    Human Waste Project
    Switchblade Symphony
    Tre’ Lux
    Alanis Morissette
    Bjork
    The Schoolyard Heroes
    The Corrs
    Kidney Thieves
    The Ditty Bops
    The Donnas
    Yeah Yeah Yeahs
    Drain S.T.H.
    Zoe Keating
    Unwoman
    Suzanne Vega
    and, of course, my favorite music in the world, the wonderful wonderful Rasputina.

    I have plenty of male artists and bands, too. I’d say a pretty even split, if not a few more females. And that’s okay. I will not hesitate to defend myself anymore when the gender-in-music issue comes up.

23. I have a hard time thinking of any female-led punk-rock or heavy-metal bands.

    I got your back.

    Patti Smith
    Blondie
    The Slits
    The Raincoats
    Hole
    Bikini Kill
    The X-Ray Spex
    Siouxsie and the Banshees
    The Donnas (as mentioned above)
    Snatch (Is that the right name? I always forget…Patti Paladin and Judy…Nylon?)
    Sic F*cks

    …off the top of my head

24. Oh! And The Lunachicks.

25. Thank you all for those lists, great stuff!

    On a side-note, the “rapper” thing is slightly amusing to me as pretty much the only rapper that has more than one or two songs I like is in fact female (Diam’s, LB, JD, best-selling album 2006 as well, I believe).

    Still looking for good “female equivalents” of Steely Dan, Ministry, Monster Magnet.

    Finally, the guitar / phallus symbolism bit in #17 confuses me a bit, possibly because in my mind, it’s more corpo de violao and all, that is, female-associated (so I guess if you really wanted to, you could make a “control over the female body” argument). Phallic? More for the Chapman stick and paddle designs like Steinberger basses than for classic designs, I guess, but then, for that number of strings, an oblong design seems an obvious choice to begin with (as opposed to harps and all). What does that make the classic Strat design, with its “female” body and the “phallic” neck? Queer symbolism?

26. Khia? Are y’all kidding me? Mia X, man!

27. Adding to the list of woman-fronted rock bands, Veruca Salt totally rocked my world when both Nina Gordon and Louise Post were on-board.

28. Mia X, true! completely went blank on her. but no one has anything on foxy for me. foxy brown is the heaviest female rapper out there

29. I havne’t had time to check anything other than the Myspace page, but Lethal Fixx’s logo seems to me to be a representation of a planetary magnetosphere under the pressure of the solar wind, with an unknown decorative figure in the center. I don’t know anyone whose “nether parts” look like that. Still, I appreciate everyone here vindicating such musicians as need it.
    Oh, and don’t forget Fanny Mendelssohn (not sure I spelled it right this early in the morn…] And Clara Schumann, and Elizabeth Coates, and…

30. I definitely agree that there have been quite a few barriers to women entering the rock genre over the years. The genre had a lot of overt misogyny for a long time (and still does, though its slowly lessening). One hopeful sign however, is that I’ve been seeing some positive change over the years. A band like Lethal Fixx just isn’t going to make it very far on the metal scene today. Most people in metal are embarrassed about the whose cock rock thing, and the bands that Lethal Fixx are trying to emulate are simply not the bands that have had a lasting influence on the genre.

    More importantly, there is a growing demand for bands that aren’t composed of white men. When I first started going to shows 15 years ago the crowd was male and white. Sure there were a few women, but even then they were almost always there with a boyfriend. Over the years, that has changed. At Ozzfest this summer you could see just how much it had changed. The older members of the crowd were mostly white guys and the occasional wife or girlfriend, but that changed as people got younger. The 14 and 15 year old kids was where the difference really stood out: there were as many packs of girls as there were packs of boys and half the packs were racially integrated. 10 years from now when those packs of kids are the ones onstage, the scene is going to look very different.

    Oh, and to toss a few more names out:
    Nightwish (hell, they lost most of their fanbase when they kicked their highly trained female singer out of the band), Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Astarte (all female black metal band from Norway), Sinergy, Chthonic, White Zombie, Bolt Thrower, The Gathering, Peccatum, Tristania.

31. I had a thing for Concrete Blonde and I’m told that Johnette Napolitano produced a pretty good solo album.

32. i grew up with only Heart and Fleetwood mac. with the advent of easier and cheaper recording equipment, there has been an absolute EXPLOSION in the number of female fronted indie bands.

    just a sampling (some are repeat entries and older bands):
    giant drag, the like, howling bells, the long blondes, tilly and the wall, joy zipper, camera obscura, Fiery Furnaces, Best Friends Forever, The Pipettes, Cibo Matto, Eisley, Cocorosie, that dog, the bird and the bee, lavender diamond, rainer maria, sahara hotnights, the tiny, Quix*O*Tic, Metric, Sleater-Kinney,Garbage!
    Killola ,Veda, Grand Ole Party, Within Temptation, Nightwish, Rainer Maria, Blonde Redhead (kind of counts, right?), Azure Ray, The Dresden Dolls, The Ditty Bops, Whispertown 2000, Fiona Apple, Joan Baez, Orenda Fink, Feist, Laura Veirs, Neko Case, Joanna Newsom, The Eames Era, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
    Blondie,belly, madder rose, ladytron, spdfgh, magic dirt, all girl summer fun band, the softies, headlights, Elysian Fields, Asobi Seksu, Let’s Go Sailing, Space Mtn, Prototypes, The Blow, Denali, Midnight Movies…
    Lucky Soul
    http://www.myspace.com/luckysoulluckysoul
    The Sounds
    http://www.myspace.com/thesounds
    The Dollyrots
    http://www.myspace.com/thedollyrots
    The Pierces
    http://www.myspace.com/thepierces
    Hello Saferide
    http://www.myspace.com/saferide
    Maia Hirasawa
    http://www.myspace.com/maiahirasawa
    The Loose Salute
    http://www.myspace.com/therealloosesalute

    all of these suggestions came from people posting on the fansite of another female fronted band, Rilo Kiley. unfortunately, the owner of that website (rk.net) seems to me to be homophobic and racist, so i copied and pasted instead of linking to the site. all these bands were on 1 page of a four page thread. as i said, an absolute explosion in the amount of female artists we can listen to.
    happy listening!

33. hey ladies,

    Just came across this thread, to answer the question of female musicians in rock/heavy bands or lack of should I say, this is purely because men are so dominating in a band situation. I have been in male bands before as the only woman and my ideas and suggestions were never good enough and thats soley because of the male ego. Men cannot accept women who can play as well as them, I play lead in Severed Heaven but when in a male band I used to get riffs thrown at me and was expected to be happy about it.

    This especially applies to guitar and drums as they are really seen as ‘male’ instruments. I know a lot of female fronted bands or female bands that would have you believe that they are the driving force but when you look closely you see it’s actually men, but obviously men are not the best way to advertise a band with women in, that really gets to me. We dont ever announce ourselves as all female, but every venue, magazine etc that we are in does. That’s sadly a product of the society we live in, and although this may help the mainstream ladies in music it certainly doesn’t help us, girls playing metal to most metal fans in like the pope being a satanist, it just doesnt fit.

    We are becoming very well established now and that is because we gig constantly etc which is what all unsigned bands have to do, and sometimes we get a break because we are female but nine times out of ten it is a hinderance because people assume we are a gimmick. On another note, im not sure if any of you ladies are familiar with bands such as Kittie and Mcqueen, they are also all female, and represent women in metal, but they are terrible! they are the victims of the all girl tag and embrace it, they wear short frilly dresses on stage and are about as musically complex as a brick and altho I have no problem with dresses it totally takes away from what they are actually doing, Severed Heaven arent about the image at all, you wont see us parading in matching catsuits or wearing our skirts so short nothing is left to the imagination! and while all these bands are around that do so, that is what we will be compared to. It is annoying but it just drives us even more to prove that women can write really good music, be them rock or metal, and to shake the stigma of being all girl and just be recognised for being a decent metal band 🙂

34. I watched singing with and thought lethal fixx were crap! I agree with Leanne it seems that woman in rock/metal cant get a review without their style/clothes etc commented on and if they do look rough they get stick for it! Since when do big hairy men in metal get critized for the way they look..it should be about the music and nothing else!

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