Stewart
Active Member
The French playwright Marcel Archard once said that women like silent men because they think they're listening. Sometimes it pays to put witticisms aside and actually listen for once as there are a number of women out there making music that's worth being silent for, whether its for their art, their voice, or their themes.
At the time of writing my top fifty artists on last.fm only contains thirteen instances where a female, whether solo or fronting a band, is actually singing. So, to set things straight, there follows a list of the women who make music that I go silent to in order to listen.
My primary preference when it comes to women making music is when she accompanies herself on the piano. The obvious women that spring to mind here are Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and, of late, Regina Spektor. These three artists have kept me in quirky songs for sometime now and, while I feel Bush has lost it along the way with Aerial, there's no denying how influential she was back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Amos and Spektor, despite their musical similarities, work well as opposites. While the former has a considerable back catalogue of songs and musical experiments where the lyrics can be deeply personal and expressive, the latter's output tends towards a rawer style with fictional stories told over the compositions. Spektor, with recent album Begin To Hope has taken a bit of a new direction (i.e. traditional structure) and it seems to be bringing her more success. A good thing, of course.
But that trio aren't the only women tinkering with the ivories that I've developed an ear for. Others include sometimes band member of Antony and the Johnsons, Joan Wasser, under the name of Joan As Police Woman (not only can she play piano, but violin and guitar also). There's Fiona Apple and, touching on the burlesque there's Jill Tracy. A recent discovery for me, through last.fm, is Polish singer, Gabriela Kulka, who reminds me of Kate Bush. Only a darker shade thereof.
Although contemporary classical music is a road I rarely tread, I've become quite interested in the exemplary piano work of Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. And it wouldn't be a trip into piano world without a passing mention of Greek-American experimentalist, Diamanda Galás. Scary woman. But ultimately worth a listen, despite probably being to the tastes of 0.0000000000001% of the piano listening population.
Sticking with girls and their own instruments there are those that, while not playing piano, play something typically unexpected. Joanna Newsom, for example, records with a harp. Isobel Campbell plays the cello.
My favourite female performer is Björk. Her music over the years is impressively varied and, since leaving KUKL and The Sugarcubes behind she has pushed her own musical boundaries along an interesting electronica route to last album proper, Medulla, a collection of vocal layerings with some contributions from Canadian throat singer, Tanya Tagaq and Mike Patton of countless bands, including Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, and Peeping Tom. Björk's next album, Volta, appears to be a move away from all out experimentalism and a move back to the mainstream.
Aside from Björk, Iceland has also given us Emiliana Torrini, who after stints with early band, Spoon, and GusGus, she found a market with Love in the Time of Science. Aside from performing her own work she has also written for others, notably Kylie Minogue. (Incidentally, I still think Kylie's best contribution to music is her duet with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back in 1996.)
Scandinavia, of course, hasn't just given us Björk and Torrini but other notable singers hitting my playlist from this area include the underrated Stina Nordenstam, Annie, Nina Persson of The Cardigans (first album, at least), Lene Marlin and Monica Zetterlund.
But why should Scandinavia have all the fun? Answer: it shouldn't. And so to France which has a history of some fantastic pop, be it Francoise Hardy in the 1960s or Alizee in recent years. I also like France Gall's 1965 Eurovision winning song (for Luxembourg) but that's probably because I'm a fan of almost everything that Serge Gainsbourg ever made. That doesn't include his daughter, Charlotte Gainsourg, however, as I find her music perhaps too boring. But the recent output from her mother, Jane Birkin, especially Arabesques is worth a listen. French music has also been a big influence on American singer, April March, who has covered a number of French classics. My favourite French singer at the moment is Francoiz Breut - she may not write her songs (Dominique A writes a great deal of them) but she can interpret them well.
Sarah Nixey is another singer that didn't write her own lyrics while singing for Black Box Recorder. But her voice (ever so cold) as she sang Luke Haines' lyrics interpreted them perfectly. Other girls in bands worth mentioning are Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star, Alison Shaw of Cranes, Róisín Murphy of Moloko, and Jo Mango of, er, Jo Mango.
And girl groups don't all have to be as annoying as Spice Girls or as crap as Tampasm. Of course they don't. Be it the edgier rock of Babes In Toyland or Kittie, the quirky music hall nostalgia of The Ditty Bops or 1960s influenced The Pipettes or the electronica of Tatu, Chicks On Speed, and Cibo Matto. If it weren't for the fact there was a guy in the group I'd include the fantastic Cansei de Ser Sexy who if you haven't heard of them by now, you no doubt soon will.
Girls and guitars - what a combination! Ani DiFranco, Kiristen Hersh (of Throwing Muses, KT Tunstall, and PJ Harvey. Not to mention Eva Cassidy, Laura Veirs, Martha Wainwright, and Holly Golightly. They speak for themselves.
The list of women who make (or have made) good music just goes on and on. And on. Whether it be the soul /jazz of Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux and Amy Winehouse, the country styles of Gretchen Wilson and The Wreckers, the Latin groove of Bebel Gilberto, the trip hop of Portishead and Ruby, the pop of Nancy Sinatra and Utada Hikaru, the glossolalia of Enya, the Arabic flavours of Natacha Atlas and Ekova, the weirdness of Cocorosie and Nina Hagen, the fok of Vashti Bunyan, Karine Polwart, and Kate Rusby. Truly the list goes on.
