It IS a woman’s world
Posted by: theloudgirl on: January 12, 2009
Popular media would have you believe that women barely exist outside the realm of porn, domestic life and beauty products. Dark as this situation is, the reality is, thankfully, so much brighter. There are great great talented women in politics, film, TV, science, literature, and of course, music! With the ‘Best of 2008′ album charts collated and published women are conspicuously, as usual, missing from these lists. There I am looking for good new music, a list of say, 50 or 100 and barely ten of the albums recommended are by female artists. What can I say. It’s more than predictable what with an 80/20 ratio of male to females working in the music industry. The irony is that it’s female artists that rake in most of the money for these male lead record company conglomerates, you know, your Mariahs, Beyonces and Katy Perrys. The US Billboard aside, there have been heaps of noteworthy albums released by women this year. Unfortunately I haven’t listened most of them. For this I blame the industry who make it relatively impossible for me to know about these deserved ladies! That and my own laziness to look beyond the popular…
Anyway, here’s a list I put together, made up of ten albums, some of which I have heard and others which are recommendations from friends, to help remind you and inspire you to take a different look at the greatest hits of 2008.
1. Ladyhawke by Ladyhawke (I love the 80s!)
2. Red Letter Year by Ani Di Franco (Go girl go, fight the power!)
3. Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart by Rachael Yamagata (What a voice…)
4. Santogold by Santogold (Very dance- able)
5. Esperanza by Esperanza (Latin and Brazilian flava)
6. Rockferry by Duffy (Surprisingly NOT pop)
7. Youth Novels by Lykke Li (Swedish but not meatballs)
8. 19 by Adele (mmm mmmm)
9. Me and Armini by Emilliana Torrini (Icelandic but not as crazy as Bjork)
10. Comme si de rien n’était by Carla Bruni (Featured on the L word Season 5 and married to the French premiere)
How about we put together our own Top 50! If you have heard a really rockin’ album by a female artist or a female fronted band, which was released in 2008 please email me at theklword@rocketmail.com or post a comment here and add to my list. Male monopolised music industry? Pah! We’ll show em.
Late additions to the list –
11. Seventh Tree by Goldfrapp
12. Third by Portishead
1 Response to "It IS a woman’s world"
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1 | sze
January 14, 2009 at 5:28 am
I must admit, it’s quite a task to come up with a list of 10 _great_ albums by a female artist/female-fronted band.
It’s easy to name names, but to be honest, they hardly make it to my best-of-2008 list, so I won’t name them. No points for tokenism, eh?
Here’s my list of my top 8 albums, which will be expanded into a quasi-review (soon!), starting from the bottom. Most of the bands are boy-girl duos.
8. Adele – 19
7. The Rosebuds – Life Like (Kelly Crisp & Ivan Howard)
6. Ani Difranco – Red Letter Year
5. Headlights – Some Racing, Some Stopping (fronted by Erin Fein)
4. Stars – Sad Robot (Canadian indie-pop, fronted by Amy Millan & Torquil Campbell et. al.)
3. The Weepies – Hideaway (Pop-folk duo, Deb Talan & Steve Tannen)
2. Mates of State – Re-arrange Us (Wife-husband duo, Kori Gardner & Jason Hammel)
1. The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing (English dance music duo, Katie White & Jules De Martino)
Worthy mentions:
Britta Perrson – Kill Hollywood Me (Swedish singer-songwriter)
Au Revoir Simone – Reverse Migration (NY-based electronic trio)
Thao Nguyen (of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down) – We Brave Bee Stings and All