FEATURE:
With You With Them
IN THIS PHOTO: Catherine Marks
Why Catherine Marks’ Production Success and Collaboration with boygenius on the record Will Inspire a Generation of Women
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I am not sure…
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay
how often we think about a producer when we listen to an album. To be fair, a lot of albums these days have a large number of producers credited. I think that can sometimes take away an album’s focus and sense of personality – if you have various different voices working in different directions. Many artists self-produce, and I do not think they get the credit they deserve. Producing an album is very hard and take a lot of passion and time. So many decisions need to go into every take and how you mould and direct an album. Some producers will let an artist play almost live and keep things quite natural. Others might be more involved and add layers and new dynamics to the music. We all know the statistics about producers when it comes to gender. Even though things have improved slightly, there are far more male producers than female working in studios. Even if many female artists self-producer, the numbers are pretty dire. Last year, Billboard reported on a ten-year study that highlighted gender inequality across the industry. The findings are shocking when it comes to songwriting credits - and they are especially troubling when you get to the percentage of producers in studios that are women:
“The results of a 10-year study have found that women remain underrepresented in many areas of the music creation process and other areas of the industry.
Released today (March 31), this Inclusion In The Recording Studio? study is the fifth annual report on gender equality in music industry from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, of which Smith is the Founder. Funded by Spotify, this report found that over the past ten years, female representation in the recording studio — and subsequently on the charts and at the Grammys — has not significantly increased.
PHOTO CREDIT: senivpetro via freepik
The study was performed by examining the artists, songwriters, and producers credited on each of the 1,000 songs on Billboard‘s Hot 100 Year End Chart from 2012 to 2021, along with the gender and race/ethnicity of every person in those three roles. In 2021, there were 180 artists on this chart — 76.7% of them were men and 23.3% were women. (No artists identified as gender non-conforming or non-binary in 2021.) Across all ten years, 78.2% of artists were men and 21.8% were women.
Key findings include that in 2021, 23.3% of artists on the Hot 100 Year-End Chart were women. This number has been stagnant for a decade, with women representing 21.8% of artists across ten years and 1,000 songs on this chart. The study notes that these numbers are a “far cry” from the 51% of the U.S. population comprised by women.
The report also determined in 2021, only 14.4% of songwriters were women. This number has also not changed significantly over time, with women making up just 12.7% of the songwriters evaluated across the 10 years studied, resulting in a ratio of 6.8 men to every one woman songwriter. More than half of the songs on the Hot 100 Year-End Charts from 2012 to 2021 did not include any women songwriters.
The study identifies Drake as the top male songwriter over the last decade, with credits on 47 songs. By comparison the top female songwriter, Nicki Minaj, has 19 credits. (Drake is followed on this tally by Max Martin, who has 46 credits, while Minaj is followed by Taylor Swift, who has 16 credits.)
PHOTO CREDIT: karlyukav via freepik
Furthermore, the study found that women were more likely to appear as songwriters on dance/electronic songs, with 20.5% of these songs written by women over ten years and Pop songs, coming in with 19.1% and least likely to work on Hip-Hop/Rap, with women writing just 6.4% of these songs over ten years and R&B/Soul, with women writing 9.4% of these songs.
Female producers fared even worse, with women holding just 3.9% of all producing positions across the songs on the 2021 Hot 100 Year End Chart. This number was down from a seven-year high point of 5% in 2019. From a total of 1,522 producing credits in the 10-year sample, 97.2% were men and 2.8% were women, for a ratio of 35 men to every one woman producer. Only 10 producers across the decade-spanning sample were women of color.
“For women songwriters and producers, the needle has not moved for the last decade,” Dr. Smith says in the report. “In particular, women of color are virtually shut out of producing the most popular songs each year. We know there are talented women from all backgrounds who are not getting access, opportunity, or credit for their work in this arena”.
Things have moved forward, but a report by Fix the Music has shown that there are pitifully low numbers of women and non-binary people in technical roles. Elizabeth Aubrey, writing for NME, reported the fact that women (and non-binary people) are seriously underrepresented when it comes to senior roles in studios:
“A major new report has called for an increase in the number of women in production and engineering roles in the music industry.
Fix The Mix has today (April 11) unveiled its first annual report on gender representation in audio and production engineering roles, and has called on major labels to extend their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives to hire more women and non-binary producers and engineers behind the scenes.
With studies conducted by We Are Moving the Needle, Jaxsta, Middle Tennessee State University and Howard University, the report found that while women and non-binary people are more likely to be credited in junior roles in the technical fields, they are vastly underrepresented in senior roles across all genres.
It also noted that the credits for the top 10 streamed tracks of 2022 across five major digital service providers (DSPs) reveal a significant gender gap, with only 16 of the 240 credited producers and engineers being women and non-binary people (6.7 per cent).
Additionally, across these DSPs, the best of 2022 playlists sourced from TikTok and Spotify have the weakest representation of women and non-binary people in technical roles, with only 3.6 per cent and 3.7 per cent in key positions respectively.
Looking at credits in the top ten songs across DSPs, the report found that women and non-binary individuals are more highly concentrated within assistant roles than in key technical roles.
Metal was found to have the lowest percentage of women and non-binary people in key technical roles, while electronic music and folk and Americana had the highest representations. You can read the full report here.
Musician Brandi Carlile, who is also a soundBoard member of We Are Moving The Needle, said of the findings: “We’ve got such a long way to go to reach parity in the studio, but I know we can get there.
“This is a systemic problem in the recording industry that we cannot ignore any longer. I’m not sure everyone knows exactly where to start…but it begins with the courage to take a
chance on someone who may not be getting recognised regularly in the field. We have to start somewhere.
“It’s no one’s fault and everyone’s fault at the same time. Even me. I urge my fellow
artists and producers to make hiring decisions that work toward a more equitable future.”
Co-author of the report, Beverly Keel, Dean of Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Media and Entertainment added: “While this research notes the genres that have the best and worst gender representations, it is important to note that every genre needs improvement in representation of women and non-binary people. It is difficult to fathom that representation remains so pitifully low in 2023.
“In any other industry, these low percentages of the genres that have the best gender representation would be an embarrassment, so I hope these ‘high achievers’ are not resting on their laurels”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Brandi Carlile
I am going to come to an interview where award-winning Australian producer Catherine Marks spoke with Kerrang!. She makes some interesting points when asked about the relatively small number of women in studios. I think there is a distinction between women producing their own music and those hired professionally. It is clear that one cannot simply say that, as many women produce their own music, that there is parity and they account for the minority still. The fact is that, although many female self-produce, many of those albums also contain a lot of male producers (or a co-produce). It is wonderful female artists are producing but, for someone like Marks who is an outside producer, she is one of the trailblazers. She is going to inspire so many other women. I will come to her recent success with the U.S. trio boygenius, and their number one album, the record. I wanted to quote quite a bit from the Kerrang! Interview:
“In the last decade Catherine has become one of the most in-demand producers, mixers and engineers in the recording industry. In 2018, she won the prestigious Music Producer Guild award for Producer Of The Year, becoming the first woman to do so. The following year she triumphed at the GRAMMYs for her work as a mixer when St. Vincent’s Masseduction won Best Rock Song.
Catherine’s love affair with music stems back to her school days, and her recent successes are the result of a 20-year journey, which began with a chance meeting in 2001 with producer Flood at a Nick Cave show in Dublin. An introduction to Flood’s collaborator Alan Moulder followed later. The pair – who’d helped define modern production aesthetics from the ’80s onwards through their work, both individually and collectively, with the likes of U2, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, PJ Harvey and Thirty Second To Mars – became Catherine’s mentors.
Learning her craft as an assistant engineer, Catherine worked alongside Flood on PJ Harvey’s White Chalk in 2007 and its 2011 successor Let England Shake. A slew of further engineering projects followed involving Foals and The Killers, a number of them initially at Flood and Alan’s Assault And Battery Studio in Willesden, North West London, where she was instrumental in rebuilding Studio 2.
Since then, the Melbourne-born producer has worked at a relentless rate. Her key charges include Wolf Alice and The Big Moon alongside the likes of Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, The Amazons and Frank Turner – Catherine producing the latter’s 2019 concept album, No Man’s Land, which celebrated the lives of a number of women whose work was overlooked by history due to their gender. Last year Catherine produced Alanis Morissette’s first album in eight years, Some Pretty Forks In The Road, and completed work on the Manchester Orchestra’s forthcoming album, The Million Masks Of God.
As the fourth subject of our We Run The Scene series of short films – an extension of our celebration of International Women’s Day – Catherine is a gregarious and often self-deprecating individual. While she may be slow to boast about her own achievements, she comes armed with sage advice for those looking to follow in her footsteps. We begin our conversation by discussing her unlikely route into the production world…
You didn’t start out wanting to be a producer, did you?
“No, I started as an architect. Coming out of school there was no clear path to working in music and I really loved art, maths and science, so architecture seemed like a natural fit. I was into music and I’d played a lot at school, so in the back of my mind I wanted to be involved in music, but I had stage fright so it couldn’t be as a performer.
“Through my architecture degree I moved to Ireland and I worked in a firm as an intern. In my year there, I met so many wonderful musicians, producers and engineers – the kind of people I hadn’t been exposed to in Australia. I also went to see a lot of live music, which I hadn’t done living in Melbourne.
“I felt really inspired and thought there may be a career in music for me, again without really understanding what a producer did or what area I may want to get into. I was very fortunate to meet Flood and he started to tell me a bit about what he did, which I also found exciting. But he told me to go back to Melbourne and to finish my degree. He also told me to play music, join bands, write music and try and figure out what I wanted to do with music. And I did. I joined a few bands who were kind enough to have me and I wrote a few songs.
“Then in 2005, after I’d finished my masters in architecture, Flood suggested that it was time that I got my butt over to London and started working for him. Again, I had no idea what to expect. I arrived on my first day thinking that I would be making records. I was rudely awoken by the fact that I would be making tea and hovering for the next three months!”
What is your approach to working with artists? Do you mentor or coax them?
“I think you should ask the artists that I work with about that (laughs). The first thought in my mind is always collaboration and facilitation. I want to create an environment where we are working as a team and the communication is free and open. Ultimately, though, I’m there to try and help people realise what they want, and if I have to give them a few nudges on the way then I am quite happy to do that. But I love working with artists that are the driving force. I can be the captain of the ship, but I need everyone in the room to be heading in the same direction. I wonder if some of the artists I’ve worked with think I’m a bit bossy. I’m not sure if I am."
You’ve worked frantically for the last five years and you’re still one of the few women sitting behind the desk in the studio. Why do you think that is?
“Why is there a lack of women behind the desk? I would argue that that isn’t as true as it once was. The next generation of mixers, engineers and songwriters are coming through now and a lot of them are women. I used to say that this job isn’t about gender, it’s about personalities and chemistry.
“You need different characters to make records, otherwise they would all sound the same. To me it makes sense that there should be women making records as much as men making records, and I don’t think it was ever that the guys said, ‘We don’t want women involved’ but perhaps subconsciously, culturally or socially even, there was perhaps a barrier with women feeling that this wasn’t an area they could be involved with. I really believe that that culture is changing and it would make me sad if it wasn’t.”
There is an element of change, but clearly more is needed…
“Ten years ago, when I was asked this question – 'Why do you think there aren’t more female producers?' - I would answer, ‘It’s because women are smart’ because it’s a difficult job and there are lots of sacrifices that need to be made. But I was uneducated then. I didn’t realise the real struggles that women had faced trying to get into the industry because that had never been my experience. Or at least my perspective on the situation was never that there were issues with me because I was a woman, it was more of a case of me thinking, ‘I need to get better’ or, ‘I don’t know enough’ or, ‘This is what I need to tolerate to get to the next stage.' But talking to other women and hearing their experiences of discrimination shocked me and made me want to do more to change that culture.”
What advice would you give a young woman wanting to become a producer?
“There’s still no obvious path for any job in this industry. A lot of things are built around who you know and building your reputation. Having said that, technology is changing and it is very easy now to get hold of technology where you can start making music and producing your own music. It’s like anything creative: there’s always going to be difficult moments, but if it’s something you really want to do then it’s also really rewarding so you should just do it. No matter what barriers are in the way, you should just climb over them. That’s kinda what I did but I never saw them as barriers… it was more of a little obstacle course (laughs). Little mini challenges that I needed to overcome to get to the finish line. And I still experience that. That’s what’s so great about this career: there is no end point. Every day is a constant learning experience. If it’s something you really want to do, you should just do it.”
So what needs to change in order for more women to enter in the world of making records?
“I feel there are certain elements of the industry that need to change, but I think that we’re experiencing and living through the change right now. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed – and I think is incredibly encouraging – is how women are supporting other women in the industry. When I started there was no-one I could look up to or talk to who was a woman in the world of production. There is a wonderful community of female mixers, producers and engineers who I’ve got to know recently, and I feel like we’re supporting the next generation that’s coming through, and to me that’s very exciting. I’m sure there’s a lot more that needs to change and I understand that the conversation needs to continue. But to me that is very positive”.
I will conclude by stating why Catherine Marks is such an influence for women who want to go into production. Obviously, if they are an artist, there is that option to self-produce. Two of my favourite artists who self-produce are Hannah Peel and Catherine Anne Davies (The Anchoress). They are both nominated, alongside Devonté Hynes, for a MPG Awards 2023 for Self-Producing Artist of the Year. I have adored both of their work for years now. The Anchoress’ The Art of Losing was one fo the finest albums of 2021. I adore Davies’ productions. She draws the listeners into her music, and reveals new layers when you listen back time and time again. Peel is an exceptional composer too. The soundtracks for Rogue Agent and The Midwich Cuckoos are stunning works from one of our greatest musical minds. Incredible and inspiring women, and I am definitely rooting for them ahead of the award winner announcement on 27th April. I know Peel and Davies will inspire a generation of female artists who want to self-produce.
IN THIS PHOTO: Hannah Peel
There are many others who do not want to be a musician but still want to produce. Not enough is being done to encourage that; to keep Music on the national curriculum and provide production courses. There are production courses in higher education - but how easy is it for young women who take those courses to get into studios when there is still this feeling it is male-dominated and the environment may not be that supportive to them? To positive things! Marks has produced award-winning and acclaimed albums through the years. An album that is sure to be GRAMMY-nominated and has got to number one in the U.K., boygenius’ the record is my favourite of the year so far. It is a magnificent album that she produced alongside the trio (Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker). Prior to explaining why Marks is so important, I want to bring in one of the many hugely positive reviews for the record. It gained so many five-star reviews – and is already one of the best-reviewed albums of the year. CRACK had this say about the amazing the record:
“Back in January, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, the three members of the indie rock supergroup boygenius, appeared on the front cover of Rolling Stone to announce their debut album, the record. Their deadpan poses and pinstripe suits paid homage to a photoshoot in the same publication almost three decades earlier, featuring another lightning rod American three-piece: Nirvana.
The reference, of course, was not an incidental one, the inference being that boygenius are, as Nirvana were, one of the most significant bands of their time – even if the record is an album that alternately subverts, embraces and side-eyes the canon. Leonard Cohen, on a track named after the revered artist, for example, is described as “an old man writing horny poetry”. But two songs earlier, on Not Strong Enough, the band unashamedly deal in shimmering stadium rock, showing us that even as their eyebrows are wryly raised over the deification of guitar music’s “boy geniuses”, they can also play – and beat – them at their own game.
Just as Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic captured a pervasive mood with Nevermind – that is, the restless and destructive boredom of the American teenager in the early 90s – on the record, Baker, Bridgers and Dacus do the same for the 2020s. Together, they distil the particular blend of neuroticism, romance and irony that tends to infect the brains of their young, internet-addled fanbase, in a way that feels generationally definitive. Dacus self-describes as “a winter bitch” on True Blue, while Baker’s “half my mind/ I keep the other second guessing” line on Not Strong Enough is a pin-point description of how it feels to be a young person in such an anxiety ridden time.
As such, the record lives up to the expectations that have been placed on it since boygenius released their self-titled EP in 2018, and just as before, each band member brings her own unique sensibility to the table. Baker’s winsome vocal sparkles on Cool About It, the grounded dignity of Dacus’ alto makes We’re in Love the most affecting song on the album, while Bridgers drives it home with closer Letter to an Old Poet, stirringly interpolating the standout 2018 boygenius track Me and My Dog. This new song is a sort of sequel to the earlier one, wherein Bridgers denounces its once-exalted subject. “You made me feel an equal/ But I’m better than you and you should know that by now,” she sings over piano, backed by harmonies from Dacus and Baker, as the familiar refrain lurches back in.
Thematically, there is a focus on the personal and romantic that we expect from these three songwriters, but there’s also a special dimension that we don’t hear in their solo projects: their love for each other. This is most touchingly expressed on We’re in Love, on which Dacus movingly addresses her bandmates (“If you rewrite your life/ May I still play a part?/ In the next one, will you find me?”), but it’s also there in the fun they seem to be having just playing together.
Indeed, the record’s real fireworks go off when boygenius switch on their rock star mode. Self-consciously leaning into their place in the pantheon of great guitar bands, and giving a nod to the last great heyday of US alternative music in the 90s, boygenius skewer this subculture in a loving sort of way. Satanist has a fun, MTV-era slacker riff that cosplays Mellow Gold-era Beck; $20 sees Bridgers vamping, Cobain-like, when she screams blue murder at its climax; and Not Strong Enough, with its simple but soaring chorus (“I don’t know why/ I am the way I am/ Not strong enough to be your man”) evokes Sheryl Crow’s 1993 single Strong Enough, eliciting the sort of written-for-performance anthem you’ll remember seeing live for years afterwards”.
It is true that some of the best albums of the year by women are produced/co-produced by the artist themselves. Caroline Polachek is a producer on Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Billie Marten is on Drop Cherries, boygenius obvious are on the record, and Lana Del Rey is on Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. So many major female artists also produce. Taylor Swift is a producer on Midnights. RAYE co-produced (as Rachel Keen) on My 21st Century Blues this year. It is great to see. Female artists taking ownership and showing their production brilliance. There is that other world. One where women like Catherine Marks are particularly important. In terms of production as a standalone profession, there are far fewer women than men in studios. Even if there is that great knowledge that so many female artists self-produce, you see so many other albums without women credited as producers. There is definitely a desire from women to get into the profession. I still think that studios are not flexible enough when it comes to providing a supportive environment, taking into consideration issues like childcare and maternity concerns. A report from 2012 suggested that many women aren’t interested in being a producer. That they would need a certain swagger in such an intense environment. This article from 2021 is about musician Helen Reddington’s book, She’s at the Controls. The book not only explains how many female empowerment songs you hear on big Pop albums are produced by men. She details that, when it comes to music education, women are not as encouraged as men. Many studios are quite hostile, which means there are few visible female role models inspiring the next generation.
I think Catherine Marks’ ongoing success and the acclaim her work has received on boygenius’ the record is going to be a turning point. Not only will it encourage many female producers to produce themselves, but also hire female producers. I feel it is a sign that we need to support women who want to be producers. I don’t think it is the case that they are not interested and their focus is in other areas. I think that supposed apathy stems from a sense that they will not be supported and the studio environment is not going to be flexible and collaborative. Catherine Marks’ brilliance and continued influence is going to rub off on the next generation. Whilst we may never get to a point when there is gender equality in terms of producers in studios, Marks points out that many women are producing their own music. This too is inspiring a new generation. Marks has created her own studio space, but she has worked with so many different artists and her experiences have been largely positive. That was not always the way. Like any women wanting to produce, she has faced discrimination and barriers, but her determination and passion is clear. From here, there will be so much demand from other artists who want to work with Marks. As she has just worked with an American group, I can well see major artists like Taylor Swift calling on her services. I do feel the record’s wonderful sound and enormous quality will underline why we need to encourage more women into production. Even if boygenius themselves are producers, the input and guidance of Marks adds so much. There is no doubt that she is…
ONE of the best producers in the industry.