FEATURE:
Queens to the Front
N THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish/PHOTO CREDIT: Petros Studio
How Women Are Leading the Way in the Industry
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I guess we are years away…
PHOTO CREDIT: Wellington Cunha/Pexels
from truly being able to say that parity has reached the music industry. In terms of pay and power, I think it is going to be a very long time before women are on the same level as men. I have written before how the music industry would benefit from being a matriarchy. Rather than it being a case of women ruling sternly and in the same way as the patriarchy, a much more considerate and progressive leadership would hugely benefit all through the industry. I do think that we need to have discussions about how women need to be at the forefront when it comes to the industry. How we need to ensure that future generations coming into music are not subjected to the same inequality and barriers women are subjected to now. Rather than this being anything against men in the music, it is very clear that women are really pushing things forward. Some might disagree but, in terms of the music being put out, women are still very much on top. I am always going to be biased in favour of women. That is not a subjective thing. It is very clear that the most brilliant and original albums over the past few years have been from women. The biggest and most spectacular tours of the past couple of years have been from female artists. Many of the best-reviewed gigs have been. So many of the tipped artists for this year are women. It is clear that the queens are dominating. It is the story across most genres. It is too much to list all the amazing albums made by women the past few years. It is not only across genres that women are ruling. In terms of age demographics and countries, there does seem to be this phenomenal consistency. Two new albums, one from Billie Eilish and the other from Beth Gibbons, demonstrate the sheer brilliance and variety that there is out there.
There is a bigger point that I want to lead onto. How there has been improvements and development yet, still, I don’t think women are valued as much as they should be. The majority of power in the hands of men. Things need to change. The incredible passion and brilliance that they bring to all corners of the music industry warrants a lot more. I want to start with reviews for brilliant new work from two very different female artists. The Guardian reviewed Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft:
“The album tellingly reserves its brightest hues for Lunch, a track that presses a distorted drum machine, ska-inflected guitar and a sudden explosion of noisy, EDM-inspired bass into the service of a lascivious thumbs-up for lesbian sex. Eilish, who built her image on a very recognisable kind of teenage surliness – in photographs taken during her rise to superstardom, she tended to fix the camera with a look of uncomprehending contempt – sounds as if she’s grinning as she sings it.
There are beautiful melodies here, and some very distinctive lyrical touches – on Birds of a Feather, she pledges her love until “I rot away, dead and buried … in the casket that you carried”. But you do start wondering if Hit Me Hard and Soft might not be a little too opaque for its own good. Wildflower slips in one ear and out the other pleasantly enough, an underwhelming state of affairs given how arresting Eilish’s music has proved in the past.
But, as if on cue, the album suddenly shifts focus midway through. The temperature drops, the atmosphere turns more discomfiting, the songs become longer and more wilfully episodic. Subject to jarring shifts in mood and tempo, they frequently end up somewhere completely different from their starting point. The soft rock of L’Amour de Ma Vie is usurped by a clipped beat and burbling synth bass that recalls Joe Jackson’s 1982 hit Steppin’ Out, but not before Eilish’s vocal is warped to the point where she sounds as though she’s retelling the story of a doomed love affair in a mocking baby voice. The Diner melds creepy vocals to an echo-drenched reggae-esque lope, then suddenly slows down, re-emerging as an eerie show tune as the lyrical saga of unrequited love turns murderous. The thick synthesiser chords of Bittersuite swell until they overwhelm the song entirely in a dark, instrumental coda. Blue seems to concern a relationship with another wounded celebrity – “too afraid to step outside, paranoid and petrified of what you’ve heard” – alternating between empathy and the sense that the celebrity is simply too damaged to deal with: the rhythm track sounds similarly indecisive, spluttering in and out of life to haunting effect.
Odd lines and images from earlier lyrics keep reappearing in the second half of the album, as if the later songs here are commenting on, or updating, the previously depicted events. The effect is both enigmatic – when a line from Skinny about feeling “like a bird in a cage” reappears in the completely different setting of Blue, it isn’t clear whether it’s reiterating or undercutting the point – and compelling: what initially seems straightforward becomes deeper and murkier.
An album that keeps wrongfooting the listener, Hit Me Hard and Soft is clearly intended as something to gradually unpick: a bold move in a pop world where audiences are usually depicted as suffering from an attention deficit that requires instant gratification. Hit Me Hard and Soft isn’t in the business of providing that. In its place, it offers evidence that, among the ranks of mega-selling pop stars, Billie Eilish remains a fascinating law unto herself”.
One of our best artists, Beth Gibbons, has just released a stunning solo album. In an industry that is still ageist, we have seen an album from a young U.S. Pop artist and an older and established queen producing equally wonderful work. This is what The Guardian said about Lives Outgrown:
“No one is ever going to accuse Beth Gibbons of over-exerting herself in the rapacious pursuit of fame: her solo debut arrives 22 years after her collaboration with Rustin Man, Out of Season, 16 years after the last Portishead album, Third, and 11 after it was first announced.
In fairness, Lives Outgrown has a unique sound you suspect was only arrived at after lengthy experimentation. The Rustin Man album echoes through the acoustic guitar and folky melody of Tell Me Who You Are Today, and on Reaching Out; so do the hypnotic rhythms that underpinned Third’s We Carry On and The Rip. But Lives Outgrown ultimately draws you into a soundworld entirely its own. Strings play mournfully low and squeal discordantly; the snare-free drumming resolves into a Bo Diddley beat on Beyond the Sun, and elsewhere rumbles ominously, like the last sound you’d hear before being ritually sacrificed.
Gibbons’ careworn voice threads through it: intimate, in-your-face and utterly distinctive as ever, singing about ageing and loss. “Come through my heart when you can”, she pleads on Whispering Love, apparently to the ghost of a late friend or relation. The album’s autumnal gloom is affecting and enveloping, although occasionally dappled with warmth and light, as when Lost Changes’ lovely chorus arrives, or a solo violin spirals skywards on For Sale, or a children’s choir appears during Floating on a Moment, albeit singing “we’re all going to nowhere”. A dispatch from the darker moments of middle age, Lives Outgrown is occasionally challenging, frequently beautiful and invariably gripping”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Sound On/Pexels
We are heading into festival season. I may sound like a broken record when it comes to highlighting the slow movement forward made by the industry compared to what women are producing. How truly vital and important they are. I spotlighted only two new albums. The truth is that every month we are receiving such stunning work! From great emerging artists coming through to some icons of the scene. I wanted to salute that on its own. How each year is dominated by women. It makes me think about the continuing gaps and issues that need to react to the merit from female artists. I know that we are seeing steps forward though, with each bit of good news, there seems to be two steps back. When we hear of women discriminated against and sexually assaulted. Prejudice and ageism still very much present. Festival bills and radio playlists still not balanced and where they should be. Women having to work harder to get the same opportunities as men. It is always angering knowing that such phenomenal artists and women are not being given their dues. It is worse than that. If we look at the side of the scales where women are releasing the best music, putting on the most captivating gigs and are these amazing advocates and representatives, they are still seen as somehow commercially inferior. Having to endure so much abuse and this real lack of respect. Male advocacy and allyship is not where it needs to be either. Few of their peers tackling what is happening and helping to call for change. I have said the same thing time and time again. I am always stunned – but not surprised – when hearing a magnificent album or discovering this unforgettable artist. These inspiring women. Beyond albums and gigs, label owners, venue bosses, journalists and D.J.s together with their sisters are changing the industry. Making it so much stronger. Will we see the day in our lifetimes when women are equal and the industry moves away from the male dominance and patriarchy to a better landscape. Not that the music industry is as toxic and unshifting as other areas of society. It is one where women are clearly worthy of a lot more than they get. Made to feel safe, respected and heard. You have to ask…
WHEN will that happen?!