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The Feminist Music Challenge

July 27, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Girls RockIn preparation for the feminism discussion, I decided to reconfigure my iPod so as to listen only to female artists from the moment we finished recording the previous episode (so, for about three weeks in total).

Irritatingly, I both forgot to announce this shtick on that previous episode, and then entirely forgot to bring it up when we recorded feminism this last Sunday, so this'll have to be a blog-only bit of amusement this time around. Nonetheless, I invite you to do the same, and immerse yourself in the female psyche for the couple of weeks until the feminism episode is posted.

The parameters are up to you, but I restricted myself to female singer-songwriter types: not bands with a token female, or even a female singer singing male-written lyrics or cover tunes, and I left out bands like Fleetwood Mac with some songs written by men. I pretty much stuck with things that were already in my library anyway and didn't use this as an excuse to get into wholly new genres of music. In my case, this means I didn't include female soul/R&B/dance pop singers for the most part, just because that's not what I listen to normally, and likewise, most of my music (due to my age) involves those active in the 80s, though I have some newer stuff. So some of the musicians on my list were Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, Neko Case, Regina Spektor, Rosanne Cash, Sandy Denny, Sarah McLachlan, Shawn Colvin, Sinead O'Connor, Suzanne Vega, Natalie Merchant, PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Lisa Loeb, Liz Phair, Joan Osborne, Heather Nova, Emmylou Harris, Ex-Girl, Cat Power, Alanis Morissette, Annie Lennox, Aimee Mann, and my daughter has been insisting that we listen to Taylor Swift in the car constantly anyway.

Due to the length of that list, and the fact that I also listen to audiobooks/podcasts, and that I don't have a mult-hour commute every day, I of course wasn't able to go deeply into many of the above artists' catalogs: it was a mix of sampling some new-to-me material (I'd never actually listened to the Avril Lavigne album in my possession before), reacquainting myself with some artists like Kate Bush whose work I used to know very well, reaching a bit farther into the careers of some (e.g. newer Alannis Morissette albums, and I'd never actually heard Debbie Harry from Blondie solo albums, which incidentally are generally not so good), and in a couple of cases, spinning the same album several times to really sink into it (the one Neko Case album I own). My wife got wind of it and made me listen to some Adelle, and also forced me to turn off Laurie Anderson before it could drive her to madness.


Listen on YouTube.

When I described this to my current bandmates, my drummer who's younger and into country rock didn't really get it, as a good half of what he ordinarily listens to is women, but in the kind of rock 'n roll I've spent most of my time with (not to mention jazz), the gals were few and far between, and many of the ones I've listed above stem in my life from time spent with my first college girlfriend way back around 1990. She listened pretty much exclusively to wispy and/or strident female singer/songwriters (like Vega and O'Connor) with depressing things to say, and much of that stuck with me.

After the episode pops up, I'll report on my experience and will welcome comments by any that take up this challenge with me.

-Mark Linsenmayer

Image Note: The T-shirt picture above is from Alexander Blue illustration.

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Comments

  1. Daniel Horne says

    July 27, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Nice challenge, though I can’t quite follow those restrictions. My wife and I have a road trip coming up, so I’ll make this playlist and see how it goes over:

    The Pretenders, Mystery Achievement
    Marcia Griffiths, Young, Gifted & Black
    Dawn Penn, You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)
    What What + The Herbaliser, The Blend
    Cocteau Twins, Aikea-Guinea
    Gloria Jones, Tainted Love
    Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, Nowhere to Run
    Tina Turner, A Fool In Love
    Portishead, Glory Box
    Jessie Mae Hemphill, Bullyin’ Well
    Diana Ross & The Supremes, You Keep Me Hanging On
    Betty Davis, If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up
    Laurie Anderson, O Superman (MANDY vs. Booka Shade remix)*
    Jill Scott, Hate on Me
    Irma Thomas, Wish Someone Would Care
    Norma Fraser, The First Cut is the Deepest
    Macy Gray, I Try
    Blondie, Dreaming

    *Gotta find a way to sneak in the Big Science somehow….

    Reply
  2. Geoff says

    July 27, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    “Due to the length of that list”

    Mark, you could shorten that list – you have Suzanne Vega in there twice.

    Amanda Palmer / Dresden Dolls can be worth a listen.

    Reply
    • Mark Linsenmayer says

      July 28, 2011 at 9:57 am

      Vega gets two mentions due to her transgender alias Alan Vega: http://youtu.be/ilJNng6VYdE.

      Reply
      • Geoff says

        July 28, 2011 at 6:03 pm

        Electro-rockabilly. Don’t know I f I am a fan…yet.

        Surprised the Boosh didn’t name drop him, or maybe they did and I didn’t understand the reference.

        Reply
  3. Josh Davis says

    July 28, 2011 at 8:47 am

    Dont forget this one. Listening is making me crave a cigarette. Seems like everything is making me crave a cigarette today.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Feminist Music Challenge Wrap-Up | The Partially Examined Life | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    September 16, 2011 at 10:04 am

    […] I promised (in this post) to report the results of my immersion in all-female music, so here […]

    Reply

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