The Beat Surrender

I only write these articles if its something I feel emotive enough to write about. I have started many articles and scrapped them because I myself was bored with the content. I was going to do a top ten list of albums then thought- nah too similar to last time. I though about writing about the sheer horror that is Nickleback…its been done elsewhere. What about my love of Interpol….I think everyone has the message by now!

So then I thought what is good in music at the moment and I realised what is it……it’s…wait for it…its women!!!

Its been a long time since I have genuinely found myself listening to a lot of women in music. That’s not sexist its just that I have tended to find myself gravitating towards bands generally fronted by chaps. The Pol, Doves, Smashing Pumpkins, Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, Gene, Shed Seven, Editors, U2, Muse, The Killers, Kasabian etc etc. To be fair the list is literally endless.

Its not a conscious choice on my part just the nature of music that I like and the undisputable fact that there are simply not as many women in music as men. In the mid 90’s this was punctuated with some very good female fronted bands such as Sleeper (Lousie Wener anyone?), Echobelly, Lush, Elastica and Dubstar, even Texas were huge then! All good bands, all did some cracking songs but almost collectively they all disappeared at the same time and we were left with a gaping chasm that needed to be filled. I don’t think it ever truly has until right now.

Sure there are the perennial female acts, Madonna is always good for a few catchy samples in her tunes, Kylie chips in every now and again with fairly inoffensive offerings, Girls Aloud are aesthetically pleasing obviously and do release some absolutely corking pop tunes but that mid nineties freshness seems to have evaporated somewhat. This period in between then and now I shall call the “Dead as a Dido” phase. Not that I am laying all the blame at the door of one artist as that would be grossly unjust its just she epitomises the acceptance of blandness that we had in this country for female driven music at a particular time. It was exceptionally non descript.

But have you noticed the change as of late. I think this started last year with the success of Kate Nash. I am not saying that I am overly keen on her chirpy cockney lyrics talking about “Bittaaaaah lemons” and the like but she is original, different and talented. Her rise co-incided with that of the Beth Ditto fronted The Gossip. You could argue that a lot of this bands coverage stemmed from the fact that the lead singer is perhaps aesthetically not what you would regard as the norm (whatever that means) and that probably says more about our society in general than the music industry, but whatever the reason with their hit “Standing in the way of control” they broke through too.

So we had solo acts and female led bands on the march and that I believe has led to an unprecedented 18 months of success in music for the ladies. You could argue the apex of this last year was Rihanna being number one for 12 years in a row with “Umbrella..ella…ella”. Again not a favourite of mine but you cannot argue with commercial success of that nature.

And that brings us to now and for me the ladies are currently dominating the charts and the airwaves and deservedly so. There are many acts that are contributing to this such as Gabriella Cilmi, whose “Sweet About Me” is actually an atypical candidate for my single of the year in 08. Or the delectable Katy Perry (pictured) who has captured the imaginiations of every primitive man out there with her “I Kissed A Girl” monster hit. Look beyond the wonderful concept and it’s a cracking tune too! But perhaps the two acts who have received most mainstream acclaim while selling bucketloads of records are The Ting Tings and Duffy.

Continue