I would say that my own personal tastes in music has been largely made up of male groups and solo artists. Why is that? I think the link between music and its “feel good” effects combined with my sexual attraction to men and the aural appeal of lower register voices has been the main reasons why this has been the case. I don’t believe it is a case of “men are better” in terms of musical ability or creativity – I’m pretty sure it’s entirely down to that visceral thing of being a red-blooded woman finding the opposite sex an audiovisual magnet.
That is not to say that I have never been sexually attracted to women – I have – but I’ve never acted on it at all. Cock rules – what can I say? (Sorry to be blunt.)
Going back to my earliest days, the first music artist I remember really being in awe of and actually wanting to emulate them – grow up to be like them – was Suzi Quatro. To me, as a 4-year-old “tomboy,” loving cars, guitars and leather, and seeing her leather-clad and playing what looked like the world’s biggest bass (it’s just a normal sized bass, it’s just Suzi’s tiny) – it just looked like the best thing in the world and I sssooo wanted to be her! The photo below is me as a that 4-year-old with my toy guitar – looking for all the world like a young boy (possibly with the exception of the long hair) doing my best Quatro pose. Below that is the album cover I used to stare at in awe, wishing I could be as cool as that.
Other than Suzi, I don’t remember too many other women making a musical mark on me in my very early years. Fast forward roughly a decade and the next female artist that I desired that physical likeness to was Annie Lennox. I remember seeing the early visuals of Eurythmics and being stunned by Annie’s really short vibrant red hair and how lean and slender she was. Wearing suits and just looking visually stunning. Not only that, her voice was incredible and I adored the synth-pop “otherness” of the sound of Eurythmics. I LOVED them.
I had also found Grace Jones through my brother. As well as Nina Hagen.
I did also love Madonna.
I do confess that around the mid 80s I had a dalliance with The Pretenders (Oh, the irony!) and played the album Get Close to death. Both it and Once Upon a Time sat side by side in my record collection. Little did I know – well, I knew … but I didn’t know – if you know what I mean? Moving on!
Come the early 1990s and it’s another Suzi – this time spelled Suze – that floors me. A locally-grown rock band, Baby Animals, fronted by Suze DeMarchi – more than piqued my interest. I thought that the band, the music, and that she in particular were HOT AF!
I can’t even tell you how much I played the Baby Animals debut album. I’m surprised the CD didn’t just crumble into bits. And the album started with this belter….
From this point on there was a growing inclusion of female-fronted bands, all-female bands and female solo artists in my musical catalogue. I got to fall in love with The Carpenters – although they were around from the 1970s, of course, and we sadly lost the incredible Karen Carpenter in 1983, there was this …. thing about … a kind of stigma attached to admitting a love for music that was like that, particularly when you’re younger. It was just deemed “uncool” (there you go, Chrissie – I still use “cool” and “uncool” as well – heaven help me!) and so those things were “guilty pleasures.”
I fell in love with Billie Holiday, Bjork, PJ Harvey, Nina Simone, Garbage, Tracy Chapman, Anna Calvi – man, I even loved S Club 7 because I thought that Jo O’Meara had a fantastic voice and was usually the female lead vocalist on their songs. There are so many female artists and female-fronted bands I could name. When I look through lists of artists and think about the music in my collection, despite what I had thought when starting this blog post, my collection does have a healthy balance between male and female musicians.
Recently, I have found myself exploring new and upcoming female artists (as well as one artist I’ve only just FINALLY got around to exploring their back catalogue – Siouxsie Sioux). You’ll see from my list of upcoming gigs that there is quite the list of female artists I am seeing in the near future: Juanita Stein, Zoe Graham, Brooke Combe and The Anchoress – half of these woman are Scottish artists to boot.
So, for this International Women’s Day I wanted to say check out these ladies in particular and leave you with Zoe Graham’s latest single, ‘Happen.’
