Every time I hear the latest hit by the Silversun Pickups, I wonder why it is so rare for a band with a female lead singer to make the big time. It is kinda understandable in the metal genre where vocals are dominated with screaming and guttural growls. But I'm baffled with the rock genre. Is there a logical reason why rock bands with a female lead singer so rarely make the big time?
(Please don't let this degenerate into the typical mainstream vs. indie discussion.)
I just wanna say that there actually are some really successful metal bands with female vocals. Although most of the time they're just there for clean vocals and there are also males for rough vocals.
I think that the modern mainstream has a fixation on male-sounding vocals, like gravely vocals in rock/country. Females just can't usually pull it off well.
Add to that the young female fan-base of (we're talking really mainstream here now) rock and the fact that they go for heartthrobs or whatever.
Kind of like how most pop is female vocals. It's just a social rule that female vocals are associated with pop-y music.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Well even with SSPU, Nikki's not the lead singer, Brian is. I mean, she contributes for sure, but in all I've read, he's considered the lead vocalist.
But female-led rock groups aren't that rare. If anything, they're only scarce now because rock itself is a genre in jeopardy as far as the mainstream goes. But they do exist. The Kills/Dead Weather, Heart, Paramore, The Cranberries, Lacuna Coil, Bikini Kill, The Runaways, Flyleaf, Blondie, Evanescence, No Doubt, Eurythmics, Fleetwood Mac, The Pretenders, L7, Jefferson Airplane, Garbage, The Cardigans, Metric, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hole, Tegan and Sara, Joan Jett, Sonic Youth, Sleater Kinney, Feist, Stars, Cat Power, Portishead, The Breeders, PJ Harvey, The Distillers, Veruca Salt, etc, etc. To some degree, it'll depend on your definition of mainstream, but a fair number of these bands have been huge.
I don't disagree that women in rock are getting benched in the mainstream, but I don't think it's always been that way. Some of rock's greatest legends are women and the 90's were kind as well. Even now, the alternative and indie scenes feature plenty of female influence, even if mainstream rock is more of a boys club.
I mean no offense, OP, but have you heard of the 90's? I can't name 'em all, but there were a ☺☺☺☺ ton of female led bands during that era. Off the top of my head: Garbage, The Cardigans, Cranberries, Portishead, D'Sound, Sixpence None the Richer, The Corrs. I know I can name more but I haven't slept for 22 hours so I'm kinda spacing out.
I gotta agree with Mikey on this one. There have been very few new rock groups to actually make it to the "big time" in the past few years, because pop hip-hop has basically taken over the entire music industry. I think a large contributing factor is that female vocalists have gone where the money is, which is into pop.
Hayley Williams of Paramore currently seems to be moving in that direction. I'd argue that more people heard her collaboration with BoB and Eminem than there were fans of Paramore. Gwen Stefani did a pretty similar thing a few years ago, although she hasn't produced anything lately as far as I'm aware.
I mean no offense, OP, but have you heard of the 90's? I can't name 'em all, but there were a ☺☺☺☺ ton of female led bands during that era. Off the top of my head: Garbage, The Cardigans, Cranberries, Portishead, D'Sound, Sixpence None the Richer, The Corrs. I know I can name more but I haven't slept for 22 hours so I'm kinda spacing out.
This is true. Also, there were some very successful ones earlier on. I guess the B-52s only had female backups... but Heart is maybe my favorite band with only female vox.
But yea, I kinda had the impression he meant modern rock.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
I gotta agree with Mikey on this one. There have been very few new rock groups to actually make it to the "big time" in the past few years, because pop hip-hop has basically taken over the entire music industry. I think a large contributing factor is that female vocalists have gone where the money is, which is into pop.
I think you're right. You can definitely notice it with some of pop's bigger female acts where their voices don't really mix well with the types of songs they're given. I get the impression that while they'd be better suited to other genres, they really don't have a choice at all. Katy Perry is one that really sticks out to me. Most of her popular work now is really bad, in large part because she's been shoehorned into the zippy pop artist role when I think her voice just isn't for it. But pop offers greater opportunity so artists fall into it easily despite it not always being the best musical choice or use of talent.
...not to mention the overloaded crap-fest that is "autotune."
how are we supposed to acknowledge the good singers from the bad? unfortunately, my current view is: if you use autotune then you aren't that good of a singer. which may not be the case... its all up to the labels.
hmm... it seems i've rambled off subject. :/
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from "Mysticake" »
(about the English language) It's kinda like a raft that was cobbled together from parts of three different boats and since then has been kept barely afloat with crude repairs every time a leak appeared.
Autotune is an enabler; the poor vocal command of an artist, confidence, or judgement are "crapfests".
Perhaps an explanation as to why more female rock bands don't make the big time is that it's a state of mind, one that causes the perception that female vocals don't blend well with the music or if it weren't of an expected genre (say, pop; dance; electrotrash; angry, father-hating punk?).
I know I'm not without sin, and that my music player is male-dominated with less-than-50% big-time female artists and bands; it seems like classical music is highly conservative, eh.
I know that, on a tangential note, that females in non-performing (e.g., acoustic "engineering") find it more difficult and daunting to enter than it is for males as it is a male-dominated industry. It's already a tall order for a person to summon the courage and faith to enter the industry, and it's particularly hard to deal with rejection, but when approximately 35362% of the industry being males, you can kind of see why you don't have a bevy of renowned female "engineers".
Women who rock have been around for decades – Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Chrissie Hynde – but despite those pioneers, rocking in a male-dominated industry is far from easy.
Take it from local musicians Nancy Kenyon, Candice Jarrett and Lisa Romano, who say the challenges for women in music make for an incredibly uneven playing field. These women say talent is secondary to the industry’s expectations that they be demure and polite, as well as sexy and half-dressed.
“A lot of men are intimidated by someone who’s good-looking and talented,” says Syracuse singer/musician Romano, who frequently plays in the Utica area. “It’s rare that someone appreciates and respects you for your talent.”
Different set of rules
The rules are different for women, says Martha Mockus, visiting professor of women’s studies at Hamilton College.
“Women musicians who compose their own music and play instruments play against a certain expectation,” she said. “Women who play instruments — drums, guitar, bass — or even women singer-songwriters who want to be their own managers in the business side of the industry run up against some very old-fashioned sexism.”
"Local women struggle to make it in male-dominated industry" (2008),
It's sexism basically. Both among people choosing the music and the ones listening to it. Most mainstream rock music listeners want to hear crappy Kings of Leon style vocals, and male vocals are comfortable for them to listen to since it's always been that way. Women are basically expected to make vapid pop or country songs these days, not any kind of rock statement.
Basically because popular music sucks. Or, at least, that's my take. I haven't listened to 'popular' music in quite a long time except for tangentially, and it's almost always a horrific disappointment.
There are a bunch of good bands with female singers, though, stepping out of that. Little Dragon, Janelle Monae, etc. etc.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
If more women listened to rock music, then they could decide the artists they want to listen to. As it is, women prefer mainstream pop and they prefer glamorized, ☺☺☺☺ty figures such as Ke$ha.
Don't blame sexism, blame it on women's taste in music.
EDIT: I would also like to point out that despite this community and raunchy feminist's perception of rock music as something to be praised and idolised, the overwheming majority of the population digresses.
Many women find rockers and rock music to be loud, greasy, and plain weird. Women prefer "social" culture, that the masses can relate to and discuss.
Every time I hear the latest hit by the Silversun Pickups, I wonder why it is so rare for a band with a female lead singer to make the big time. It is kinda understandable in the metal genre where vocals are dominated with screaming and guttural growls. But I'm baffled with the rock genre. Is there a logical reason why rock bands with a female lead singer so rarely make the big time?
(Please don't let this degenerate into the typical mainstream vs. indie discussion.)
Wow this is too funny!! The lead singer is a dude!!
I would feel dumb except for the fact that it took 5 days for someone to pick up on my blunder. Next thing you are gonna tell me those two hot blonde chicks in Nelson are dudes too.
Am I the only one who finds it funny that the Cranberries have been mentioned multiple times in a "rock" thread?
Please don't missunterstand me, I am a Cranberries fan (I saw 'em in concert way back in '96), but to categorize them as a "rock band" is really reaching. I know the past two decades of music (if not longer) have become very hard to define, but I never ever considered The Cranberries a "rock group."
At any rate, I believe plenty of examples have been posted about feminine rock singers.
Has anyone mentioned Kittie yet? I don't know if they are still around, but their first two albums kicked-ass. After that, they kinda flip-flopped members and I lost interest...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from "Mysticake" »
(about the English language) It's kinda like a raft that was cobbled together from parts of three different boats and since then has been kept barely afloat with crude repairs every time a leak appeared.
Am I the only one who finds it funny that the Cranberries have been mentioned multiple times in a "rock" thread?
Please don't missunterstand me, I am a Cranberries fan (I saw 'em in concert way back in '96), but to categorize them as a "rock band" is really reaching. I know the past two decades of music (if not longer) have become very hard to define, but I never ever considered The Cranberries a "rock group."
At any rate, I believe plenty of examples have been posted about feminine rock singers.
Has anyone mentioned Kittie yet? I don't know if they are still around, but their first two albums kicked-ass. After that, they kinda flip-flopped members and I lost interest...
The people that count them as a rock band have probably only heard Zombies and Salvation.
Too true RabidVacin = at the concert I previously mentioned, I witnessed a group of drunkards trying to mosh when they played Zombie. I tried to ingore it and enjoy the show with my gal, and my best friend and his gal,... but it was difficult (during that one song at least).
But really? Moshing at a Cranberries concert? And that was way back in the mid-nineties. Who knows what is going on today. Are fans moshing at Beiber concerts or just committing mass-suicides?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from "Mysticake" »
(about the English language) It's kinda like a raft that was cobbled together from parts of three different boats and since then has been kept barely afloat with crude repairs every time a leak appeared.
I would feel dumb except for the fact that it took 5 days for someone to pick up on my blunder. Next thing you are gonna tell me those two hot blonde chicks in Nelson are dudes too.
This thread made me laugh so hard. I saw the first post and immediately scrolled down to see who would eventually catch that mistake. Hilarious.
But ye, the reason why is because female-fronted groups, as they get big, eventually come to rely upon the female as an icon for their band, and that becomes crucial to their success. So any change in that status quo easily wrecks the band. When personalties start to butt heads, the band becomes more fragile. Or as the female frontwoman starts to get a lot of individual attention she starts to do a lot of solo projects or collaborations with other artists (it's more becoming to feature a prominent female musician in mainstream music, it seems), and the band slowly loses cohesion. That's my theory anyways.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Treasure maps, fallen trees, operator please
Patch me back to my mind
It depends on your genre. (EDIT: Sorry for the complete non sequitor)
Rock: Uhhh...it's not looking good as a genre tbh. All this Post-Grunge stuff that's considered the mainstream, for whatever reason, doesn't attract anybody but Male Sopranos.
Rap: I don't honestly know why so few females get into this genre. It's possibly the mindset, with a lot of the "mainstream" (by mainstream, I mean Gangster Rap) music being misogynistic. Nikki Minaj is actually a pretty good (if unintelligent) rapper, and the underground community often welcomes female rappers (often bringing a distinct sound to the table that is hard not to enjoy).
Indie: This is possibly the most equal opportunity genre. A LOT of modern indie groups have female vocalists.
Metal: as seen above, a lot of metal bands have female vocalists (if only for the clean vocals). I actually prefer female vocalists in metal.
(Please don't let this degenerate into the typical mainstream vs. indie discussion.)
I think that the modern mainstream has a fixation on male-sounding vocals, like gravely vocals in rock/country. Females just can't usually pull it off well.
Add to that the young female fan-base of (we're talking really mainstream here now) rock and the fact that they go for heartthrobs or whatever.
Kind of like how most pop is female vocals. It's just a social rule that female vocals are associated with pop-y music.
But female-led rock groups aren't that rare. If anything, they're only scarce now because rock itself is a genre in jeopardy as far as the mainstream goes. But they do exist. The Kills/Dead Weather, Heart, Paramore, The Cranberries, Lacuna Coil, Bikini Kill, The Runaways, Flyleaf, Blondie, Evanescence, No Doubt, Eurythmics, Fleetwood Mac, The Pretenders, L7, Jefferson Airplane, Garbage, The Cardigans, Metric, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hole, Tegan and Sara, Joan Jett, Sonic Youth, Sleater Kinney, Feist, Stars, Cat Power, Portishead, The Breeders, PJ Harvey, The Distillers, Veruca Salt, etc, etc. To some degree, it'll depend on your definition of mainstream, but a fair number of these bands have been huge.
I don't disagree that women in rock are getting benched in the mainstream, but I don't think it's always been that way. Some of rock's greatest legends are women and the 90's were kind as well. Even now, the alternative and indie scenes feature plenty of female influence, even if mainstream rock is more of a boys club.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Hayley Williams of Paramore currently seems to be moving in that direction. I'd argue that more people heard her collaboration with BoB and Eminem than there were fans of Paramore. Gwen Stefani did a pretty similar thing a few years ago, although she hasn't produced anything lately as far as I'm aware.
But yea, I kinda had the impression he meant modern rock.
I think you're right. You can definitely notice it with some of pop's bigger female acts where their voices don't really mix well with the types of songs they're given. I get the impression that while they'd be better suited to other genres, they really don't have a choice at all. Katy Perry is one that really sticks out to me. Most of her popular work now is really bad, in large part because she's been shoehorned into the zippy pop artist role when I think her voice just isn't for it. But pop offers greater opportunity so artists fall into it easily despite it not always being the best musical choice or use of talent.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
how are we supposed to acknowledge the good singers from the bad? unfortunately, my current view is: if you use autotune then you aren't that good of a singer. which may not be the case... its all up to the labels.
hmm... it seems i've rambled off subject. :/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps an explanation as to why more female rock bands don't make the big time is that it's a state of mind, one that causes the perception that female vocals don't blend well with the music or if it weren't of an expected genre (say, pop; dance; electrotrash; angry, father-hating punk?).
I know I'm not without sin, and that my music player is male-dominated with less-than-50% big-time female artists and bands; it seems like classical music is highly conservative, eh.
I know that, on a tangential note, that females in non-performing (e.g., acoustic "engineering") find it more difficult and daunting to enter than it is for males as it is a male-dominated industry. It's already a tall order for a person to summon the courage and faith to enter the industry, and it's particularly hard to deal with rejection, but when approximately 35362% of the industry being males, you can kind of see why you don't have a bevy of renowned female "engineers"."Local women struggle to make it in male-dominated industry" (2008),
There are a bunch of good bands with female singers, though, stepping out of that. Little Dragon, Janelle Monae, etc. etc.
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
Don't blame sexism, blame it on women's taste in music.
EDIT: I would also like to point out that despite this community and raunchy feminist's perception of rock music as something to be praised and idolised, the overwheming majority of the population digresses.
Many women find rockers and rock music to be loud, greasy, and plain weird. Women prefer "social" culture, that the masses can relate to and discuss.
Wow this is too funny!! The lead singer is a dude!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEgM3aJQBLc&playnext=1&list=PL868DB9746BA9550D
B Lover Since '09 ~
Standard:
meh.
Modern:
Urzatron GR
Vintage:
Contol-Slaver UBR
EDH:
Drana B
Jhoira UR
Savra BG
Turned into:
Adun Oakenshield BGR
Sharuum BUW
Turned into:
Memnarch U
KiKi-Jiki R
Turned into:
Godo R
Turned into:
Aurelia RW
The Mimeoplasm UBG
Rasputin Dreamweaver UW
Turned into:
Geist of Saint Traft -French 1v1 UW
Nekusar UBR
I would feel dumb except for the fact that it took 5 days for someone to pick up on my blunder. Next thing you are gonna tell me those two hot blonde chicks in Nelson are dudes too.
Please don't missunterstand me, I am a Cranberries fan (I saw 'em in concert way back in '96), but to categorize them as a "rock band" is really reaching. I know the past two decades of music (if not longer) have become very hard to define, but I never ever considered The Cranberries a "rock group."
At any rate, I believe plenty of examples have been posted about feminine rock singers.
Has anyone mentioned Kittie yet? I don't know if they are still around, but their first two albums kicked-ass. After that, they kinda flip-flopped members and I lost interest...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The people that count them as a rock band have probably only heard Zombies and Salvation.
But really? Moshing at a Cranberries concert? And that was way back in the mid-nineties. Who knows what is going on today. Are fans moshing at Beiber concerts or just committing mass-suicides?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We can only hope.
This thread made me laugh so hard. I saw the first post and immediately scrolled down to see who would eventually catch that mistake. Hilarious.
But ye, the reason why is because female-fronted groups, as they get big, eventually come to rely upon the female as an icon for their band, and that becomes crucial to their success. So any change in that status quo easily wrecks the band. When personalties start to butt heads, the band becomes more fragile. Or as the female frontwoman starts to get a lot of individual attention she starts to do a lot of solo projects or collaborations with other artists (it's more becoming to feature a prominent female musician in mainstream music, it seems), and the band slowly loses cohesion. That's my theory anyways.
Patch me back to my mind
Rock: Uhhh...it's not looking good as a genre tbh. All this Post-Grunge stuff that's considered the mainstream, for whatever reason, doesn't attract anybody but Male Sopranos.
Rap: I don't honestly know why so few females get into this genre. It's possibly the mindset, with a lot of the "mainstream" (by mainstream, I mean Gangster Rap) music being misogynistic. Nikki Minaj is actually a pretty good (if unintelligent) rapper, and the underground community often welcomes female rappers (often bringing a distinct sound to the table that is hard not to enjoy).
Indie: This is possibly the most equal opportunity genre. A LOT of modern indie groups have female vocalists.
Metal: as seen above, a lot of metal bands have female vocalists (if only for the clean vocals). I actually prefer female vocalists in metal.
Join the Poetry Running Contest!