"Women's music isn't a genre!"
Hi, I'm George Pringle. I make music. I'm one of the fortunate artists to have received some New Year press. By New Years press, I'm referring to the "tipster" articles of the New Year period, where magazines and experienced industry insiders hedge their bets on the acts that will shake the musical world in the coming twelve months. Although I am not a big "tipster lists" type, I've received some of these "next big thing" tags from magazines and papers and last year I was brought to people's attention alongside other female artists like Kate Nash, Laura Marling, Adele, Goldilocks, Remi Nicole and so on.
It's all very nice, but I'm sick of people treating music made by women as if it's a genre.
The majority of the press us girls have received has been in direct comparison to Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Kate Nash. It provokes some important questions. Such as: are the music press just incredibly lazy? Comparing an artist like Laura Marling to Lily Allen is the equivalent of saying that someone like Saul Williams is the next Nick Cave. Would a man receive this kind of comparison at the start of their career? "Heeey! It's Fionn Regan! The whimsical Dr.Dre!"
It's almost as though being a woman making music is a recent "movement" as opposed to something that has been happening for years. So in this period AD, ("After Duffy"...ho ho ho), in this biblical era that sees Amy Winehouse as "our mother Mary" and Lily Allen as Jesus Christ Superstar, what hope is there for a woman who makes music and wants be judged and categorized according to her talents and genre? It can be difficult for women embarking upon a musical career in this current climate because all too often they aren't being viewed in the right context. If I didn't like Lily Allen, I wouldn't be encouraged to check out an artist who was being heralded as the next Lily Allen. Even if there wasn't a shred of similarity, I wouldn't bother to find out.
Of course, this all extends to the underbelly of the internet, with its worth of message boards which have become the modern day equivalent of Medieval town squares. Where anyone, no matter how uninformed, is allowed an opinion and constructive criticism and praise is given a back seat to slander and cyber witch-burning. Having experienced this first hand, I can vouch that not only are some of the things that people say offensive but they are of a predominantly masculine mindset.
Any thread about a "female artist" will inevitably veer to an angle where she is ultimately judged in terms of attractiveness. A good example of this kind of approach to discussing female artists was one particular thread on the Drowned In Sound message board which was called "George Pringle vs Uffie". I assume we were put in the red and blue corners solely for the fact we are women and we perform to backing beats. Anyway, the conversation took about three responses before it regressed into vulgarity. "George Pringle looks like she has probably been fingered by more boys called Miles and Uffie looks like she's probably has sex with more people in alleyways." I don't have the exact quote because that thread was deleted (thank God) but if the author would care to correct me, would they please put it on a stamped, addressed envalope and enquire for address within. However comic or ridiculous this may all seem, this is only a small reflection of some of the things that are said about girls making music.
So: can we assume that women are just not interested in posting on forums? Of course, there is evidence of women starting threads and having opinions across the net but since when did the internet become a patriarchal construct? Women need to post more on online forums to dilute these attitudes. Perhaps we should start a nationwide campaign: "Geek up girls!" or something. No, I jest so, but it would be valuable if women were a greater presence on music discussion forums. It would make it harder for men convert them into "all boys clubs".
But it isn't all about the boys. In the mainstream gossip and fashion press, women are often slagged off and objectified by the female writers too. Lately, this all seems very potent. There was Lily Allen in a magazine with pink text spurted over half her face about her miscarriage. There was Amy Winehouse in the papers hocking up her pop rocks and there was heat magazine saying who's got fat and who's starved to a piece of gristle. This bitch/slate culture in our popular press is one targeted at women and one that seems to be run by women, if you read the lists of staff members.
All I'm calling for is this: a sense of solidarity among women and a shred of respect and intellect from men. Is that too much to ask? Be you male or female, you don't have to appreciate the music a woman makes, but criticism should be founded on a ground that is constructive and does not feed on our culture of insecurity and our need to judge people as meat.
It's been a long journey for women to stand up and sing/play/change the world as equal peers to men. It's been a long journey not to be a rare species to be ogled at. Believe it or not, but music-making women aren't a new phenomenon either – we've been producing records, DJing, writing all our own stuff for ages, you know. These days, women are even making music that deviates from the blue prints I certainly grew up with, a world where you either snarled and bit your lip or pranced around looking like a beautiful blank. I am aware of people like Patti Smith and Annie Lennox, but when I was little, there was hardly a wealth of musical women at our fingertips. Plus he whole male fantasy good girl/bad girl complex seems a thing of the past now.
Yet we still continue to punish women for achieving all of this by pigeonholing them, degrading them and bunching them together beneath a brush that tars all as new versions of the former. Men and women should find these attitudes upsetting. I certainly do.
So please bear this in mind next time you read about the next Lily/Amy/Kate/Adele. As artists we all ask to be "categorized" fairly (getting a bit Darwin there, sorry) and sex just simply should not come into the equation. For now, I'm off to write a thesis on "Online scopophilia" and look at nothing but Barbara Kruger's art – I may even burn my training bra.
YES
agreed. and the internet forums tend to piss me off a lot of the time. you're seen as not having a sense of humour if you disagree with the sexism but i'm fed up with the pack mentality. it wears me down and i'm not in the public eye!
Ok...
...I believe you my well be talking about a piece I wrote last year… My point wasn’t that you and Kate Nash, Laura Marling, Adele etc all sounded the same; far from it – I was making the point that the success of Lily Allen had paved the way for other alternative female musicians in their late teens-early twenties, who, annoyingly, most record labels probably wouldn’t have given a second glance were it not for Lily. You can’t deny that Lily Allen shook up the music industry as a young outspoken woman seemingly making the music she wanted to make on her own terms. It’s sad to say it, but there’s probably no way Kate Nash would have ever been signed if it wasn’t for her Lily Allen Myspace endorsement and Lily’s success proving to her the labels that innovative young women can sell records.
My point was that all five artists were making the music that they wanted to make – be it folk, blues, electro and hip hop - as was Lily, and not the bland pop other young female musicians had spent the past few years dishing out. I didn’t say any of them actually *sounded* like Lily; however Adele does sound like Amy Winehouse (especially on the ace Right as Rain) – though this is probably the fault of her record label and getting ruddy Mark Ronson in for one of her tracks. I was highlighting the fact that all five of the people interviewed were making different music - and bringing attention to the fact that it’s a good thing that young women now feel encouraged/secure enough to do this and put it out in the public arena without the backing of a massive record label; something which would have been largely impossible or simply futile in the years before.
It can’t have escaped anyone’s attention that most music magazines largely cover male artists. Isn't that one of the reasons why The Lipster's here? And I don’t mind saying that I try and write about female acts more than I do male ones – this isn’t sexism, but merely trying to redress the balance. Obviously there are just as many good female artists as male artists out there – since when did sex affect your ability to come up with a good tune - but they still tend to get overlooked. Hence I take any chance I can to write about female musicians, and if this means having to make a reference to Lily Allen in a piece about other female musicians of a similar age, so be it.
In fact, last year Lily Allen also sparked off a tonne of features about her ‘gang’; including Jamie T, Jack Penate, the Maccabees etc. Even her then-fella and club promoter Seb Chew got a load of press off her back. Other men, just as much as other women were compared to Lily; she was a talking point in 2007, and that’s just what happens to talking points. People use them to set off discussions about other things.
Last year however, was an undeniably good year for women in music though, and I don’t see what’s wrong about drawing attention to it and mentioning different female artists in the same breath.
Ok; I’m done!
Good post
What you describe with the message board idiots isn't just isolated to music - there was a similar article written about geekier things:
In terms of your situation, it's not just that listeners and the reviewing media pigeonhole female artists, the mechanisms for distributing music (the labels, radio stations, and so forth) do too. Rather than giving an opportunity to an artist who does something different, they're much more likely to stuff someone into the mould of someone who's already broken some ground, stamping out anything resembling individuality.
I *think* people are wising up to that and using the internet to find artists - male and female - who aren't just the umpteenth clone of whatever's popular. I hope people are wising up.
Having listened to your music as a result of reading this piece, I am very happy to find that you are not the next Lily Allen or Kate Nash (you reminded me more of Sarah Nixey from Black Box Recorder).
yes
I wholeheartedly agree!
da boyz
I think that when you ask, “…since when did the internet become a patriarchal construct?” you’re assigning entirely too much "maturity" to the boys on the forums – their behavior is usually too infantile to aspire to patriarchy. I wish there was a word other than ‘patriarchal’ to describe the tendency of boys to hog the ball and race to the lowest common denominator of addledescence.
Back when I worked in radio (shudder), the program director for the station once said to me, “Whenever you get two or more guys together discussing music, they’re not really talking music so much as just pulling out their dicks to see whose is bigger.” “Oh yeah? I’ll see your Velvet Underground and raise you a Led Zeppelin. Schwing!”
On internet music forums especially, this ends up playing like roosters strutting their stuff to an empty henhouse, trying to outdo each other in onedownsmanship. It’d be silly if it weren’t so tiresome. I mean, it can amuse me in short bursts, but it utterly fails as a long-form dialog.
Sympathy here
I have to say that every time I see an article saying "Women are finally making it in the music industry" I want to tear my hair out. Points given for the earliest recorded! I know of one that dates from 1978. Anyone go earlier?
Another angle...
a different take on this debate is that the cheap and easy to use music making software - has lowered the entry barrier to music making. It's easier to make music and it's easier to reach your audience than ever before. Talent bubbles up and guess what half of that talent female. George is right it's not a genre - but it is a movement. Let's not get confused - figure heads such as Allen are the indicators - not the enablers.
The growth of online record stores has apparently led to an increasing number of women buying music. Analysis says because we no longer had to enter the machoised/geekised/mascinulised domain of the record shop to get what we love most. Being able to make music on your own - without getting involved with bands and gubbings and stuff - can only increase the number of people making music and - some of them are good and more of them are women than ever before.
I thought it was interesting that at WWII George (girl) turned up with voice and ipod and Sportday Megaphone (boy) with guitar, effects box, keyboards and a whole load of cabling...
Man, I'm super slow at replying to posts on this forum...
I think essentially George makes some really good points here about the way that our male dominated culture treats female musical artists.
I was recently chatting to someone at a national music magazine about one of my own reviews on Adele. He made a comment was about me not making enough about the connection between Kate Nash and Adele. Firstly, what on earth has Adele's music got to do with anything that Kate Nash produces? I can see the similarities with Winehouse’s brand of jazz and even made some comment about aspirations to Michael Nyman Pianism but seriously Kate Nash - how are they anything alike?! I was absolutely baffled by how women with no apparent common ground could be so easily pitched against one another for the sake of convenience, probably.
As for sexism in indie and the way that George has been treated on internet forums, more specifically on DiS about the Uffie Vs Pringle thread, that was absolutely foul, to be fair. And it's not just men that were posting proper awful comments about the way that George looks.
A lot of it can probably be concluded as jealousy. But as George is one of those people that (unfortunately) does meet patriarchal standards of feminine attractiveness, she's probably not going to get a lot of sympathy from the feminists on this one? Oh poor you, it must be so hard being so beautiful and so thin; your life must be so difficult! :)
And George’s comments about solidarity between women being achieved - are you kidding me? With the exception of those women lucky enough to have a reputable education, most women don’t actually like each other. Constantly competing for the affections of the same men, same jobs and general acceptance in a world that thinks our bodies are disgusting, lest they are painted with the same brush that draws the lovely soft core pornography in lads’ mags - can you really blame women for hating each other?
If lads’ mags had their way, our fantastical figures would be busting out of our teeny tops slicking around the mud and grappling with another busty bodied femme for the affections of some be speckled nerdy dude with a bathroom full of Nivea… or that boy from the head and shoulders ad, who thinks he’s James Bond.
But back to the original point (which I think I’ve lost someplace in this rant) I don’t think that most writers actually do this. Most people who write about music are, on the most part, trying to push those artists onto people who might like their music. So, “if you’re a big fan of female fronted pop music and have Lily Allen and Amy WInehouse’s albums in your collection, then the chances are, you might like Adele” - isn’t quite as offensive, if you think of them as pitching to consumers that actually might want to buy those pop products.
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