I’m a communicator. That’s what I do, for a living, for entertainment, to relax. In my mind, life is all about speaking and being heard. I’m a journalist. When I’m not at work I blog, write the odd bit of piss poor fiction. When I need to clear my mind, I meet up with the girls and we talk, laugh and dance for hours and hours (at high volume, much to the neighbours’ dismay). All of this is because of my core directive to be heard. Recently the girls and I had a night in. We drank far, far too much beer and made pizzas. We sang and danced to Hole and Rocky Horror Picture Show and assorted Triple J Hottest 100 compilations. It was fucking fantastic.
My boyfriend says he hates the amount of Hole I listen to. But singing along to Hole with the girls, as unmusical as it sounds, Courtney gives us a voice. What we care about, the things that piss us off, that’s not delicate or feminine. We don’t have to be what society demands. We’re allowed to get angry, or sad, or tired. And we’re allowed to express that. And we want to hear from artists that are women, telling their stories, in their own voices. There’s nothing surprising about that.
A random list of female artists that should rate among the Triple J Hottest 100 of all Time 2009 via the Tweeps:
Bjork
Frente
Alanis
Hole
PJ Harvey
Tori Amos
Garbage
Regina Spektor
Missy Higgins
Joni Mitchell
Cranberries
Veruca Salt
Janis Joplin
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Magic Dirt
Eurythmics
Stevie Nicks
I wonder what the lack of women in the countdown tells us. In discusions at my house, the absence of women was likened to the absence of dance songs. It’s not the top 100 songs you want to hear, it’s the 100 most popular songs. They just happened to be predominantly written/performed by white men. What does that say about the demographic that voted? What does it say about the artistic contributions of women and people of colour that they are so soon forgotten? Why aren’t they valued?
Please, dear reader, feel free to tell us about your favourite female artists, or acts driven by women. Think of it as our own hottest 100.
Update: There’s been a couple of brilliant posts on the matter. Fuck Politeness says the poll erased the work of female artists while promoting lukewarm ballads by Powderfinger to cult status. Godard’s Letterboxes describes the countdown as the Hottest (white male) 100.
Also, @triplejhack will discuss the gender imbalance on tonight’s program at 5.30pm.
Update II: Larvatus Prodeo has an interesting discussion on this and have some links to more knowledgable explanations than anything I could offer.
Update III: (Via Hoyden’s wrap of the Hack show) Purrdence is running a poll: Not the Triple J Hottest 100. Place your votes.
13 Comments
July 12 at 9:00 pm
Blondie
July 12 at 9:01 pm
Lily Allen!!
July 12 at 9:15 pm
The Grates.
Kylie, Madonna (seriously, if there’s the Beach Boys and Michael Jackson…)
July 12 at 9:15 pm
Where is Kate Bush on the Hottest 100? or Aretha Franklin? Lily Allen? There was only 1 female voice – a guest for “Massive Attack”. I could be wrong, but there were only 4 bands with female musicians…Dandy Warhols, White Stripes, The Pixies and Smashing Pumpkins.
July 13 at 11:43 am
Crimson & Clover Joan Jett
Sway Bic Runga
Fade Into you Mazzy Star
Hole fuck anything would have done
The Amps
The Grates
YYYs
Regina
Tori Amos
Bjork
Kate Bush
The Breeders
Julianna Hatfield Universal Heartbeat
Stay Lisa Loeb
Landy Fingers – Luscious Jackson (or Naked eye?)
PORTISHEAD GLORY BOX
Dolly Parton
Lamb Goreki
Sinead O’Connor
Cyndi Lauper
KMH
Shirley Bassey
Elastica – STUTTER
Concrete Blonde – JOey
Magic Dirt
PJ harvey
MORE PIXIES – or Kim Deal in general
Bikini Kill
ELLA Fitzgerald
Aretha Franklin
Beth Orton
Amy Winehouse
Veruca Salt
Garbage
July 13 at 1:01 pm
Thanks for all the great suggestions. I’d completely forgotten about Veruca Salt. Really, it’s a crime that an artist like Sinead O’Connor or Aretha Franklin didn’t rate a mention.
Not sure if The Pretenders should be on the list?
July 13 at 2:56 pm
Some more rocking women and bands with female members and collaborators:
Ladyhawke
Lacuna Coil
Patti Smith
Suzi Quatro
Ani DiFranco
Belle & Sebastian
Spiderbait
Something For Kate
Billie Holiday
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Jefferson Airplane
Fiona Apple
The New Pornographers
Rasputina
Sarah McLaughlin
Broken Social Scene
Ash
Killing Heidi
The Superjesus
Amanda Palmer
Liz Phair
Mazzy Star
Skunk Anansie
Jefferson Airplane
KMFDM
The Herd
The Waifs
Beth Orton
July 13 at 5:30 pm
[...] – a shiny new coin: “to have a voice” [...]
July 13 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for writing this – it does come down to having a voice, and to me, this whole shitshow does come down somewhat to having that voice erased – both the voices of the female performers that have f*cking rocked over the years, and the voices of the female listeners of JJJ who’ve given the station such loyalty over the years feeling a sense of identity and inclusion in such a station. Admittedly I stopped listening a year ago cos the quota of kiddie punk and that weird new glam-rock/metal shite just made me go kablooey, but I was invested in my JJJ identity. I can’t quite believe the ‘Oh, but there weren’t that many women AROUND in the nineties and it’s a nineties heavy list’ – oh PLEASE! Hole was massive on JJJ for most of that decade, Tori Amos was everywhere for years, Bjork, L7, Liz Phair, Sinead O’Connor, Veruca Salt (thanks for the reminder, HOW did we leave ‘Seether’ of), PJ Harvey…YES, I remember how big Nirvana was, because I too was listening and I remember Hole and L7 and The Pixies and The Breeders alongside…so we get back to erasure, erasure of voices and the right of women to be heard. Fuck that fucking list, I just cannot believe the highly conspicuous absences particularly in amongst the bizarro inclusions – TINY DANCER WTF??? How is that a great song? What is it about? Is it about a tiny dancer? Like Tinkerbell sized? Why would you write a song about that? Does the tiny person ever stop dancing? Am I meant to feel emotional about the dancing because the dancer is tiny? HOW is Blink 182 on the list and no Hole? Ok…rant suspended. I can’t say over cos it’s waiting to leak out again.
July 14 at 12:20 am
Taking it from a different angle, i’ve looked back at a list of songs that a wrote a couple of years ago that were THE songs of my life. In my opinion.
Turns out the only female artists (i don’t know about backing singers or anything) were the 4 non blondes and Goldfrapp.
Although the result of the poll does seem extremely strange, i highly doubt anything dodgy went on. It’s more down to what people actually voted for. Yes, i have many hundreds of female artists in my music collection. Yet i love them all for their collections of music and styles, not for a particular song. If the poll were about the hottest 100 artists, not songs, i think we would see a greater turnout on the female side.
July 14 at 11:38 am
@ fuckpoliteness: “HOW is Blink 182 on the list and no Hole? ” I think that basically sums up the whole thing. It is about voice and whose voices are heard. That’s where Triple J’s changing demographic comes it, Blink 182’s song (can’t even remember what it was called) is just a catchy and pleasant song. Given Hole and Nirvana were quite stylistically similar at that time (oh god I’m going to get angry comments for saying that aren’t I?), it’s revealing that Nirvana made number 1 and Hole didn’t rate a mention at all. The history of sucessful female artists are constantly erased and when you mention it you get blank looks. (Although I do kinda like the Tiny Dancer song myself, not sure I’d count it among my top 10.)
@ Hayden: Actually, whether a list of favourite *artists* as opposed to songs would have made a difference is a really interesting question. What does everyone else think?
I don’t really think anything dodgy went on like vote rigging, or that anyone really sat down intending to silence female artists. It is a remarkable outcome though that when people were asked to choose their ten favourite songs, so few of them thought of songs by women. I think it speaks to the obstacles women face in the entertainment industry if they don’t want to portray a T&A image. Also the way women in general are viewed in society as being less able or having less to contribute. And I think it probably also says something about how Triple J has changed over the past 10 years.
Also, I’m really glad that Hack did a show on it. It’s the kind of thing that really should be noted, discussed and considered – even if the answers as to why are many and it seems a lot of people don’t want to hear them. I wonder if it would encourge Triple J to reconsider its music programming?
July 17 at 9:49 am
Hi there,
In response to JJJ’s Hottest 100 being dominated by male artists, I’ve set up a Twitter account to collate a female-focussed Hottest 100. It’s @Hottest100Women. If this is an idea you are interested in, or support, I’d love it if you could write about it on your blog. If not, I totally understand
The way I intend to run the poll, is to ask people to write posts with @Hottest100Women or #Hottest100Women in the post, nominating the songs that get their votes. Then I can collate all the votes (after I get some meaningful number), and find out what the #Hottest100Women songs are, and publish the results through Twitter.
Thanks for your time, hope you’re having a great day
-@Hottest100Women
August 6 at 1:44 am
[...] make the list and makes some direct comparisons here in “Women are, like, different”, as does shinynewcoin, who writes more in “you’re soaking in it. Fuckpoliteness sums up, in @Hottest100Women [...]