http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/...958136471.html
Sex thing
August 19, 2005
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Neon's Britt Spooner and band.
Photo: Supplied
Music transcends age and gender, so, asks Clem Bastow, what's up with this 'women in rock' stuff?
You'd expect that the concept of "women in rock" was redundant by now, right? Right. Just ask Neon's female bassist, Britt Spooner. A few months back, London's venerable NME ran a glowing review of her band's Camden gig.
Its opening line read: "'Who are we kidding, we'd all do her,' says the bloke, podgy-fingered and pushing 40, giving Britt Spooner, Neon's dolllike bass player, a once-over."
"I haven't read that one," sighs Spooner. "I usually do get comments about the way I look more often than my musical skills."
Five or 10 years ago it was de rigueur to run articles about women in rock - about how women were storming the barricades, destroying old male fifedoms and - how did that song go again? - doin' it for themselves.
But these days, if you were to tell someone over a few beers that you were writing a piece about women in the music industry (especially if you were a woman yourself), more often than not you'd be greeted with a list of the usual suspects (Courtney Love, Madonna, Joan Jett, rinse, repeat), told that "gender has nothing to do with it", or to "get over it" and "stop whingeing".
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AdvertisementBut if gender really does have nothing to do with it, how come I get emails asking if I've got my period when I give a negative review, or if a band plied me with sexual favours when I give a rave?
How come female managers and A&R reps are accused of sleeping their way to the top? Why are there never any bidding wars over local female musicians? Why is the phrase "for a girl" implied at the end of so many complimentary assessments of female performers?
Where's the Supre T-shirt that says "I'm in the band" instead of "I'm with the band"? In short, why do we, in this supposedly enlightened day and age, feel the need to run a cover story about women in music?
Because, as much as some people would like to pretend otherwise, we've still got a long way to go, baby.
That the "women in music" issue continues to rear its head suggests the battle isn't over. Soul legend Renee Geyer, who laid the groundwork for a long and successful career in the 1970s and '80s, thinks we've gone backwards."
To be a newcomer these days ... I wouldn't want to be someone starting out now," she says.
"I think it is a lot harder and I don't think we've come much further in terms of feminism. Somehow the marketing of women is much more blatantly sexual than it ever was. In fact, being able to carry a tune and sing with musicians is the last thing that comes into it."
She has a point; less than 10 years ago the charts were populated not only with women artists, but women playing with many different personas and representations of femininity (not to mention various musical genres).
Think of Tracy Chapman's low-key honesty, the freshly minted Gwen Stefani and her ska-pop toughness, Gina G's bubblegum shine, Jewel playing the American balladeer and Tracy Bonham's unhinged single woman on the edge.
These days, with the exception of the occasional Missy (Higgins or Elliott) or Kelly (Clarkson or Osbourne), you're entering the outer echelons of the Top 50 before you encounter any female artists who aren't tanned, trimmed and choreographed to within an inch of their lives - and even those who flout these conventions are very carefully styled and marketed to appeal to as many listeners (or perhaps, more correctly, buyers) as possible.
''I think any women who are truthful and know what they're doing know that we'd be liars if we said we never borrowed from our sexuality", Geyer says.
"But sexuality in our world is just part of the package. I think the decision-makers are basically male, so there's a leaning towards salaciousness (in marketing); it's about what makes the blokes in the boardroom happy."
Academics and feminists often discuss the concept of "nymphs, sluts and madonnas" - the idea that women's behaviour and expression is expected to fall into one of three limiting archetypes - and the music industry is still in the thrall of those representations.
Women can be a fragile pop/folk princess, a hot pop mamma or a disaster area rock whore - and that's about it.
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Mia Dyson found it especially hard to navigate the music scene as a 16-year-old newcomer, with her fragile teen self clashing with the preconceived notions of what a female performer "should" be.
''I found it really daunting", she recalls.
"Not only were the punters blokes in pubs, but so were the sound engineers, bookers, all the people associated with the gig were men, and they were usually much older than me. I didn't find - in the media - any role models.
"Young guys can pick up guitars because they've got all these role models that they can see themselves being. They can look at Silverchair and say 'I can do that'. (But) it's like, men do rock/pop/folk/jazz/etc and women do women's music."
Ah yes, "women's music", a tenuous and mysterious concept if ever there was one. What, exactly, is "women's music"? Have you ever heard anyone talk about "men's music"?
It's something that Sarah McLeod, former singer/guitarist with the Superjesus (her debut solo record, Beauty Was A Tiger, is set for release next month), is well aware of.
"Things like (all-women roadshow festival) Lilith Fair - where it's like, 'let's grab all the women and showcase them' - have definitely got merits, but it makes it a novelty. You wouldn't put together a tour of just saxophone players - that kind of segregation doesn't really make sense."
But Melbourne singer and guitarist Penny Ikinger sees such all-female events as a steppingstone into a "co-ed" industry."
It's the way the individual sees it", Ikinger says.
"People might think, 'oh, this is a women's thing, this isn't of the same calibre', but from my point of view as a musician, I'll get on any bloody festival that I can."
It's hardly a level playing field.
More often than not, female performers need to garner some hype, look good, be a marketable "brand" (regardless of the musical style) and so much more.
Their occasional success is no guarantee that the hard slog is over. Gwen Stefani frequently discusses the intense exercise and "starvation" routines that keep her magazine-cover fit.
Would Mariah Carey be as successful if the same voice came out of a less attractive body and face?
And the harsh spotlight doesn't only fall on female performers' appearances; their output is certainly not safe from scrutiny.
When Madonna released her American Life recording, crammed with the same sorts of musical paradigm shifts that Radiohead's OK Computer and Kid A were globally lauded for, she was widely ridiculed.
But beyond that, when was the last time a female artist took off on the same scale as those three? Where's the female voice on the iPod commercial?
As Sarah Blaby (guitarist for allfemale rockers Remake/Remodel and Origami) notes, "There's no Jet story in the girl band scene. There's not even any Warped stories, in terms of a band being supported over a few releases even though those releases aren't huge sellers."
Blaby recalls a comment made by a Melbourne band manager that "girl bands don't get signed because they are always breaking up".
''I think he was referring to Lash - the one girl band that got signed over the last five years," says Blaby.
"I think his argument was the old 'women are bitchy' chestnut. But they were under so much pressure and were so young, it's not surprising they broke up! I wonder how many male bands broke up that year?"
So what needs to happen? How do we roast the old chestnuts like "girl bands are too bitchy to stay together", "sex sells" and "women can't rock" into irrelevance?
McLeod, newly confident after spending her time in the Superjesus feeling "like my career was on this runaway train and I wasn't driving it", wants more young female musicians to hear her call to arms.
''The whole MTV direction is so about sex and it's unfortunate that young musos look at that and say, 'okay, I have to embrace an element of that to get some degree of success'. It would be so much cooler if it was just about people learning a craft", she says.
"Instead of making sure you get your gold lame shorts ready for the video, stay at home and practise your guitar for a bit so that you're a better musician. Hone your craft and own what you do."
Mia Dyson adds: "Being a female musician, there's a process of breaking down the boundaries of what you're expected to be. When I started out performing, I think I knew I wasn't rock or the singer songwriter guy, so I thought, 'okay, I'm not cool, I'm just going to play guitar - if I can get that right, people can't criticise me'."
But perhaps Neon's Spooner has the definitive answer, offering, "I look forward to the day when phrases like 'women in music' don't exist any more."
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