Female Radiohead

I wrote my dissertation on this and held up Punk Music as the only rock genre that women have truly held a an equal place within. Purely creatively and not as sex symbols. Women have always been marginalised by the male dominated record industry. Those that made it prior to punk did it on the man's term and generally had to look dead fit. Why they did fuck all directly after punk, completely reduced to just being sluts during the metal era for example, I do not know.

I argued they did it in Punk due to the awful economic climate and the DIY nature of the music. As that time they had no long term future so were willing to push the boundaries. I think women aged 15-25 had the lowest chance of being employed whilst also being the highest percentage of suicides. I also argued the DIY nature of the genre helped because anyone could do it. I'm sure I had alot more going on that too.

My tutor also reckoned it was because all the guys were on so much speed they couldn't marginalise them.

My appendix burst half way through my dissertation and I almost died so it was half finished really.

My opinion on Joni Mitchell comes from a comprehensive knowledge of her music and the music of her peers (including Dylan etc). It is not inflated or anything. You on the other hand are so defensive about Dylan (or The Beatles. Or Bruce Springsteen. These are the only ones I heard you talk about though.) that it is kinda funny. "Oh don't you dare saying something like that about Dylan!!". Jesus, man, you are 31 but you're stuck in a perpetual adolescence where you have to defend your heroes no matter what. I've said extremely good things about Dylan or Neil Young aswell but it's not enough for you, you have to fight until I tell you he's the best, you're mad fer it!!! D-Y-LAN! D-Y-LAN!

And I don't want you around when I'll state my opinion on the Beatles, it is boring talking to you, you sound like one of those Grateful Dead fanboys who can't accept anything that clocks under the 8958 minutes mark and can't accept anyone saying "A gig that goes on for 3 days is boring!!".

And the Robbie Robertson joke was very very sad and anti-comical, I don't know what's so funny about it. Yeah, Robbie Robertson from the Band. It's like saying "Ralph Molina from Crazy Horse". Is that the stuff that makes you laugh in Toronto?! It REALLY is the North American Switzerland then!!


oh and read that book if you haven't, it is very very good.

You...uhh....seem to know a lot about me. That's a little creepy, I have to admit. (Except I'm not from Toronto, and I only kinda like springsteen. Please make a note of that in my file.)

Well your birthday is right there on your profile and everyone knows you're from Canada

Yeah I use an archival information system called "human brain". It's based on a revolutionary technology called neurons. For example Barny writes he's from Spain, my "human brain" reads it and automatically saves it to a folder named "Barny". Then when I meet him, I open the folder and I can tell him instantly what his name is and where he is from. It's quite a mental feat, you have to agree. If I'm lucky and they tell me the country, I can even tell them the capital. If done properly, it looks like real magic.

Admit your device is more trained than most peoples' one though, some of them think you're a girl

Only girls like Joni Mitchell. It's a proven fact.

There. We found the answer to the original thread question.

We call that a 'callback' in the business...

There we have it. We don't have any "female Radiohead" because people in the business don't like the idea that women can do something better than men.

And yeah, you got me, I'm a lady. The picture, the male voice on the record, the male figure in the webcam, the circumcision etc were just lies to trick you. I can't escape my musical preferences and my ambiguous, ambiguous name.

id like to read that, it sounds interesting. a lot more interesting than the current direction this thread took.

First of all, wow, talk about being a show case thread for how easily it is to be misunderstood on an internet forum.
How my core argument could fly so above JP's and rkrkrk's (and in some ways shenandoas) heads is a bit fascinating to be honest, but I mostly blame my hastily written post for that.
I'm happy to see Mahoney getting it perfectly though.

If you re-read my original post I am not arguing that not a single female artist have ever made any groundbreaking music. Note the "not that many" sentence.
As pointed out by Mahoney it's the ratio between what is considered to be groundbreaking artists and bands by males in comparison to the female ratio that is the core discussion.
I can also list female artists that have done some remarkable things in music, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and so on but that is not the point.
My original base of discussion is why the ratio is so freakishly twisted between male and females and specifically when it comes to bands. I think that point was lost completely in my first post though.
As I said, I can listen and find a thousand Sahara Hotnights (and mind you I still love their debut) but why is it that there is not a single all female group that can stand alongside Radiohead for example, when it comes to innovation and just pure studio skills.
This thread actually solidifies this perfectly, look at the people listing great females, there is not a single all-female group in there.
Not even close.

That was the basic idea of my thread, why are there hardly any big female bands around.
Magneto touches upon this thought a bit in his post.
If you take into consideration the extremely moderate classical genre where you can hardly find a single female conductor or composer, his basic argument about it being easier for females to get recognition in the punk genre rings very true. Two extreme genres (when punk was extreme...) but the one fighting against stagnation and comformity is the one inviting females to be themselves.
I just hope to one day find a group which are confident enough to walk down the "Radiohead"-path as well.

I think there are two arguments to be made, one that I think is cause for discussion and one just superficial and silly.
1) As I tried to argue in the first post, the social climate is still struggling to come to terms with the equality of male and female.
2) Females have a hard time getting along in a group

hi, backstreets, i liked that post a lot more than your first one. what do you think about my point that the very act itself of starting a band and making music is, biologically speaking, an inherently male activity. after all, when you strip it back to its absolute basics, you can make a very strong argument that any kind of artistic expression is ultimately a display of sexual potency. it's just a human version of a male hippo throwing its shit around.

If you start with the idea that men and women have the same creative potential and then look at how unbalanced the output has been both in terms of huge successful bands/artists and also creatively it's really interesting to look at.

I think there's so much working against women working creatively without positioning themselves as a sex symbol or making music based in folk it's hard to know where to start.

I'd like to kill the female equivalent of Thom York before she even exists though

not at all, mating rituals come in all shapes and sizes. earlier in this thread for instance i mentioned bird song, largely performed by males and incredibly analogous to human music.

you're assuming that a statement of sexual potency has to be something "masculine", like an exhibition of strength/aggression or whatever. but in reality it's just a demonstration of what could be considered desirable genetically, and intelligence/sensitivity/beauty/etc all fit into that category.

honestly, garage rock never ever crossed my mind when making that post.

my point is mainly that you're assuming male/female equality based upon the fact that in human socio-political terms the opportunities for, for example, making music are even across both sexes. but what you can't consider equal, in my opinion, is the desire from both sexes to make music in the first place.

don't take any of this as an attack, btw. i've got respect for both sides of this debate.

Yeah I misread your post so edited it back out of my post

I still think the creative potential is equal and it's down to wider issues in society rather than genes as to why women don't make more interesting music on a large scale.

As children it could be argued that boys are encouraged to push boundaries and generally be reckless whilst girls are encouraged to be prim and proper. Boys are more likely to be bought guitars and drums which encourage this spirit whilst girls are more likely to be bought a piano which you cannot really get a sound off unless it's played properly. As I said, there's loads of factors from society and the music industry that go into it and very few encourage the creative female spirit.

Just my opinion though.