Contributed by Lisa Marie Basile

The Direction of Female Music: More Musical, More Mature

I’ve never been a chick-music sort of gal. But I’ve listened to my share of Alanis Morrisette way before I’ve ever had my heart broken, and I’m an avid fan of Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. But that’s it. I’m generally much more into male vocalists or instrumentals. Not for any reason (though I’ve had people say it’s because of “conditioning.” Not so much.

But there’s been some really great female music out there now – and though I do understand the argument that it may be inherently sexist to even mention music is “female” or not. We don’t say “guy-music” or “man vocalists,” I know. Still, I think we’re witnessing a great wave of female vocalists – ever greater than the whole Lilith Fair era a decade ago. Remember that whole Sarah McLaughlin-type crowd? Jewel. Natalie Imbruglia. Sherly Crow. Shawn Colvin. Dixie Chicks.

Fiona Apple, she’s still going. Tori Amos – she’s super prolific. Jewel’s even doing some stuff. But this year, we’ve got Feist, Scarlett Johansson’s Anywhere I Lay My Head and She and Him, whose “she” part is comprised of actress Zooey Deschanel. And there are so many others, both mainstream and not.

I think it’s great we have Scarlett and Zooey as role models. Though ScarJo’s taken some flack for having the audacity to put out an album of Tom Waits covers (and being scolded for not being nearly as talented as he is), I think it’s a solid collection of tunes. It’s glittering and interesting and smart. She and Him’s Volume One is an album of partial-covers, too – going back to 50s and 60s era songs. Feist is really Leslie Feist, who was a part of Broken Social Scene. And her 2007 album, The Remainder, is collecting more and more steam now.

What I think is most important is that these collections of music are smart. They offer skilled musicianship, new sounds and music that takes a different route than many female vocalists we hear today. They’re not completely showy, they aren’t contributing to the unhealthily image-obsessed culture we see made worse by many entertainment artists and they’re not singing about how much they need to have a boyfriend/get back at an ex-boyfriend/or are using pseudo-bi-curiosity and “risqué” lyrics to garner shock effect, like Katy Perry.

The change in our musical climate could be attributed to changing times, demanding listeners, the feminist movement or pure coincidence. Every decade offers something new, and every musical time period is a little microcosm of the world in which we live. I usually have little respect for what happens in the music industry –in particular the mainstream side of the coin–but I think I can say that, for now, things are looking up. And if it’s happening sonically, it might just be a result of good things in the world at large.

For more awesome artists, I’m working at a pretty kickass magazine, Death+Taxes, which showcases a lot of great new indie music, so check it.