FEATURE:
Women at the Forefront
IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Marling
2020: Another Year of Female Dominance?
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ALTHOUGH this year is going to be shorter…
IN THIS PHOTO: Halsey
in terms of the number of big albums we will see, there have been some phenomenal albums already dropped. I think we will get a load of albums released in the autumn and winter and relatively few in the summer months. That said, I think this year mirrors a trend that was seen last year: the dominance of women. Look at the best albums of 2019, and so many of them are by women; from Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, to FKA twigs’ Magdalene, through to Solange’s When I Get Home, and Brittany Howard’s Jaime…it was a monumental year for women in music. There were some phenomenal albums released by men in music, but I think the most interesting and rewarding albums were made by women. Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters is out, and it is picking up five-star reviews all over the place!. It is a masterful album, and one that will define the year, I think. I am not predicting the album of 2020 already, but Apple’s new record is surely not going to be equalled year. This is what Pitchfork had to say when they reviewed Fetch the Bolt Cutters:
“She calls men out for refusing to show weakness, for treating their wives badly, for needing women to clean up their messes. Where The Idler Wheel explored a form of self-interrogation—“I’m too hard to know,” she crooned—on Fetch the Bolt Cutters, she unapologetically indicts the world around her. And she rejects its oppressive logic in every note. The very sound of Fetch the Bolt Cutters dismantles patriarchal ideas: professionalism, smoothness, competition, perfection—aesthetic standards that are tools of capitalism, used to warp our senses of self. Where someone else might erase a mistake—“Oh fuck it!” she chuckles on “On I Go”—she leaves it in. Where someone might put a bridge, she puts clatter. Where she once sang, “Hunger hurts but starving works,” here, in the devouring chorus of “Heavy Balloon,” she screams: “I spread like strawberries/I climb like peas and beans.” There is nothing top-down about the sound of Fetch the Bolt Cutters. “She wanted to start from the ground,” her guitarist David Garza told The New Yorker. “For her, the ground is rhythm.”
There’s considerable power in how Apple entertains so many of these wild, inexhaustible impulses. “Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you, don’t you shush me!” she chips back on “Under the Table.” She will not be silenced. That’s patently clear from the start of Fetch the Bolt Cutters. In gnarled breaths on its opening song—feet on the ground and mind as her might—Apple articulates exactly what she wants: “Blast the music! Bang it! Bite it! Bruise it!” It’s not pretty. It’s free”.
As I say, I know there are going to be a lot of albums released later this year, but the next few months are a little less busy and predictable.
Whilst 2020 has seen some strong albums by men – including Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush, and 3.15.20 from Childish Gambino -, it is the female-led albums that have struck hardest. Although Heavy Light by U.S. Girls has received some mixed reviews in certain corners, most reviewers heaped plenty of praise on a wonderful album. The project of Meghan Remy, U.S. Girls, many wondered how she would follow up on 2018’s masterful In a Poem Unlimited. I think Heavy Light is one of the year’s best albums, from one of the finest artists around right now. Here is what The Line of Best Fit had to say about Heavy Light:
“The closest track to the sound of the previous record comes on “And Yet It Moves/Y Se Mueve”, filled with Latin tropicália and funky percussion. It’s an album highlight on a record full of them. Across the rest, Heavy Light covers topics ranging from the personal (on “Woodstock ’99”, where Remy’s narrator compares her experience of that disastrous day with her friends) to the ‘planetary’, even on the conversational interludes - which add their own nostalgic kick. On “The Quiver To The Bomb”, the focus is on how short human history is in the grand scheme of universal expansion. There’s even some suitably cheap-sounding sci-fi synths and a dizzying vocal crescendo.
From a personal perspective, you might miss the electric-burn intensity of the lead guitars from In a Poem Unlimited, or you might miss the Iggy’s The Idiot-meets-Marc Bolan-and-Madonna-on-a-Tarantino-soundtrack vibes, but ultimately, there’s just as much to enjoy here. Heavy Light is more subdued, more restrained, and certainly more beautiful than its big sister. God knows where Remy will go from here, but you can rest assured that it won’t be boring”.
There are a few other albums that I want to highlight as defining 2020. In terms of Pop albums, there have been a couple of wonderful releases so far. I will discuss Dua Lipa soon, but Halsey’s Manic – her third studio album – won big acclaim. Whilst the lyrics are quite confessional and raw, Halsey released this stunning album that has a sense of shared experience and catharsis; there is so much variation and depth that runs through Manic. Whilst 3am is my favourite track, there are so many highlights through the record. Halsey never sticks to one sound or mood on the album, yet she has produced something cohesive and very much her own. AllMusic said this when they reviewed Manic:
“Listen closely, certain stylistic aspects assert themselves -- a fingerpicked guitar line rolls along here, there's a reggae bounce there -- and her choice of guest stars is telling. Alanis Morissette -- who is by some measures a clear precursor to Halsey -- vies with rapper Dominic Fike and Suga of K-pop sensations BTS for splashiest cameo, with each of their appearances labeled as an "interlude." The lack of concrete song titles winds up emphasizing the presence of artists who cross genres, a clear sign of how Manic's seemingly scattershot appearance disguises how Halsey designed the album to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, streamlining all these sounds so they slide onto every conceivable playlist. It's a shrewd ploy that winds up not seeming crass thanks to Halsey's affectless emo bloodletting -- she never resists an opportunity to hit her target squarely on the nose, such as the "I'm so glad I never ever had a baby with you" refrain on "You Should Be Sad" -- and the clever way Manic is sequenced. The artiest, wobbliest songs start the record, followed by her saddest and starkest ballads, so it takes a while before it settles into its comfortable groove of adolescent angst doubling as AAA crossover pop. Such distinctions would be lost on the playlists individual tracks may later call home, but assembled in this fashion as a proper album, Manic showcases Halsey at her nerviest and at her best”.
There will be more Pop magic later in the year but, with Future Nostalgia out in the world, Dua Lipa threw down the gauntlet on 27th March. There is the nostalgia of Disco and Pop – with elements of Madonna and artists like Blondie -, but there is the modernity and sharpness of today. More accomplished and complete than her debut album, Dua Lipa, in 2017, the indelibility of the songs makes Future Nostalgia one of 2020’s albums to beat. I think Pop has been dominated by women for many years now, and Dua Lipa’s blend of the 1980s and the now is an intoxicating brew that is hard to resist. Future Nostalgia will be one of the best-reviewed and popular albums come the end of this year. Not only are the tracks on Future Nostalgia memorable and hooky; Lipa also covers issues like sexism and gender. She is an artist who wants to use her platform to speak about big topics and important matters but bring in plenty of fun and fizz. This is NME’s take on the record:
“All the way through this album, the pop star is in the driving seat, both behind the scenes and in the situations she describes in the lyrics. On ‘Break My Heart’ – which she recently described on recent Instagram Live as “my forte, dance crying” – she questions whether a new love is going to leave her nursing a broken heart again. But it’s her decision to open herself up to that possibility, making herself vulnerable but stronger for it. Then there’s last year’s stone-cold banger ‘Don’t Start Now’, a kind of counterpart to ‘New Rules’ that finds her delivering instructions to an ex: “Don’t show up/Don’t come out/Don’t start caring about me now.” It’s powerful pop perfection.
When she made this album, the musician couldn’t know just how awful a state the world would be upon it’s released. But that just makes her achieving her mission all the more important. ‘Future Nostalgia’ is a bright, bold collection of pop majesty to dance away your anxieties to… if only for a little while”.
Waxahatchee is led by Katie Crutchfield; Saint Cloud is her fifth album. Released on 27th March, I think it is the strongest album of the year so far – reviewers tend to agree. I think the very best albums of this year have not only been released by women, but there is so much range and originality. One cannot easily compare Dua Lipa with Waxahatchee, for instance, but both artists are incredible performers who have crafted stunning albums. The Independent were eager to praise Saint Cloud:
“There’s always something tempering the beauty of Waxahatchee’s music. I mean that as a compliment: on the American singer-songwriter’s fifth album, Saint Cloud, luscious melodies are undercut by a lingering unease, sentimentality by steeliness.
The glorious “Fire”, which starts with plaintive keyboard strains, might have been described as “lovely” were it sung down an octave. As it is, with Waxahatchee (real name Katie Crutchfield) stretching to the upper limits of her range, her voice sounds like a match being struck. Her lolloping delivery on “Lilacs” – “and the lilacs drank the water/ and the lilacs die/ and the lilacs drank the water/ marking the slow, slow, slow passing of time” – is Bob Dylan by way of Lucinda Williams.
Written just after Crutchfield decided to get sober, Saint Cloud offers up a sort of gradual unmasking. “You don’t worship me, you strip the illusion,” she sings on “Hell”. “Can’t Do Much”, which she wanted to be “an extremely unsentimental love song”, is funny, frank and poetic: “We will coalesce our heaven and hell, my eyes roll around like dice on the felt.” Later, she drops the poetry. “I want you, all the time.”
On “The Eye”, which sounds like the sun rising, Crutchfield professes, “I have a gift, I’ve been told, for seeing what’s there.” For singing about it, too”.
I want to mention three more albums before wrapping things up. Miss Anthropocene is the fifth studio album from Grimes and, as an artist who rarely puts a foot wrong, it is another phenomenal work. Grimes’ music is seen, by some, as quite out-there and experimental, but I think Miss Anthropocene is one of her most accessible works to date. I have always loved her work, and I feel Miss Anthropocene is pretty close to Art Angels (her fourth studio album of 2015) in terms of quality and potency. The Independent reviewed Miss Anthropocene:
“Sonically speaking, Miss Anthropocene operates much like a greatest hits record. It sees Grimes pull from many of the sounds that have made her one of pop’s most inventive artists, her voice elastic and fibrous over industrial-rock synths, acoustic guitar and bubblegum squeaks and gurgles. In its chaos is its own sense of odd cohesion.
“4ÆM” is a Benny Hill chase sequence of a track, theatrical wailing segueing into a relentlessly sped-up chorus. The thrilling and sensual “Violence” doubles as a surreal kind of orgasm, reimagining humanity and Mother Nature as a mutually punishing love affair (“You wanna make me bad, make me bad / And I like it like that, and I like it like that”).
There’s brilliance here, but it’s when the album slows down that it becomes transcendent. “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” is a perfect storm of the slinky and the tortured, Grimes urging a lover to “weigh me down”. “You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around” is a gloomy synth-pop ballad that brings to mind Til Tuesday and Bauhaus.
New single “Delete Forever” is akin to a fresh bruise. Inspired by the death of rapper Lil Peep, along with a number of friends who have succumbed to opioid addiction, it finds Grimes’ voice cracking, her sticky vocal placed over banjo, guitar and strings. It’s a song that marks Miss Anthropocene at its most emotionally potent, and Grimes at her most human. She might consider that an insult, long having adopted the public image of a demonstratively wacky robot-girl on the arm of a madman. For her more wavering fans, however, it’ll be a blessed relief”.
Two very different albums that are competing for the best of 2020 have come from Georgia and Laura Marling. Georgia’s Seeking Thrills has some D.N.A. in common with Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Both albums have a sense of emotion and melancholy, but both have an abandon and strut that marries past sounds with current sounds. I think Georgia is an artist who has a very bright career ahead; she will headline festivals and is one of these musicians that we all need to watch closely.
Seeking Thrills is one of this year’s best albums because it is so thrilling, yet there is something heart-aching under the surface. The Guardian made some keen observations:
“It perfectly fits the contents of Seeking Thrills, an album that is ostensibly about hedonistic exhilaration. Over the next 12 months, British pop theoretically could come up with a more stirring evocation of losing yourself on the dancefloor than Barnes repeatedly crying “It’s the rhythm, the rhythm” at the close of 24 Hours, but you wouldn’t bank on it. Furthermore, the album seems to be modelled, at least vaguely, on the trajectory of a big night out, from the dusk-settling anticipation of opener Started Out (“Be wicked and bold now”), through the aforementioned saucer-eyed euphoria, to a becalmed comedown that’s equal parts dazed and reflective. There is a distinctly woozy, 6am quality to the electronics on Ultimate Sailor, while closer Honey Dripping Sky features wistful lyrics – “Did you want to stay? Mistakes were made – I wasn’t thinking straight” – streaked with smears of dissonant synthesiser. So far, so in keeping with a grand tradition of albums from the Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole to Katy B’s On a Mission, that hymn the thrills of being, as 24 Hours puts it, “consumed by night”. But Seeking Thrills gradually reveals itself to be something less straightforward than that.
IN THIS PHOTO: Georgia
A lot has been made of the influence of 80s house and techno on its sound, which feels slightly inaccurate. It’s not that Barnes doesn’t know her dance music history – virtually the first thing you hear on Seeking Thrills is a bass line modelled on that of Larry Heard’s Chicago house classic Mystery of Love. And the whole album feels infected with the weird, reverb-slathered spaciness that helped make early house singles sound so jolting and alien on arrival. But Barnes is blessed with the ability to take vintage influences and absorb them so thoroughly that what seeps out sounds different from her source material, and stamped with her own character. Highlight Ray Guns is a case in point. It manages to be influenced by dub reggae while scrupulously avoiding the kind of lichés artists tend to indulge in when making music influenced by dub reggae. It achieves the cavernous, chaotic feel without using any of the standard sonic signifiers. The results are fantastic: a dense, disorientating swirl of electronic sound, a killer tune with a beat that sounds more like Missy Elliott’s Get Ur Freak On than anything that came out of Kingston’s studios in the 1970s”.
All the albums I have mentioned so far can comfortably sit in the top-ten albums of 2020 so far, and I think the remaining months of this year will see more marvellous revelations from women. Sure, male artists aren’t being hugely overshadowed, but I don’t think there was any close competition last year and, so far this year, it is the women with the bigger voices and strongest albums.
In terms of defining albums of this year, Laura Marling’s Song for Our Daughter is right near the top. Released on 10th April, the album was moved forward (from the summer) to give to fans whilst we are in lockdown. Marling is an artist who has never released an average album or anything less than divine. Having just turned thirty, one wonders whether she will ever release anything bad, as she seems to get stronger with age! The marvellous Song for Our Daughter is an album about a generation of younger women and the idea of a maternal lineage, according to Marling. The songwriting and performances throughout her seventh solo album are incredible! She is one of this generation’s best songwriters, and I think Song for Our Daughter might actually be the best album of 2020 – there is close competition between her, Dua Lipa and Waxahatchee. Among the five-star reviews that came in, The Telegraph were phenomenal glowing:
“At 30, Song For Our Daughter (Chrysalis / Partisan, ★★★★★) is her most measured and mature work, and perhaps the most accessible to those as yet unpersuaded. Marling has returned from adventures in America to settle back in London, co-producing this collection in her home studio, with long time collaborator Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Paul McCartney, Ryan Adams) and string arrangements by Rob Moose (Anthony and the Johnsons, Bon Iver, The National). As far as I am aware, Marling does not have a daughter. These are songs of empathy and advice for her younger self, tales of departure, abandonment, love, grief and reconciliation told at a slight distance, offering a wise, thoughtful voice in troubled times.
Marling has often been compared to Joni Mitchell, as perhaps too many female singer-songwriters have, but there is something about her cool, cerebral tone and carefully wrought poetic lines that evokes that most revered of musical role models. Marling too has a core of toughness, a fierce feminism and sense of independence that burns through the deceptively sweet timbre of her singing voice. The title track has little truck with the sexism routine in the music industry and this whole world of men: “With your clothes on the floor/ Taking advice from some old balding bore/ You’ll ask yourself did I want this at all?”
In her self-control, her skillful guitar playing, and almost arrogantly presumptive authorial boldness, Marling is determined to indicate there is another way. Even amidst the melancholy vulnerability of sonorous piano and string ballad Blow By Blow and the bittersweet regrets of Held Down and The End of the Affair, you can always sense a counterbalancing weight implying that there are things to be gained from loss, strength to be found in lessons learned. That sense of abiding self-worth lifts up the flyaway autobiographical trip Strange Girl (“I love you my strange girl, my lonely girl, my angry girl, my brave”).
The harmonies throughout, arranged and sung by Marling herself, are exquisite. It ends with a loving little ditty, For You, with a melodic flow and dainty charm worthy of classic Paul McCartney. Perhaps Songs For Our Daughter lacks some of the dark strangeness of Marling’s earlier work but it is a really fine collection of thoughtful, heartfelt, meaningful songs grappling with life’s challenges. It was not scheduled for immediate release but Marling brought it forward because, she says, “In light of the change to all our circumstances, I saw no reason to hold back on something that, at the very least, might entertain, and at its best, provide some sense of union”.
I have touched the surface of some remarkable albums, and I would urge people to check them out in full. Although we are less than months of the way through 2020, I do think the very best albums have been made by women. Not only are they superb and moving, but each album and artist is very different. I would say that this quality should translate to festival headline slots for women but, as festivals are pretty much on hold until next year, we might have to wait a while to see this materialise. There is still imbalance and gender disparity in the industry, and I wonder why it still happens considering the fact that, for the last couple/few years, the scene has been ruled by women – one can argue this assertion, but there is ample evidence to back up my point. I think the rest of this year will see women deliver the biggest albums, and I do hope this means that things start to change in the industry. Artists like Dua Liupa have spoken about online abuse and discrimination, and I do hope there is a culture shift in music that gives women much more respect and exposure – Dua Lipa, actually, has revealed she is starting work on her third album whilst in lockdown. From sublime Folk from Laura Marling, to brilliant Pop from Halsey and Dua Lipa, to the conviction of Grimes, Georgia, and U.S. Girls, this year has seen women produce truly incredible music that is…
IN THIS PHOTO: Waxahatchee
BETTER than the rest.