FEATURE:
An Embarrassment of Riches: Will the Music Industry React?
The IWD FEST 2024: Putting Female Talent First
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THANKS goes to…
IN THIS PHOTO: Miki Berenyi/PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Lee/The Guardian
Cris Bowden of the Speakeasy Fanzine for making me aware of the IWD FEST. Taking place on 9th March at Bucks Student Union, High Wycombe, it is a showcase of some amazing female artists. Presented by Speakeasy and Loud Women, you can get your ticket here. It is one of the guaranteed festivals where women are not only appearing right throughout the bill. You also get female headline slots – not something that happens much at festivals in the U.K. Below is all the information you need to know about the IWD FEST:
“On Saturday 09 March 2024, the day after International Women’s Day, Speakeasy and LOUD WOMEN have joined together to bring you a day of indie goodness showcasing talented bands/artists with women at their heart: The IWD Fest. Based on statistical evidence, women dominate the music scene; they outnumber men as musical artists and they consistently top the charts, but this data doesn’t seem to translate to the main stage – fewer than 20% of headline acts at UK festivals in 2023 were female-fronted.
The IWD Fest is not only a fantastic showcase for talented artists, but it shall also serve to generate well-needed funds and publicity for SAASSBMK (Sexual Assault and Abuse Support Service Buckinghamshire & Milton Keynes - www.saassbmk.org.uk). SAASSBMK are a women-led charitable incorporated organisation serving those in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes whose lives have been affected by rape, sexual assault, and abuse. Their primary aim is to provide support, information, advice, and guidance to victims and survivors, empowering and enabling them to work with the trauma and suffering caused to them and their loved ones by sexual assault and abuse, including non-recent and childhood sexual abuse. All profit generated from this show will be donated to the charity.
Lineup
Formed in the late ‘80s, The Popguns are a magnificent indie band from Brighton. The band, perhaps most well known for their 1989 top 20 hit ‘Waiting for the Winter’, continue to release fantastic music, as demonstrated by their latest EP, 2023's Popism.
Post-punkers Desperate Journalist have been releasing wonderful, melodramatic, and haunting cinematic sounds since their debut LP in 2014, blending elements of likes of The Cure, Savages, and Joy Division. Always receiving rave reviews for their live performances, Desperate Journalist recently completed a successful tour supporting Britpop pioneers Suede.
Formerly of Lush and currently in both Piroshka and her own eponymous trio, Miki Berenyi will be joining us in conversation, discussing her recent autobiography and her time in the music industry.
Da Googie is the solo project of My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe, who will be performing tunes from this exciting and experimental new project.
ARXX characterize themselves as “if Taylor Swift had only listened to Nirvana.” We think this description perfectly describes their special sound.
Fraulein are a Northern Irish/Dutch duo who intertwine their early nineties grunge and PJ Harvey influences to create a thunderous racket. Having recently toured with The Mysterines and English Teacher, wider success is just around the corner for these two.
Charley Stone with the Actual Band join the bill with a deep CV. Charley was in ‘90s bands Gay Dad, Salad, and Sleeper, among numerous other projects including Desperate Journalist, who she will also be playing with today. Charley is an extraordinary entertainer and with her mesmeric guitar skills and beautiful voice, she is sure to delight and enthrall.
Nadia Sheikh is back at Bucks Student Union after her brilliant solo acoustic show at Speakeasy Volume One. This time around, however, she returns with a full band, new music, and rides in off a successful tour of Spain.
Hurtling’s sound is drowned in glorious guitar tones and noisy bass lines all underpinned by driving drums. Taking inspiration from bands such as The Breeders, Throwing Muses, and Sebadoh, Hurtling use those ingredients to cook up their own unique sonic recipe.
Laura Jayne is a singer-songwriter from the north-east of England. Laura has a stunning voice that sits on top of indie rock instrumentation, with plenty of pop thrown in for good measure.
I, Doris are feminist post-punk delivered with a fun DIY attitude and heaps of humour - a fantastic and entertaining live band that leaves an indelible mark on your memory.
Former Echobelly, Curve, and Nightnurse guitarist Debbie Smith will keep the party going with a DJ set of classic tunes to close out the festivities”.
There is a broad and brilliant line-up there. The objectives are all wise and worthy. The fact that there is so little representation of women in those headline slots is staggering! When women dominate music and are without a doubt available and ready, why are there so many excuses?! That feeling that women are a risk and gamble. It is almost like festivals are phoning it in a lot of the time with their choices. I have written about this a bit recently. It is worth keeping it in mind. I am not sure how next year’s festivals will line up in terms of their headliners. You feel we have reached a stage where there can be no excuses. Nothing that would make any sense anyway. After another triumphant years for music where women ruled, there now needs to be this reckoning. All this talent translating into festival opportunities. Headline slots too. Other countries can make female artists headliners. It seems to be something that afflicts U.K. festivals. This assumption that there are very few options available. Why would that be the case here and yet other festivals book female headliners?! It is all very angering and baffling. I can only imagine what it feels like for women throughout music who are being overlooked and insulted like this! The IWD FEST is a vital thing that shows that festivals can have amazing and varied female headliners.
PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels
It is not hard to find and book the talent! With the likes of The F-List providing a directory of amazing female talent, there are options. I also think that if organisers think of all the best albums and songs from the past year, there is another batch of names. I am going to wrap up soon. Before that, earlier in the year, God Is in the TV reacted to the state of affairs regarding headliners. After Glastonbury said that a ‘pipeline’ issue accounted for no female headliners, it seems like the industry also needs to take some responsibility:
“Nadia Khan an artist manager tweeted: “Glasto could quite easily give a headline slot away to an under-represented artist group to be part of the necessary change in the industry.”
Suddi Raval tweeted “Emily Eavis says the issue is that there’s a “pipeline” problem why they have an all-white male-only line up to headline the Pyramid stage. WTF. Just ask any black women. That’ll solve your pipeline problem.”
Lisa Pinky Ward tweeted: “I love you Glastonbury but nothing says it’s nearly #IWD2023 like announcing 3 male headliners on the Pyramid. Fancy committing to all women on the Other Stage or Park Stage? Emily Eavis eyeballing you here. It’s 2023…”
“The music industry needs to invest in more female musicians to create future headliners” explained Eavis. “We’re trying our best so the pipeline needs to be developed. This starts way back with the record companies, radio. I can shout as loud as I like but we need to get everyone on board.” Some said we are “trying” isn’t the best excuse and pointed out that 52% of the 54 names on the first lineup announcement were male. But to be fair to Emily Eavis she has long been an advocate of more balanced bills, she said was “entirely focused on balancing our bill. It’s not just about gender, it’s about every aspect of diversity.”
Diversity of bills is also important. Glastonbury made an important statement when it chose Jay Z to headline the festival in 2008. This year, 46% of its initial 54 names feature unrepresented racial groups: including Wizkid who will headline the Other stage on Friday, Gabriels who is likely to be a highlight of the early evening on Friday, and Loyle Carner who tops the bill on West Holts on the Saturday. “We’re probably one of the only big shows that’s really focused on this” she claimed.
Glastonbury isn’t alone. Other festivals including Download, Kendall Calling, Reading and Leeds, and a raft of others, have male-dominated and largely white, headline bills this year.
According to the BBC, a study of the UK’s biggest music festivals found that 149 headline acts – or 74.5% – are male solo acts or all-male bands. Meanwhile, 24 headliners – or 12% – are bands featuring a mix of male and female musicians, with just one headline act identifying as non-binary.
In 2021, The Isle Of Wight Festival’s initial line-up was reported to be 73% male, while TRNSMT’s was 61% male. Kendal Calling also announced an initial line-up with 79% male performers.
Overall, Glastonbury appears to be moving in the right direction. Further down the bill, this year’s lineup features Christine and the Queens, Fever Ray, Shygirl, Adwaith, Kelis, Lana Del Rey, and Blondie, and girl band Flo. Glastonbury has always championed new music. It has also taken risks in the past, Pulp replaced The Stone Roses as a headliner 1995 and stole the show in and Stormzy headlined in 2019, when he wasn’t the biggest act the world. But is the festival at the point where it’s such a huge global event that it can’t gamble on the headliner? But would it be a gamble anyway when some of the world’s biggest artists are women?
Certainly, narrowly billed, nostalgia and lad-heavy fests could learn a lot from the festival’s intentions and how it showcases new artists on its introducing stage and the diverse spread of genres that are showcased every year across the festival. But the fact that Eavis didn’t feel that any of the female artists on the bill were as “bankable” as Guns N Roses to headline, who let’s face it peaked in the late 80s and early 90s, reflects the fact that she didn’t see any of the female acts on the bill as much as a draw, not just for those attending but for the global audience at home as much, as a nostalgic reformed rock band.
Glastonbury sells out well in advance so it wouldn’t have made much difference to ticket sales, as some festival goers don’t go to Glastonbury just for the headliners but for the experience and the many stages and tents, and maybe the chance to glimpse some of the biggest acts in the world.
But she also made a good point in one that these imbalances in festival bills reflect deeper issues of gender disparity in music, the workplace, and society, with the gender pay gap. Plus the issues with a broken pipeline for developing the next generation of headliners in this country.
Vick Bain, who set up The F-List – an online directory of female musicians available to play at festivals – says the issue spans the entire music ecosystem; from inequality in education to barriers in the music business. “There’s still a lot of sexism, and that can be overt or covert, and a lot of stereotyping, which is restrictive to women,” she says. “Women in music education will be encouraged to go into music teaching, rather than performing, or will be rewarded to be singers rather than instrumentalists.”
“Then, women are far less likely to be picked up by an A&R, far less likely to be invested in, far less likely to get a manager or an agent, and all of these things mean you’re less likely to be chosen to play on festival stages.”
A report by Bain published in 2019 revealed that female acts and songwriters counted for just 14% of those signed to 106 British music publishers and that women made up under 20% of those signed to 219 British record labels. It goes back to the number of female artists who are signed, booked and that appear on radio playlists. There are deep issues around sexism, misogyny, and racism, we have seen over recent years the stories of music industry abuse of power, highlighted by the #Metoo and on a smaller level the backlash towards new female acts like the Last Dinner Party, Panic Shack, and Picture Parlour, who have been tarred with “industry plant” and trolled online, even upon their first release. It’s not always a welcoming industry for young women or people from minority groups.
Matt Griffiths of Youth Music reacting to the story explained “This, yet again, highlights the systemic issue regarding lack of representation in the music industry. Emily Eavis is right about the pipeline problem and that more needs to be done. But until we all address & ACT on the root causes, we’ll keep seeing festival line-ups like this.”
Standon Calling were one of the first and only major UK music festival to reach the Keychange pledge last year, and this year have gone further in ensuring that have an even split across all their headline slots as well. Last year Self Esteem was headlining the all-female night on the second stage, and had become the first artist in the festival’s 17-year history to go from headlining the second stage to headlining the main stage the following year.
Currently, 55% of the lineup are artists identifying as female or non-binary, an improvement from 30% in 2018.
“I definitely agree with the argument as, at present, there’s a much smaller pool of female headliners, and the number of festivals they’re able to play is affected by exclusivity clauses with other events. The focus on lack of female headliners is warranted but it’s due lack of supply, and we often find it’s the independent festivals who are taking the risk by elevating these artists to headline level.” Standon calling booker and manager Rob Lee explains that there’s a culture of being risk averse from many festival Booker’s, perhaps fearful of not being able to make it work financially, that it’s an issue that’s reflected not just in headliners but lower down the bill, where there is still an imbalance and this is part of the “pipeline” for festival headliners too.
“If there’s a lack of 50/50 gender balance lower down on festival line-ups (i.e. not the headliners), it’s putting up a barrier for developing female talent as they’re not being given the same opportunities to develop as male acts. We’ve found that by booking a gender-balanced lineup, we’re able to support more female and non-binary artists at an earlier stage and give them the opportunities to develop into headliners of the future.” He continues.
“There is definitely an overall feeling that lineups need to be more diverse. It seems as though that is consciously happening, just perhaps not as quickly as it needs to be.” explains Dan Garber of Tape Music Management “ However live (music) is in a period right now where I think people are playing it safe, booking sure thing ticket sellers. Obviously, if lineups have not been diverse enough before, then this can be a tricky time to push this through. Personally, I don’t think that’s any excuse, the talent and the audience is there.”
I think we can all agree that there are ALWAYS amazing female artists in this country – maybe they just need more of a chance? More of a platform? More of an even playing field, when they are often faced with sexism or overlooked for male bands who bookers claim have a so-called more “bankable name”. We can only hope that Keychange makes an incremental difference and that, as festival bills become more balanced and diverse lower down, the pool of female artists for bookers to pick from becomes even greater. To make sure there IS a pipeline for new music and new female artists and bands we need safeguards, investment, support from the industry and government and bravery from festivals to make change happen”.
I think all of that information above makes it clear that changes can and should be made. That the IWD FEST is so important. Kudos to Speakeasy and Loud Women. It is one of a few opportunities that female artists/female-fronted artists get to on bills and headlining. I understand we should not distinguish artists by gender and divide that way. As I have said before, it is relevant doing so in cases like this. The fact is that women are not being respected. They are putting out the best music but are still not getting headline slots. This celebration of women via the IWD FEST is a lesson to festivals as to…
HOW it should be done.