As the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame brings female artists to centre stage, is 2023 the Year of the Woman in music?
With Beyonce and Taylor Swift as pop’s reigning queens, and Kate Bush and Missy Elliott among the pioneers recognised by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2023 feels like a banner year. Roisin O’Connor reports
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Your support makes all the difference.In a year where Taylor Swift and Beyoncé were both credited with driving up economies in every region they toured, the induction of several female pioneers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame feels more than apt.
Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott and Chaka Khan are among the artists recognised in a banner year for women in music.
With her songs having found a new generation of fans via the inclusion of “Running Up That Hill” in the Netflix smash Stranger Things, Bush leads the charge for Brits this year. Meanwhile, Missy Elliott remains a hugely influential figure in hip hop, and Chaka Khan’s back catalogue is still routinely pored over by DJs and producers in search of the next club hit.
Bringing female artists to the centre stage is a welcome step forward for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which has faced scathing criticism over the years for an induction process where fewer than nine per cent of inductees have been women.
But there are still huge problems in the music industry. Just yesterday, organisers of the Isle of Wight Festival were slammed for announcing all male headliners.
Meanwhile, establishment figures still feel empowered to utter problematic statements without so much as a “mic check, one, two,” before opening their mouths.
In recent years, the Rock Hall has been attempting to diversify. These efforts are being led by chairman John Sykes, a media executive who took over from Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner in 2020.
There’s plenty of work left to do, not least thanks to Wenner himself, who was ousted from the Rock Hall board earlier this year.
Promoting his new book The Masters, Wenner had attempted to justify the absence of women and artists of colour from his book – a collection of interviews with stars such as Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen – by claiming they weren’t “articulate enough” to qualify as “philosophers of rock”.
“In my interview with The New York Times I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks,” Wenner said in an apology.
Speaking to the NYT this week, Skyes explained how he has attempted to introduce better representation to the nominating committee. “We have to do better, but we’re making progress,” he said.
Addressing the Wenner controversy, Sykes insisted that the same action would have been taken against any member of the board who made such remarks.
“Those things go against the heart and soul of what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is all about,” he said. “Rock ’n’ roll doesn’t know colour. It doesn’t know gender. And for us to have one of our board members say that, we felt that we couldn’t do our jobs continuing with someone like that as part of our community.”
But in an era where strong, female artists routinely dominate the top of the charts and streaming platforms, why does 2023 feel like such a watershed moment?
In October, Swift was officially declared a billionare thanks to her multiple album releases, her Eras tour, and her box office smash, the Eras concert film, shortly after receiving critical acclaim and chart success with her latest studio album, Midnights.
She’s also just released a re-recorded version of 1989, which has secured the biggest opening week of any album this year.
These successes seem certain to continue. In a week’s time, on 10 November, we’ll find out who’s been nominated at the 2024 Grammy Awards. For the coveted Album of the Year prize, there seem to be three or four likely frontrunners, all of them by women: Midnights by Taylor Swift, GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo, SOS by SZA, and Do You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd by Lana Del Rey.
It’s been four years since Dua Lipa called out then-Grammys president Neil Portnow, who’d claimed women needed to “step up” if they wanted to be recognised by the Recording Academy – another institution that has been accused of ignoring the achievements of women. Now, it’s the Academy itself, and the Rock Hall, that are expected to step up.
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