Every one of them has something kind of special that I like

[lodessa]

So I've been listening to So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter and Living In Clip, both of which J bought me for my birthday last May, and having an Ani DiFranco renaissance as I not so rarely do. Seriously, if you don't have any appreciation for Ani DiFranco I kind of don't have any for you. She's amazing on so many levels and if I had to pick one artist to listen to exclusively for the rest of my life... she'd be it.



But anyways this got me thinking about female artists and feminism and fandom and how often we spend most of our time focused on pretty boys and then I was thinking about Dan Bern's song "Chick Singers". And here's a list of the women mentioned in said song ( personal favorites are bolded):

Bjork, Courtney Love, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Sinead O'Connor, Suzanne Vega, Jill Sobule, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Michelle Shocked, Kate Bush, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bessie Smith, Patti Smith, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, Bonnie Raitt




To follow that up I add a some additional female artists on my list of favorites:

Alanis Morissette, Butterfly Boucher, Fiona Apple, Joni Mitchell, Mirah, Poe, Regina Spektor




So I invite everyone to share their favorites with me, even if it's just by name and nothing else.

Also, downloads and/or pimping available upon request.

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like a lot of those!

I'll throw in Sarah Slean, Dar Williams, Rose Polenzani, Emm Gryner, Sarah Fimm, Amy Miles, Tara McLean, Lily Allen, M.I.A., and Andrea Revel. To name a few.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

sophia_helix and I spent a lot of time listening to Lily Allen while talking about Doctor Who a while back.

[novin-ha.livejournal.com]

Bjork, Courtney Love, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Sinead O'Connor, Suzanne Vega, Jill Sobule, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Michelle Shocked, Kate Bush, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bessie Smith, Patti Smith, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, Bonnie Raitt.

Alanis was the first musician I spent a lot of time looking for, in the pre-mp3 era. I ♥ her. Fiona is great, I love Regina and liek some of the Poe's songs.

I need to learn more about Ani DiFranco.

Lately, I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to Joanna Newsom's "Ys" album... It is amazing. Whenever she sings "Stay with me for awhile... That's an awfully real gun" I am struck with awe.

Also the female vocalists of Bat for Lashes and The Organ and Ladytron. Bat for Lashes is great, The Organ reminds me of The Smiths, except it's contemporary and indie and female vocalist... Ladytron tends to break my heart in some songs.

Tegan & Sara are nice. The Cranberries vocalist, Dolores O'Riordan, has a terrific voice.

I've always liked women singers and not just the pretty boys - I think that I have right about equal amount of women and men singers.

If you feel like it, I'd gladly share something. And I'd love an upload of Ani DiFranco. ♥

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

I love Ladytron a lot! And Tegan and Sara. And some Joanna Newson, too. I was listening to "The Book of Right-On" this morning, and I love "Sprout and the Bean."

If we're listing female vocalists, I'd also point to Metric, Lacuna Coil, Evanescence, Plumb, Rilo Kiley, Ivy, Portishead, Frou Frou, Dresden Dolls, Great Northern...and more.

Oh! I forgot Jem and Eisley and the Distillers and Garbage and...more.

I'm not sure about the gender distribution of the vocalists on my playlist. If I were to guess, I might bet it would lean more toward female.

[novin-ha.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Ivy and Garbage... And sometimes Neko Case and The Cardigans, some P!nk. and to dance? Moloko.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Yeah I made sort of an executive decision with myself to only list solo artists and not bands with female singers (oh Rilo Kiley!)

I tend to flip flop back and forth between listening to female artists and male artists, but the female artists I always come back to, whereas the male ones are more likely to be sort of a phase.

I would love to hear some Joanna Newsom since you are a lot of other people I respect seem to be very into her.

I probably will have to do more than one upload of Ani DiFranco because I could never just pick one song. So expect a plethora of uploads tonight or sometime close to it.

[novin-ha.livejournal.com]

I hope I'll be still on-line - I'm leaving for the weekend (and offline) tomorrow early morning. And the Net is being nasty today -_-

But! I managed to upload this for you: http://www.sendspace.com/file/vyd0j0

Enjoy, or so I hope :D It's Newsom's album "Ys" which is my most listened music right now. Possibly together with "Set the Fire to the Third Bar"...

I looked at my last.fm stats, and it shows, that while I listen to about the same number of women/men, I definitely listen to the women more often ;)

And Tori is sort of my musical love of life. She's comforted me and helped me get through stuff and her concert last year made me cry in public...

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll download it when I get home this afternoon.

Aw. Tori is really hit or miss for me. Like I feel that each song for hers is so specific that it's the perfect thing if you have the experience for it but otherwise I am sort of lost sometimes.

Rilo Kiley's "Does He Love You" used to make me cry all the time, including the one time I saw them live.

[novin-ha.livejournal.com]

Which name is another on my list of "to get to know better". Rilo Kiley ;)

(Also, I'm waiting for the new Faith comic book to show up on torrents because seriously, and I'm with you on Bones. FOX sucks. And I really liked last episode :D)

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I'll upload some of that too then ♥

( Seriously Faith. Also Faith/Giles)
(I am so very pissed off at FOX right now. They keep fucking with Bones' timeslot and it keep persevering but I really think they are determined to find a timeslot it can't survive in)

[novin-ha.livejournal.com]

(Which is so wrong and yet... and yet...)

And my flister gave me a Faith/Buffy for birthday which I totally wish I could show you, because it rocks. Unfortunately, you don't know Polish ;D

And changing Bones timeslot sucks :( I only just got into this show!

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

And yet cannot be resisted.

I am totally jealous. Too bad I am crap with languages.

I know. Especially since they'd actually been gaining viewers this season in the current one. And Friday is a day of doom for TV shows.

[vonnie-k.livejournal.com]

I only have a handful of Ani DiFranco songs in my music library. I like them fine, but I don't think I ever "got" DiFranco like many who love her passionately have. And Tori Amos is a real hit-and-miss for me. On some days, I think she's fabulous and moving, and on other days, I can't take the overwroughtness. I do love Tracy Chapman though. *g*

Glancing at my music library, solo female vocalists I am the most keen on seem to be:

Thea Gilmore (OMG she's AWESOME), Neko Case, Cat Power, Deb Talan, Feist, Martha Wainwright, Laura Veirs, Poe, and of course, Joni. And Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Possibly you have the wrong Ani DiFranco songs for you?

Yeah, I honestly tend to forget about listening to Tori Amos for long periods of time and then get really into it for a week and then not feel it again for a while.

Tracy Chapman is someone I can always listen to though. She's got one of those voices, easy on the ear because it's low, sort of rough but deeply comforting.

I really liked Laura Veirs when sophia_helix and I saw her last spring.

Joni is another one who is totally comfort music for me, I mean really is there any better soundtrack for when you are feeling vulnerable than Blue?

I almost put Jenny Lewis on my list but I like her best when she is being part of Rilo Kiley and I wasn't putting bands so I sort of had a dilemma.

ps. Isn't being able to edit comments amazing?

[anna-bo-banna.livejournal.com]

regina, alanis, ani, fiona. + aimee mann, cat power, jenny lewis, feist, kate nash, natalie merchant, joanna newsom, imogen heap, the pipettes. and kate bush and patti smith are on my list of artists to get to know better.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I had this whole debate about the Jenny Lewis inclusion vs. exclusion, because I really like her as part of Rilo Kiley and I wasn't listing bands just solo female artists.

[anna-bo-banna.livejournal.com]

you don't like her solo stuff?

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I haven't listened to it so lot but it just didn't really capture me the same way..

[caitiedidit.livejournal.com]

Oh, pleeease. I can't believe no one has mentioned Sarah McLachlan. Yeah, so it's lame to admit now, but let's not pretend that we all weren't listening to Fumbling Towards Ecstasy on a loop in 1994.

I also listened to a lot of Dar Williams and Jewel and Sarah Slean and Patty Griffin and Garbage and Cardigans as a kid. A look at iTunes confirms that Goldfrapp is the female artist I listen to the most nowadays, although probably if I hadn't switched computers back in 2005 it would say Imogen Heap. I played that CD so much in 2004 that I doubt I'll ever be able to listen to it ever again. Lately I've been enjoying the new Feist album.

I'm too tired to think of my favorites, though. Good picks by everyone, though.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

For me it was Surfacing.

I always forget about Jewel, because I hated her and then I loved her. Garbage&heats and the Cardigans!

I usually suck at favorites.

love ani

[shakanaman.livejournal.com]

I second your Regina Spektor, and raise you Neko Case, Joan Baez, Mirah, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Aretha Franklin, Carole King and Judy Collins.


Bjork, Courtney Love, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Sinead O'Connor, Suzanne Vega, Jill Sobule, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Michelle Shocked, Kate Bush, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bessie Smith, Patti Smith, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, Bonnie Raitt

Re: love ani

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I totally already had Mirah on my list, Thea Jane!

I always feel sort of weird because my parents were too young (and possibly hip?) for me to know a lot of the traditional favorites. Like I feel like I should like them but I never really got exposed enough to.

[hobviously.livejournal.com]

You should look into Joanna Newsom, guy.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

That is the impression that I am getting from responses to this post.

[nentari.livejournal.com]

My personal favourite is Hazel O'Connor, whom I'm sure you don't know, as she's a very obscure name nowadays. She's an Irish punk singer/songwriter/actress who is still around, but whose greatest successes were in the late '70s-early '80s.
Unfortunately I cannot upload songs online (*plans on adding an extra item for your Christmas package*), but if you're curious here's some of my favourite Hazel songs on YouTube:

* Will You? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UbHXSsiUnE)
* Big Brother (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loddguyIgao) (from the movie Breaking Glass)
* /Cover Plus) We're All Grown Up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nfwJ-Lr9Is) (I've been in love with this song ever since I was five years old)

As for those mentioned in Chick Singers, my personal favourites are thus:
Bjork, Courtney Love, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Sinead O'Connor, Suzanne Vega, Jill Sobule, Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, Ani DiFranco, Michelle Shocked, Kate Bush, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Bessie Smith, Patti Smith, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, Bonnie Raitt
Please don't hate me for not bloding Ani DiFranco - I just don't know much about her, as she's as unknown here as Hazel might be to you.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Ignorance is totally understandable and forgivable. Can you download? I can add something to your package if not.

[nentari.livejournal.com]

I can't do that either. My bandwidth is more limited now, and I keep having accessing problems during Happy Hours, when said limit doesn't exist.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

No problem *hugs* it will just make what I end up mailing more thorough.

[nentari.livejournal.com]

:D

[ciachick711.livejournal.com]

Rachael Yamagata is awesome. She only has one album out, but there should be another one soon.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

YAY