Are women really taking over pop music?

This week The Guardian carries an article arguing that women are taking over the pop music industry and men just can’t compete. The article, ‘Men can’t do pop music anymore’ by Sophie Heawood (don’t blame her for the headline – sub editors usually write these), highlights the fact that the top five albums in the UK charts are by women, arguing that the music industry has become more receptive to female artists.

There is no doubt that in recent years we have seen a spate of very talented women achieving commercial success with their music in a way that just wasn’t happening a few years earlier – Amy Winehouse, Adele, Florence Welch, La Roux and Lady Gaga are a few of the examples cited in the article. But I fear it’s too early to declare that the revolution has come.

Citing a list of male artists such as Calvin Harris, Tinie Tempah and Tinchy Stryder who have topped the charts of late, the article asks, “But would you really recognise any of these blokes if they stood next to you in Tesco?” No, I wouldn’t (though I am hopelessly out of touch with chart music these days) – but then male artists are not generally expected to look as good as Beyoncé  in order to get ahead – they do not get more column inches written about their appearance than their music. A nice face helps, but it’s not a necessity in the way that it still seems to be for women. Nor do they even need a unique voice like Amy Winehouse or a creative vision like Lady Gaga.

These women have got where they are not because the rules have changed in the music industry, but in spite of the fact that they refused to play by the rules. As the article acknowledges, “the thing about these top five albums is that they were all made by women with a bloody-minded determination, and bigger balls* than their male counterparts… they know all the rules inside out. It’s just that they choose when to break them.”

Adele has an exceptional talent, but still has to put up with snide, often thinly veiled attacks on her appearance, (which she deals with admirably) despite being a critically acclaimed and commercially successful artist. Lady Gaga “had to fight her record company, who wanted to put a straightforward, borderline soft-porn image of her” on the cover of her debut album. These women’s success demonstrates that the public can connect with female performers who are just being themselves – that the record companies’ assumption that women artists need to be skinny, half naked and gyrating wildly in order to be successful is simply not true.

Beyoncé I am less convinced by – though I don’t doubt her talent or business-savvy, her patently untrue (and grammatically incorrect) assertion that “girls” run the world rubs me up the wrong way. The video speaks more of a power derived from sexual manipulation than of true emancipation (and its narrative of sexy women overpowering a group of armed men in what seems to be a Middle Eastern conflict zone using the power of provocative dancing seems more than a little tasteless at a time when real women are being harrassed and sexually abused for their part in the Arab Spring).

The A&R departments go where the money is, so let’s hope that the growing success of female artists who throw out the rule book leads record companies to take a more open minded approach to female talent. But it’s too early to rest on our laurels. I join Sophie Haewood in hoping that this is a permanent change and not merely a fad, but it’s now up to us as artists, and as consumers, to see this crack of light, stick a crowbar in and jam the door open so that many more talented women can follow in their footsteps without having to compromise themselves for an industry that wants to sell only stereotypes.

*I still object to the idea that having courage/conviction/determination is somehow akin to having testicles – many of us manage just fine without them!