Hello all. Here's a departure from my usual blog material, but I thought why not share it here? I've also posted this on some of my social media accounts.
Even before Sinead O' Connor's death, I was thinking this week about the rise of women music artists that made it during the '90s. They really defined much of the music landscape of that decade, and I don't think that's been realized and discussed nearly enough.
Think about it: Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan, Sinead O' Connor, Tracy Chapman, Alanis Morrisette, Liz Phair, Courtney Love and Hole, Jewel, Melissa Etheridge, The Indigo Girls, k.d. lang, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani in her No Doubt days, Natalie Merchant, Paula Cole, Britney Spears, Christine Aguilera, and I'm sure I'm missing some. Look at this list...wow! And I'm sure I'm missing several more.
I'm not sure any other decade has had that many female music stars before or since. And yet I don't think people think about this when they think about 90s music.
Sure, the decade is also defined by grunge and the evolution of hip hop, but wow, what a decade for female artists!
I don't know where else to go with this, but I thought it was worth sharing.
One last thing: I'm listening to Sarah McLachlin's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album from 1993, an album thirty years old, as I write this.
From the top of the charts, Norah Jones comes to mind (as does, from other charts, her half-sister Anoushka Shankar)...and all the bands I picked up on in the '80s and earlier, and the efflorescence of Riot Grrl and other feminist bands who took the baton from from them (or shared it!) and ran on.
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