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Original poster

Music - just for the boys?

53 replies

WilsonFrickett · 04/10/2011 23:08

just watching 'Scotland's greatest album' on catch up. A panel of 6 with one woman who (so far, I'm only 10 mins in) seems to be either struggling to be heard or has nothing to say, and Claire Grogan as the presenting toots. Was there really only one Scottish woman muso available? Or is music still just for the boys?

OP posts:
Original poster
WilsonFrickett · 05/10/2011 11:51

I don't read the music press anymore (too old, rather than too female Smile) and I guess I assumed it had just got better, especially with so many female artists coming through the ranks. I was extra Shock because it was TV as well, because there's usually a fair amount of pressure to balance things properly there. And as far as I could see, the woman that was there was there because she was an MSP, rather than having any serious music creds.

All a bit rubbish, really.

OP posts:
StewieGriffinsMom · 05/10/2011 10:38

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TheSmallClanger · 05/10/2011 10:14

I think there is still a perception that music, or at least "proper music" is a boy thing. I know I read somewhere that the NME pitches itself to advertisers as being aimed at males aged 14-25, although I used to read it, and presumably other female music fans do too.

The past 10-15 years or so have not been good for women in music, but that has changed in the past year or two - lots of great young female artists coming through. I think that punk and post-punk provided a lot of openings for female musicians, as did the American indie rock boom in the 90s - lots of great women there. Although the whole Britpop thing started as quite co-ed in nature, that became part of that vile "lad" phenomenon, and I think the music suffered. It became very conservative, backward-looking and snobbish.

I could write a whole massive post on the airbrushing-out of women like Louise Wener and Sonya Aurora Madan from Britpop's history. There is even a blacklash against a band as great as Elastica now - lots of criticism of them being derivative (all Britpop was derivative) and too middle-class.

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