Back in
early 2012, when everything was becoming new, I worked my way through Rolling
Stone's 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time. It was interesting, but in
addition to my own quibbles, the Stereogum list had pages and pages of comments
that I decided to go through as well. I finally got to where I could write
about those in August of 2013, and it led to several blog posts, and one
Spotify playlist, Guitar Sampler.
Also, in
October 2013, I started posting a daily song, which has gone through themes of
Misfits songs and Halloween videos, the Guitar Sampler and Best Bridges
playlists, and songs from bands I have reviewed.
As I was
doing this, I was thinking that I should revisit two of the posts from after
the guitar comments. Guitar Sampler is 29 songs long, so pretty lengthy, but it
still left out a lot. I discovered a lot while I was going through it. I
finished reviewed bands on February 28th, and started revisiting Women Rock on
March 1st. Apparently March was Woman's History Month, so it made sense. Also,
it ended up being pretty cool.
When I
wrote the original post, I was looking specifically at songs that might
reasonably be included on a list of the 100 Greatest Guitar songs, and where
women were playing the guitar, which was pretty restrictive.
Basically I
started looking at everyone whom I had mentioned and their songs, except for
"Crazy On You" by Heart, because that ended up in the Guitar Sampler
playlist. That meant that it just came down to whether the song rocked,
regardless of whether or not there was virtuoso guitar work on it. A lot of
these songs really rocked.
It didn't
feel right if it was not a female voice, which means there is still no Pixies
for Kim Deal or Talking Heads for Tina Weymouth. Truth be told, I don't really
like the Pixies, and I like Talking Heads okay, but I am not really into them,
so I am not heartbroken over it. I also considered putting in something by the
Dandy Warhols for Zia McCabe, but stuck with female voices.
That
actually eliminated quite a few bands. For example, I thought of using
something by X, but I felt like I was hearing John Doe more than Exene
Cervenka, so I shied away from it. The one partial exception I made is that I
did include Device for Holly Knight, where you hear a lot of Paul Engemann, but
Holly's voice is there, and also, she has contributed so much as a songwriter.
I did early
on include a song by the Runaways, and it was the song of the day, but I ended
up deleting it from the playlist because I don't really like the Runaways. That
freed me up to include more bands that I would not listen to on a regular
basis, because many of them are still important. I really don't like Courtney
Love, but she has played a role, and I thought "Celebrity Skin" was
an okay song.
There were
other people I left out completely. Sometimes I just hated the songs too much,
but sometimes there were genre questions. Maybe some songs were more pop, or
soul. I still tried to mainly stick with rock, and that can be questioned. Chaka
Khan might not be rock, but I saw it was her birthday, and that pushed it over
the edge.
There were
basically two big things that I learned. One is that there was always more. I
didn't know how many I would find, but then I kept remembering different names.
I looked up Siouxsie and the Banshees, and I didn't find anything I wanted, but
that led me to Girlschool and the Slits. I looked up Dusty Springfield and
Ronnie Specter because of vocals they did on other songs, and they didn't fit
into this, but they could fit into somewhere else. (And tragically, Joan Jett
is not on the playlist because Spotify does not have what I want.)
I decided I
wanted to have a different artist for every day in March, and I did. Now I am
doing some repeats, because there were some artists where I had a really hard
time picking between multiple songs. I could add a lot more. There is a lot
there. And that was the second point: you have to look.
I was
reading recently about someone watching The Big Sleep and noticing that
a cabbie and two bookstore employees were played by women, which seemed
unusual. More research showed that the Los Angeles Police Department in the
1940's was very integrated. Some of that was the war, and some of that was
immigration, but if now we picture what that police department would look like,
we imagine all white men.
I have been
able to find some statistics on this. Last year in movies, the percentage of
speaking parts that went to women was 28%, down from a third the year before. In
group scenes, if it is 17% women, people remember it as 50/50.
When I was
writing Canceling Colbert, it occurred to me that I bet he didn't have many
people of color on staff, but I didn't know. Yesterday I clicked on an article
that confirmed it. It is very white. And it was not done intentionally, but it
happened. It is easier for it to happen that way, for a multitude of reasons,
but it weakens you. That show would be better written if they made an effort to
broaden their base. And people might call that political correctness, but it's
restoring a balance where we forget that there were black cowboys and Asian cops
and so much other diversity that our minds shut out. There are lots of women
who rock, but that is just one story of many built around a common theme.
I will get
at some point make a playlist for the "You Get A Gold Star" post. It
may include songs from the post on "Guitar Stuff that Makes Me Happy".
There will be more from bands I've reviewed since Northcote -- all sorts of
good stuff is on the way, and there is always more you can do with it. I love
that.
For this
list, I did think about including Baby Metal, but I'm afraid it's kind of
exploitative. However, here are some girls who could easily end up on a future
list:
Nurture
them!
The list:
3/1 "One Shot of Poison" by Lita Ford
3/2 "I Love Rock & Roll" by Joan Jett and the
Blackhearts
3/3 "California Paradise" by
the Runaways
3/4 "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar
3/5 "We Got The Beat" by The Go-Go's
3/6 "Hanging On a Heart Attack" by Device
3/7 "Goodbye To You" by Scandal
3/8 "Back On The Chain Gang" by the Pretenders
3/9 "Alone" by Heart
3/10 "Joey" by Concrete Blonde
3/11 "Edge of a Broken Heart" by Vixen
3/12 "I Drove All Night" by Cyndi Lauper
3/13 "I Don't Wanna Fight" by Tina Turner
3/14 "Like Flames" by Berlin
3/15 "Walking On Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox
3/16 "Just Like Jesse James" by Cher
3/17 "Mandinka" by Sinead O'Connor
3/18 "Who Knew" by Pink
3/19 "Call Me" by Blondie
3/20 "Demolition Boys" by Girlschool
3/21 "Come To My Window" by Melissa Etheridge
3/22 "Take It Off" by The Donnas
3/23 "Respect" by Aretha Franklin
3/24 "I'm Every Woman" by Chaka Khan
3/25 "Pilate" by Fire Party
3/26 "Celebrity Skin" by Hole
3/27 "Rock N Roll" by Avril Lavigne
3/28 "Because the Night" by Patti Smith
3/29 "Rebel Girl" and Bikini Kill
3/30 "Pleasure Principle" by Janet Jackson
3/31 "Ballroom Blitz" by Tia Carrere
4/1 "Playin' With Fire" by Lita Ford
4/2 "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the
Blackhearts
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment