Review retrospective: Black women rock!

In 2015, at least 170 of the daily songs were by Black women, plus one agender person.

It started because people kept mentioning various Black women artists. I noticed it more after I started doing music reviews. I had been taking notes, and I decided that February would be all songs by Black women. 

It was not merely that I had more than 28 days worth of notes, but also that the notes kept jogging other memories. Then when I would track one note or memory down I would find other things. 

For example, I remembered girl groups from the 60s. The Supremes were the most famous, but I remembered others; was I forgetting some? It wasn't so much that as that there were so many I had never heard of. I ended up including songs by 19 girl groups. Well, one of them had a man in the video who seemed to be a part of the group, but it didn't seem right to leave them out.

It was also more complicated than I thought. I tried to go in a kind of chronological order, but many of these women have had exceedingly long and varied careers. 

One example of that is Cissy Houston. I have always been told that Whitney Houston's mother was a gospel singer. Well, the Sweet Inspirations were the most religious of the girl groups, but I wanted a solo song too, and the first one I found sounded like disco to me. I'm not saying that she hasn't sung any gospel, but defining her as a gospel singer seems to overlook a lot.

2015 was probably the exact right year to do this. Selma started its wide theatrical release on January 9th (I wrote at least six posts on the movie alone) and then The Wiz Live! aired on December 3rd.

Ledisi was in my notes, but she was also in Selma. That alone would have made me review her (and did). 

Despite my attempts to cover everyone, I had not thought of nor posted a song from Stephanie Mills. Then people were talking about her because of The Wiz Live! in which she played Auntie Em, but also because she had played Dorothy in the original stage version, from whence she got her signature song, "Home". 

I had only seen the movie version, with Diana Ross, but then once I looked her up, she also had a Grammy winning hit single, "Never Knew Love Like This Before" from 1981. 

Yes, I'd heard that before. It had been a while and I had forgotten it, and I had never known her name, but yes, there was something familiar again.

The theme of that whole process really was that there is always more. There is more to remember, more to learn, and with so much variety there will be more that you love.

This was probably also the listening project that inspired the most reviews, though I will eventually review more of the Greatest Guitar and Emo bands. 

Regardless, just from going through and trying to give more Black women the song of the day, I ended up reviewing (in order) Ledisi, Leona Lewis, Fefe Dobson, Joan Armatrading, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Solange, Noname, Melba Liston, and Mary J. Blige. 

And even though it wasn't part of that, I did get around to reviewing Stephanie Mills.

And at the time I still did not know that Terrie Odabi, or Angélique Kidjo, or Lady A existed. If I were to do another big focus on celebrating Black women in song, I would have to include them now.

There are still artists that I should listen to more. I really should make a play list.

As it is, my greatest regret of that original post capturing the songs -- which has been an invaluable reference -- was the name: Musical Black Girls. I was kind of thinking about Black Girl Magic, and I remember thinking that "women" was better but that some of them were pretty young, and also sometimes it feels weird stating outright that you are making a distinction by race (though less so for me in 2021 than in 2015). And of course, a lot of the songs weren't rock... I worry too much.

It was still a good effort and I feel good about it.

Songs for the week:

“Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis -- I initially got most excited by her Christmas song, "One More Sleep", but this is good too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzo-EL_62fQ

“Drop The Pilot” by Joan Armatrading -- It was a fight with "Down to Zero" but this won.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifARMmcqhD8

“Throw It Away” by Abbey Lincoln -- This song has a lot of versions, but I think hers is the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POO-n-NLbss

“The Day I Found Myself” by Honey Cone -- I had not heard this one before, and it is pretty great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k0rCEaon2o

“Everything” by Fefe Dobson -- I listened to my old favorites this time around, and realized I had forgotten this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7n-C5E3UxA

“Pieces of Me” by Ledisi -- So many years later, this is still such a beautiful song, with so much heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McUj4t3TkPA

“I Decided” by Solange -- She had three songs that I absolutely had to use after reviewing her, but this is my favorite, and I think the most fun, with many of her other videos being exquisitely serious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8f895h6a-E

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/musical-black-girls.html