Really interesting piece in the Guardian today about the current state of British pop music and the fact that the five best selling albums in the UK are all by women. The Guardian wonders if this is a cyclical thing or the sign of a sea change in British musical tastes. In fact the Guardian even undersells the case a little because if you look at the British album chart you'll see that there is only one male vocalist in the top 12 best selling albums. Obviously Amy Winehouse is only there because of the recent tragedy of her death - but like Winehouse there are many powerful female singers who, crucially, write and perform their own material: Adele, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and others like Beyonce and Rihanna who have co-writing credits....
I think it's a great thing. As I've gotten older I've found it much harder to listen to male vocalists. Singing pop songs seems like an utterly ridiculous job for a man and whenever I see some bloke doing it with his hair gelled back and wearing a shiny jacket, I'm a bit embarrassed for him. (I still can't believe I used to think Thom Yorke was cool.) It's even worse if you're fronting a band or if you're a country and western singer. When Adele or Dolly Parton or Lady Gaga or whoever is up there belting her heart out you can emotionally buy into the whole experience but grown men shouldn't be doing that should they? Men should be out fixing the fence or chopping wood for winter or whittling things not singing songs about how they feel in front of strangers.
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I think this is also why there are so few African American singers under 30. Plenty or rappers yes, singers no. African American culture is always about five to ten years ahead of mainstream culture so maybe we're all just catching up? Who knows.
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When I used to play Dungeons and Dragons (this is the point in the post where my wife stops reading) of all the characters you could be: ranger, fighter, thief, magician, cleric, illusionist etc. the lamest of all was the bard. Nobody wanted to be a bloody bard! Even in the nerdy world of D&D it was just not a suitable job for a man. Still isn't.
