Why Can Women Be Played Now?

[2shane7]

Let me say flat out that I don't support my local (or any) "alternative" stations anymore. They deserve any falling ratings that they get, because most of them suck.

Back in the mid-90s, when you could seriously find one of the most gender-balanced formats in Alternative, I was in heaven. Then, as we all know, they stopped playing women completely from 1999 to 2002-ish.

Personally, I don't know how this is even legal. A girl calls a radio station and is told "we don't play female artists." In this day and age, I'm surprised some feminist group hasn't found a way to file a lawsuit against such utter discrimination.

So my question is ... why can we now find ourselves "treated" to one or two big hits by a female-fronted band per year? Evanescence, Courtney, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, and now Garbage have been "allowed" significant airplay (one at a time, mind you; certainly not two in a row). What happened? I mean, don't tell me that our Eminem/50 Cent/sexist pig mentality "suddenly" changed in two years time ... because everyone knows that three years ago, this OUTSTANDING Garbage track wouldn't have seen the light of day. Maybe it's got something to do with "Desperate Houswives" ...

Really, though, as grumpy and cynical as I sound ... I'm looking for a grounded, realistic answer ... why are the stations humbling themselves enough to allow a few estrogen laden hits? Any input would be appreciated ...

[tobedawg]

It's all about cycles..

My guess would be that around the time of radio deregulation, a new format called MODERN A/C began to take off.. It was a lighter more female oriented Alternative type station that played artists like Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Natalie Merchant, etc.. and helped to break out artists many of these artists...

Alternative as a format, began suffering in the ratings because of the advent of the Modern A/C Format, and adjusted to a more male-rockier sound... Back in 1998, it seemed that most of the songs that hit #1 on the Alternative Chart were also big Hot/Modern A/C Hits such as The Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris", Fastball's "The Way", and even Everlast's "What It's Like".. So the distance was drawn, and Alternative embraced the harder/Nu-Metal sound..

At the time, Active Rock and Rock radio hadn't yet embraced artists like Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock... Also, The stations that DID play them, played them back to back with Classic Rock songs, which, at the time, weren't particularly popular with the younger demos... (nowadays Classic Rock is making a huge comback).. So Many Alternative stations went with it and became "New Rock" Type stations... Many with Stern or shock jocks in the morning, "Loveline" at night, and edgy music all day.. The only female artist played on most stations was Gwen Stefani from "No Doubt" and maybe occassionally Hole or Garbage..

Rebranding and evolution of the format began about 2-3 years ago, so hopefully we will see many more female artists. I don't expect to see a repeat of 1995 anytime soon, (When Alternative Radio embraced Alanis Morrissette, Joan Osbourne, Garbage, Natalie Merchant, Hole, Poe, No Doubt, Ruby, Bjork, etc.. etc..), but there will definately be improvements over perhaps 2000 or 2001..

[dragoneyez]

This has much more to do with corporate greed and the further commercialism of radio (and music in general) than any "sexism" issue.

Commercially, male rock bands attract a larger audience to Alt radio. And the larger the audience, the greater the commission for radio conglomerates get from advertising. The greater commission the greater profit. And so on and so forth.

If female soloists and bands attracted a large audience to Alt. radio, then you'd have a female dominated format instead.

About 95% of American radio stations are run by large corporations who are only interested in money (from advertising). So, whatever music attracts the largest percentage of their largest demographic is the music that they will play. That's why you probably shouldn't be listening to radio at all. The lower their ratings dip, the more receptive they may become to music that's actually good or original.

[oscillations.]

part of it is the fact that Alt radio is searching for a new identity now. Nu metal and cock rock seem to be dying away, and now, fey bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Killers can have big hits with their dancey rock sound. Another thing is, the "90's" seem to be back and that explains why NIN, Beck, and GARBAGE have hits. If Garbage had kept the pop-lite sound of their last album, there is no way they would be getting play. But the fact that a lot of people are anticipating the new album and that Shirley has returned to her supervixen look and they have adopted a heavier sound, makes their return more viable to rock radio. As it is, I believe that "Why Do You Love Me" deserves to be Top 5, not just Top 10. It could have gotten there, too, if stations hadn't killed it with too much early play. That being said, it seems to be stablizing and on the verge of regaining it's bullet, so we'll see. I do think it might do well on Pop as well. And I believe the second single "Sex Is Not The Enemy" could be one of their biggest hits to date.

But why can't other female-fronted groups get this play now? Why was Courtney Love pretty much given the finger by rock radio? "Mono" was a cool song but peaked briefly at the bottom of the Top 20. "Hold Onto Me" got no play really. Auf Der Maur went nowhere. Tegan and Sara, while played a lot on certain stations, never made it out of the 40s.
And The Sounds, The Donnas, and Sahara Hotnights seem unable to garner any airplay. Even No Doubt, with "It's My Life", couldn't get past #36.

It disturbs me. Garbage is my favorite band, and I'm happy to see WDYLM doing well and frankly, I'm amazed they are getting played again at all, because a year ago, I couldn't have predicted it. But I wish that we would see more females on the format this year. But until radio programmers realize that females DO listen to rock radio, they won't be convinced that it's something people want to hear. (Because you know, it would be unHEARD of for a male to want to hear a female voice on rock radio )

[friday]

2shane7 said:

Back in the mid-90s, when you could seriously find one of the most gender-balanced formats in Alternative, I was in heaven.  Then, as we all know, they stopped playing women completely from 1999 to 2002-ish.

I checked my archives, and among 218 songs that debuted on the Radio and Records Alternative chart in 1995, only 32 of them (that I know of) had a female lead vocalist. That breaks down to a little more than 1 out of every 7 songs.

Granted, 32 is probably way better than what you'd see today, but I don't think it was ever as if literally every other song played had a girl singing.

While I dont have statistics to back me up here, I'm pretty sure Pop has always been more or less 1:1 in terms of playing each gender.

[MoreAdventurous]

CherryCrush said:

I believe the second single "Sex Is Not The Enemy" could be one of their biggest hits to date.

Off-topic, but that's the second single?

Back on topic, I have to agree with dragoneyes. Most people don't tune in to an alt. station to hear female voices. Sucks for great bands like the Distillers, Garbage, & the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but yeah.

I do think its getting better though. I'm guessing that the reason there are occasional hits by females, is because people are getting bored with the format. And the bands I mentioned above arguably have much more talent and have a much more varied sound than say, Linkin Park.

[Adore]

Well, I think it's more of the fact that there aren't that many radio-friendly female fronted/all female bands (or, for that matter, many female bands in general). Rock has pretty much always been a cock-fest... sure Veruca Salt, Hole, etc. had hits during the Alternative Boom, but they were still outnumbered by the male counterpart. I think, in a way, that (rock) radio is afraid of strong female characters. There's a reason why Patti Smith has never had a hit (I think "Dancing Barefoot" may have charted in the 70s), yet Blondie was huge . Or wh PJ Harvey is a radio non-entity, while Garbage is huge (I love Garbage, and I'm surely not saying that they are without artistic merit, but Shirley manson's coy, sort of flirtatious vibe is a definite plus). Or, to be more current, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs only had a hit with the song that was most uncharacteristic of them, I.E. it was totally devoid of the SEXUALITY that's all over their other songs. Why wasn't "Date With the Night" big on Alt. Radio? It's not because it's too 'out there'... the Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes, The Von Bondies, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand... all stylistically similar and have had success.

Courtney Love is a bit of an anomoly. Her ties with Cobain definitely helped her become a force on Alt. Radio... and thus be a huge quasi-feminist voice. I honestly think that if she had actually come back with something GOOD (let's be honest here, "Mono" was garbage, and America's Sweetheart is absolutely dreadful. I could possibly have seen "But Julian..." or "I'll Do Anything" as lead off singles, seing as they have strongs hooks and are pretty much the only tolderable songs on the record), she would have had a hit. But, alas, she didn't. Auf Der Maur's material wasn't very good either, and she's basically a no-name. Sure, she was in the Smashing Pumpkins during the Machina-era, but Machina was a commerical failure.

There are tons of good female fronted bands, but do you honestly think we'll hear the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, Pretty Girls Make Graves,etc. on radio? I don't.

[Adore]

This is a great topic, BTW. Kudos to the creator.

[halo19]

Now that you've mentioned them, might your name be a Pumpkins' reference? If so, then I think that's really cool.

Anyways, I say that it is kind of irrelevant. I'm glad the format has shifted away from what it used to be. It's undoubtful that Garbage would not have touched Alt. with that song in 2001-2, seeing as its two singles did pretty much nothing on the charts. However, those were kind of inappropriate choices of songs for the time.

PJ Harvey had made the chart with "Good Fortune" and "This Is Love", in spite of the fact that I think both only got as far as the 40s, so there's some stuff that's not getting the promoted the way it would seem. "The Letter" never came close to charting.

Sleater-Kinney, while wonderful, aren't a major-label band to begin with, so they probably won't be played. It would be great though, as I feel that they're progressively improving with time.

Björk's singles from Debut did fine, but since then she hasn't really done much on the format (although "Army of Me" was a top-30 hit and "It's Oh So Quiet" scraped). Nothing since has touched the chart and doesn't really fit with any hit radio formats to begin with.

I don't really get why "Date With the Night" wasn't a hit, but I'm glad "Maps" was. I also think "Y Control" was shafted by radio.

I happened to like Auf der Maur.

Lennon did nothing, and Joydrop only really had a hit with "Beautiful".. I don't really mind that Sahara Hotnights aren't doing anything because I don't really like them very much.

[Mr. Joe]

Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff are cool! But, I know they don't play on Modern Rock stations (like KROQ).

[chillpill]

Mar 20, 2005 22:18:28 GMT -5 Mr. Joe said:

Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff are cool! But, I know they don't play on Modern Rock stations (like KROQ).

What the fuck? ???

[jvandyck87]

^More like What The Fuck to you!!! You just revived a thread from 6 years ago just so you could say "what the fuck" to somebody who probably doesn't post here anymore. Why?

[Ron57]

Haha. I was reading all this interestingly, and then realized that it was like 6 years old xD

[crash46]

Yeah I read it too, but recognized the names of these members quickly enough to realize it wasn't a current topic. Plus it all came from an era where the internet population clearly was much more enlightened than it is today, even though every now and then we'd leave the gate open and Joes The Man would come through.

Nowadays, anyway, if your indie band doesn't have a chick in it doing something, you're not cool enough.

[American Idiot]

Ah, Joe The Man. He was a very interesting character back then that made this place quite interesting.

[Deleted]

Rock stations shouldn't avoid women tbh.

[atlantaboy]

Sept 5, 2011 13:38:14 GMT -5 @iwannago said:

Rock stations shouldn't avoid women to be honest.

Who are they avoiding that you think they should be playing?

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I think this is a situation where it's not really a sexist issue even if people want to make it out to be. It's like saying country radio is being racist because they never play music by non-white country singers. Of course, most of us are aware of the lack of mainstream non-white country artists. If it's an issue of race, it's not on the part of the radio stations but perhaps the labels themselves for not promoting the artists... if they're even there.

I think there has been a void of female-fronted bands over the last while that has been diminishing again in recent years. Of course, the harder rock formats don't play as many female vocalists but it's probably due more to a lack of them rather than it being a refusal to play them in the first place.

[out of reach]

Flyleaf isn't doing too bad. Halestorm is up and coming. Evanesence and Nightwish are obviously big bands. I'm not sure that women fronted rock bands will ever be dominant in rock but i'm not sure they really suffer as well, maybe it is just a matter of less women wanting to do it because it's not that popular or labels trying to steer women away from it somewhat.

[Deleted]

Sept 6, 2011 18:10:51 GMT -5 atlantaboy said:

Sept 5, 2011 13:38:14 GMT -5 @iwannago said:

Rock stations shouldn't avoid women to be honest.

Who are they avoiding that you think they should be playing?

At the moment I can't think of anyone but in recent years they have avoided a lot of females that they played in the 90's such as Alanis Morissette, Hole (if I recall their last album flopped on rock radio although I could be wrong), Garbage aside from "Why Do You Love Me", Dolores O'Riordan's solo stuff which I thought was pretty rock friendly, and many others but those are the first few to come to my mind.

[Devin]

Alanis Morissette's music does not fit alternative radio, just for the simple fact that they are pure pop songs.
Hole's last album did underperform, I just don't think they fit in to the environment for rock radio at the moment, plus I think PDs could care less about them these days.

[HereIsGone]

So...we have to play anything put out from women just 'cause they're women? No offense, but that's a terrible argument. Anything by anyone should be there because it's a good song. No matter who does it.

[lockebox]

I think this has become less of a problem since the "indie phase" on radio hit full flow. The likes of Adele, Evanescence, Florence + The Machine, Ida Maria, Joy Formidable, Metric, The Naked & Famous, Paramore, Shiny Toy Guns & Yeah Yeah Yeahs have all charted on Alternative recently. I'm probably missing some aswell.

[rockmaniac]

they can play anything out, especially from a female-fronted band. most rock radio stations are doing it, especially with Evanescence's What You Want now out.