On the subject of women in indie, I remember that I never did get into much female fronted music as a kid. It was all R.E.M., Billy Bragg, The Pogues, Bob Dylan and stuff like that. Not much that was current and, for no obvious reason, not much stuff made by women, particularly with lead female vocals. Maybe if I’d been more into Motown and soul that might have been different, but I never really crossed paths with Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez or Marianne Faithfull either, who were all working in the same basic territory which I was exploring at the time. Sandy Denny was one of the most conspicuous exceptions, but I can’t think of many others off the top of my head.
This didn’t really change until I went to university. All that was really different there was that I became considerably more aware of popular music which was popular away from the dominance of the likes of MTV and so on. So I started getting into bands like Saint Etienne and their ilk and I was sort of interested in the Cranberries without ever really clicking with them. The real sea change was of course the explosion of sassy, lady-led groups which came with Britpop. It became such an obvious phenomenon that I seem to recall Louise Wener of Sleeper wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘Just Another Female-Fronted Band’ at some point, although my memory is far from definite on the subject.
Anyhow, I got really into Sleeper (although perhaps only really from their second album onwards, rather than their first), I loved the first two Echobelly albums and I really liked Belly as well. Elastica were around at the same time, but I never quite got into them, and the Cocteau Twins were really good too, but not quite Britpop I guess. If you follow those links then you’ll be able to pick up almost any of these albums for a pittance on Amazon Marketplace, and there’s some amazing stuff there.
Maybe it’s because it was the first popular movement I engaged with at the time, but I still have a real affection for Britpop, despite its foisting the likes of Menswear on us. It was brash and confident, and maybe that was the attitude which I responded to the most in this plethora of female-led rock bands. I know that same attitude was largely the undoing of the movement as a whole in the end, as it got all tangled up in itself. And with the decline of Britpop most of these groups disappeared from the scene to a large extent.
It was fun though – lots of fun. It was the first time I’d really engaged with the thrill of anticipating new music, as opposed to exploring what was already out there. It sounds dated as hell listening back to it now, and maybe that’s why those albums are all so cheap, but there are too many memories for that to matter much.
Sleeper – Lie Detector
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Echobelly – King of the Kerb
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Belly – Untitled and Unsung
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Cocteau Twins – Tishbite
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I’m not sure why the end of the noughties should necessarily lead to any kind of retrospective of the nineties, but it has. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I just feel it’s way too early for me to figure out what I make of the noughties.
