A rant-free, politics-free blog entry. No, really!

Afternoon, gentle readers. I've had a ridiculously busy day. I've seen students who failed their essays to advise them on resits. I've seen students collecting their work (hint: the ones who do well are the ones who collect their essays whatever grade they achieved) and I've been to a long long meeting to discuss how the union can help a hard-working, undervalued group of colleagues. So I'm tired, but I'm feeling like I've been helpful.

Once back from the meeting, I bumped into a colleague who observed that there are 'no female guitarists' or lead singers.

Oh dear. Ohdearohdearohdear. Where to start? So instead of my usually sterile dry political moaning, I thought I'd collect some of my favourite female musicians from across the musical genres. The only ones I'm excluding are the ones you should all know about and adore already: Baez, Mitchell, Kate Bush, Blondie, PJ and so on. It's quite interesting going to Youtube for these: I've never had music TV and not seen all these bands live, so it's fascinating seeing what they actually look like. Also in honour of Kim Deal, now ex-of Pixies but still presiding genius of The Breeders.

In no particular order:

The world's greatest bass hook ever: The Breeders' 'Cannonball'. The soundtrack to every indie night I went to for about 15 years.



Shoutiest feminist riot grrl thrill: Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl'. And yes the drum intro does sound a bit like the Stone Roses.



Heart-breaking cover of New Order's 'Bizarre Love Triangle' by Australians Frente:



Some late, jazzy, Madder Rose:



Here's an ethereal snatch of Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man. She's in Portishead. He isn't. They made what I reckon is one of the Great Lost Albums.



I don't know much about Rose Elinor Dougall or Nancy Elizabeth except that I like them:





Back to ethereal 90s indie? Some Mazzy Star then (sorry about the ad):



More upbeat? Anjali's your woman:



Astonishing wordy surrealism? I prescribe some Kimya Dawson, 'The Beer':



Country heartbreak? Laura Cantrell's 'Bees' and (tongue in cheek), Amy LaVere's 'Killing Him Didn't Make The Love Go Away':





If you ever wished Pale Fountains had a female singer, then Camera Obscura are the band for you. Here's a cut from their latest album:



Though of course the queens of female-fronted indie were Lush:



Better than Salad, anyway. But not as good as the Delgados and Catchers.





Bubbling under? St. Vincent are new to me. Like David Lynch got hold of some perfectly good pop music:



She's a bit like an American Melys:



Breathy French catchy pop? Camille's 'Ta Douleur': unlike what I know of most French pop culture, she puts on her clothes as the video progresses.



Then – because I like it – a Julianna Barwick track. Depending on your tastes, this is either the most shoegazey Sonic Cathedral there is, or the wettest track ever:



I was going to give you Heavenly's 'Sperm Meets Egg, So What?', but I love their cover of 'Nous ne sommes pas des anges', so here's that instead:



Sleazy lounge music? 'Come On Over (Turn Me On)' by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan:



Widescreen rock: The Joy Formidable.



Part of my ongoing mission to collect every New Order-related track ever, here's 'Selfish' by The Other Two, aka Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order.



And there I think I'll leave it, point massively proven. Whatever it was. Though there's plenty more where that came from…

Female composers' special

There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Guardian about why there are so few female classical composers. My hunch is that in past times - and still regrettably today but to a lesser extent - it's because women were though incapable of higher reasoning: writing, composing, philosophising etc. Book IV of Paradise Lost makes it clear that Adam's to do the thinking and Eve's 'happier' because she can rely on him. She likes prettiness and flowers and wind and water while he worries about the theology.

Women were also excluded from the formal and informal social networks which produced composers: universities, the master-student relationships which provided informal apprenticeships, access to orchestras and performance commissions. Like their author sisters, I suspect that women composers existed, but didn't get performed. In this regard, at least, pop music is streets ahead, though there's plenty of old-fashioned misogyny there too.

I'm largely talking about the modern period of course: before that, composition was - like most creative work - not something to which an individual attached his or her name. There were - as a Mel Marshall points out - 'squillions' of 'nun composers', one of whom is known to us individually, Hildegard von Bingen (I picked this particular clip so you can compare the advert's treatment of women and medieval culture's respect). Then there were occasional oddities, such as the rather impressive Barbara Strozzi

It's getting better, but there's still a worrying disproportion. So here are some snippets by my favourite female composers.

Nicola LeFanu:



Her Irish mother Elizabeth Maconchy:



Some Sally Beamish:



and finally some wonderful Nadia Boulanger:

Your disgusting British food

Apparently British food is disgusting. The haggis, Stilton, Yorkshire pudding, scallops, Lancashire Hot Pot, oatcakes, game pie, wild garlic: the lot. Revolting.

At least, according to Bernardo Hees, and he should know. After all, he is the head of… Burger King.

Eh? I know that the British used to have a reputation for awful cuisine, but I suspect that's a result of the postwar drive to industrialise food. Lots of us still eat appallingly, but this country has an amazing range of foods available, especially if you have a disposable income.

Oh yes, he also says that 'British women are not very attractive'.

What do you think of that?

Girl Power?

In response to my post 'Tory Tory Tory', some brave soul accused me of being afraid of powerful women, and ended (I hope ironically), with the phrase 'girl power'. What's wrong with women? 'Girl' is a demeaning, disempowering term used to sell poor quality records written by men and sung by women controlled in every way by a shady management team.

Feminism, on the other hand, is about celebrating the achievements of women and combatting the structural and personal attempts by entrenched interests to repress them. Thatcher is certainly not on the side of the angels: did she promote individual women in her party and government? She did not. Did she promote the interests of women as a collective? Again, she did not.

Am I frightened of powerful women? Let's have a look at the list of women I revere, shall we? You may even, Anonymous, have heard of some of them!

Aphra Behn, The Wife of Bath, Mrs. Bandanaraike, Constance Markiewicz, Bernadette Devlin, the Miners' Strike wives and female supporters, Emily Davison, Margaret Atwood, Angela Davis, Ulrike Meinhof, Hermione Granger, Barbara Castle, Rose Cohen, Jane Austen, P J Harvey, Laurie Anderson, Sally Beamish, Nicola LeFanu, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Kate Roberts, Fflur Dafydd, Hannah Arendt, Gwyneth Jones, Sarah Cracknell, Polly Toynbee, Calvin's mum, Gwen John, Tove Jansson, Kate Atkinson, Laura Cantrell, Kathryn Williams, Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy, Molly Bloom, Dorothy Edwards, Mrs Doyle, Thursday Next, Granny Weatherwax, Lyra, Jessica Mitford, Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Fanny Burney, Aunt Agatha, Florence, Helen Walsh, Sarah Waters, Elizabeth Browning, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sheri S Tepper, Virginia Woolf, Kate Millett, Storm Jameson, Jan Morris, Helen Clark, Katherine Mansfield, Tiffany Aching, Millie Jackson, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Further suggestions welcome.

Will this do?