What I'm about to say is a sexist generalization that is completely oversimplifying the music industry, but I stand by it: women are making the best music right now.
Billie Eilish. Beach Bunny. Soccer Mommy. Let's Eat Grandma. Taylor Swift. Holly Humberstone. Beabadoobee. Wolf Alice. HAIM. Olivia Rodrigo. Wet Leg. Beyoncé. Phoebe Bridgers. Japanese Breakfast. Ashe. Maggie Rogers. The list goes on and on. Women have been absolutely crushing it the last few years, consistently putting out the most exciting and culturally relevant albums of the moment.
I thought maybe I was totally making this up or projecting my own musical preferences onto some big baseless theory about the music industry until I saw Elton John recently make literally the exact same claim, at which point I had to stop and think: why are women making such great music right now? What about the last few years has inspired women so much?
And I realized maybe it isn't a function of women putting out higher quality music as much as us deciding we want to collectively pay the most attention to that music. Let me explain what I mean.
Grunge was born in the early 90s at a time when everyone was looking to the working class for signs of life after a decade of Reaganomics and Thatcherism. We decided we were interested in working class voices, so grunge bands began making the best music on the planet.
Early 2000s indie came at a time when an entire country was looking to New York City's musicians for hope that healing was on the way. We decided we were interested in NYC voices, so NYC bands began making the best music on the planet.
I think a very similar thing can be said here. Early 2020s pop and alternative is coming at a time when people are looking to women for thoughts on living under an openly misogynistic president, having their reproductive rights in question, and more specifically to music, being consistently overlooked for festival headlining slots in favor of male acts. We decided we were interested in female voices, so women began making the best music on the planet.
In essence, I believe that maybe it’s not the people who make the best music who we give the microphone to; it’s the people we give the microphone to that make the best music. There's too much music in the world for the high-quality music to always float to the top, so we collectively decide on what voice or voices we find most interesting for a few years and let that voice set the bar for what "good music" is in that era.
So here's to the female voices who are setting that bar ridiculously high right now.
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