Women
In July, six women — Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Ariana Grande and Charli XCX — cracked the top 10 of the Billboard 200, the first time that had happened since 2019. And when Grammy nominations were announced Nov. 8, six of the eight slots for record, album and song of the year were headlined by women — the second year in a row women had such high representation in the major categories. Women artists are ruling pop music in 2024.
At the major companies that power these superstars, however, women have been leaving powerful roles — moves that have rattled other women fighting for inclusion and influence at the top of the business. Between Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music and Warner Music Group (WMG) — the three major music companies — there were four labels that started this year with women CEOs: Capitol Music Group’s Michelle Jubelirer, Atlantic Music Group’s Julie Greenwald, Epic Records’ Sylvia Rhone and UMG Nashville’s Cindy Mabe. Eleven months later, that number has dropped: Rhone, who is also one of very few Black CEOs in the major label system, is the only one left at the coastal majors. And a number of other women left music’s C-suites this year as part of major-label restructurings that impacted both genders.
Trending on Billboard
It hasn’t been all bad news for women execs: Mabe is still in place at UMG Nashville, and Taylor Lindsey, who had been vp of A&R, will take the chairman/CEO role at Sony Music Nashville at the top of 2025. But the high-profile departures have shaken the confidence of many women music executives, says a high-ranking woman in the industry: “It makes them nervous because people like Julie Greenwald didn’t take shit from anybody. And the message is, ‘Oh my God, look at that. If they can let Julie Greenwald go, anybody can go.’”
The CEOs of the industry’s biggest streaming services, promotion companies and most agencies, meanwhile, are all men; many distribution CEOs are, too. Publishing and Nashville both fare better, but the industry is largely led by men in the top jobs. Most of the top indie labels are led by men as well.
Jubelirer, Greenwald, Rhone, Mabe and former Motown CEO/chair Ethiopia Habtemariam, who left her role at the end of 2022 and was not replaced, either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Despite the varied reasons for these departures, the decline in the number of women among music’s top ranks marks a step backwards during a decade that started with the Black Lives Matter movement and the major music companies pledging to better embrace diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. As Andreea Gleeson, CEO of TuneCore, puts it, “There’s not a full effort being made and that’s really dangerous. To drive meaningful change in the diversity of your company, you need to be committed to it. That starts at the top.”
Natalie Prospere, founder and CEO of the label, publishing and live events company Friends Only, says she hasn’t been surprised by the recent exits. “I knew this was going to happen. Nobody actually wants to stand for anything other than posting a black square on your Instagram.”
There are still many women in COO, president, GM and other chief-level or department-head roles across the major label system. But the actual CEOs are still almost all white men. According to Believe, Tunecore and MIDiA Research’s fourth annual “Be The Change” women’s equality in music study, in 2024, 49% of women also believe that the music industry is still “generally discriminative” based on gender. The study also found that women in music are twice as likely as men to discover they are paid less than colleagues in the same or similar roles.
“When you see the scarcity of female executives in the music industry, coupled with the way female executives are treated, how, as a young woman in the industry, can you not question your ability to succeed?” says a female former label executive.
At the labels, Jubelirer was the first to go this year. In February, amid reports that Capitol and its parent company UMG were restructuring, Jubelirer stepped down from her post, which she held since the end of 2021, as Capitol’s first female CEO in its entire 80-year history. Had she stayed, Jubelirer would have been effectively demoted, moved from being the head of her own family of record labels and reporting straight to UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, to being under the umbrella of the newly formed Interscope Capitol Labels Group (ICLG) and reporting to ICLG chairman/CEO John Janick. She was replaced by Tom March, a British-born executive who most recently led Interscope offshoot Geffen Records.
Then, in September, Greenwald announced her exit from her role at Atlantic Music Group, a company she co-led for 20 years, the latter two as its first female CEO in its own 70-plus-year history, amid a similar restructuring in WMG’s recorded music division. She was replaced by Grainge’s son, Elliot Grainge, the founder/CEO of WMG-acquired label 10K Projects.
These high-profile exits come two years after Habtemariam, chair/CEO at Motown, stepped down from her post when rumors began to circulate that Motown would lose its status as a standalone label and would be reintegrated under Capitol Music Group, which ultimately did happen. While the label’s profitability during Habtemariam’s tenure is unclear, Habtemariam took Motown’s U.S. current market share from 0.85% to 1.30%.
The recent executive departures are even more troubling to some women in the industry given the challenges these women had faced getting to their top posts in the first place. When Steve Barnett retired as Capitol Music Group CEO at the end of 2019, Jubelirer, an attorney who worked her way up over a decade to become COO of Capitol, was believed by many to be the next in line. Instead, the role was given to Capitol Records president Jeff Vaughn. (Under Vaughn, Capitol’s current market share dipped from 7.36% in 2020 to 5.64% in 2021. He was replaced by Jubelirer in less than a year). While market share cannot tell the full story of Capitol Music Group financials at the time, Jubelirer then grew CMG market share by almost a full percentage point from 2022 to 2023.
While Mary Rahmani, CEO and founder of Moon Projects, a joint venture label/publisher with Republic Records/Warner Chappell Music, says she came up in the major label business around “lots of women assistants and coordinators,” there were not many women executives to look up to. “If there were any, they were specifically in PR, radio and sync. I didn’t really see many badass women A&R or marketing executives, and I always wished there were more examples for me.”
Years later, when Rahmani was on maternity leave with her first child, she was cut from the major label she worked for during a sweep of layoffs. Reflecting on the experience now, she says it “wasn’t personal,” but feels motherhood is often a reason why it’s harder for women to climb up the ladder in the way men, even men who have children, do. “It’s for sure a big reason. I think a lot of women in the mid-level phase take a step back once they have a family.”
At Billboard’s Women in Music event in March, Jubelirer accepted the award for Executive of the Year and highlighted another way women face extra adversity in the workplace: their presentation. “Women, do these comments sound familiar?” Jubelirer addressed the crowd. “‘You’re too emotional.’ ‘You don’t have to be so direct when you talk.’ We all know that’s code for ‘Stop being a bitch.’ ‘You should smile more.’ … We know that it takes quite a bit of fortitude to present our true selves in the workplace and rebel against those stereotypes that have been expected of women.”
In some other areas of the music business, women fare better in their share of CEO roles. Though it’s far from gender parity, the publishing sector is a bright spot. Many of publishing’s most respected leaders are women, including Universal Music Publishing Group’s CEO/chair Jody Gerson, who has held her post for a decade, and Warner Chappell’s COO/co-chair Carianne Marshall at the majors and Reservoir Media’s founder/CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi and Peermusic’s CEO Mary Megan Peer at the large independents.
“It’s likely a result of a positive feedback loop,” says Khosrowshahi of the publishing sector. “As more women rise to the top of various publishing entities, that leads to the success of more women [beneath them].”
Ironically, though women artists in country music struggle to make their voices heard on country radio, the presence of female CEOs and chairs is stronger in Nashville. Today, all three major labels in town have women in their highest ranks: Mabe is chair/CEO of UMG Nashville, Lindsey is soon to become chairman/CEO of Sony Nashville, and Cris Lacy is co-chair/co-president of Warner Music Nashville.
The C-suites at the majors do have women among their ranks: Alamo, ICLG, The Orchard and Verve all have women COOs in Juliette Jones, Annie Lee, Colleen Theis and Dawn Olejar, respectively; Julie Swidler is general counsel at Sony Music and Erica Bellarosa holds the same title at Atlantic Music Group; Republic Records counts Wendy Goldstein as president/chief creative officer and Donna Gryn as chief marketing officer; Capitol (Lilia Parsa), Columbia (Jenifer Mallory), Virgin (Jacqueline Saturn), Interscope (Michelle An, Nicole Wyskoarko), Atlantic (Lanre Gaba), 10K Projects (Molly McLachlan), 300 Entertainment (Rayna Bass), ADA (Cat Kreidich) and EMPIRE (Tina Davis) all have women with president or co-president titles; and high-ranking women can be found across the corporate majors and individual labels.
But the path to the chief executive’s office remains an especially challenging one — and even then, some women CEOs say they still feel excluded from the conversations, meetings or other gatherings where decision-making happens in their organizations.
When Greenwald was named Billboard’s 2017 Women in Music Executive of the Year, she spoke of how she hoped her platform could lead to more women executives in the next generation. “I love all the women here who put their hands up and say, ‘Listen, at some point I want your chair,’” Greenwald said. “I want someone to come take this chair. I want women to come in with a tape measure.”
The independent music sector has offered executives like Rahmani, Gleeson, Khosrowshahi, Prospere and Milana Rabkin Lewis, co-founder/CEO of STEM Disintermedia, another path, thanks to the growth of indie music’s market share both in the U.S. and abroad. For Rabkin Lewis, who got her start at UTA before founding the distributor/label, she says she wanted to run her own independent company because “I could be more in control. I also wanted to set a new example, and I wanted to create my own path, which potentially had [fewer] road bumps and hurdles than the perceived corporate path.”
Still, a high-ranking female music executive says it’s essential for the next generation to see women in CEO and chairwoman roles at the major labels specifically because “power comes in P&L responsibility, and there’s a scarcity of women at major labels who have P&L responsibility.” Another adds, “The major labels are the front lines… They’re the ones that set the tone for how the industry is going to proceed.”
Representatives for UMG, WMG and Sony declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment.
Billboard’s Latin Music Week was all about female power on Tuesday (Oct. 15), as six international artists came together for the Women‘s Panel: Global Rise: Bad Gyal, from Spain; Belinda and Danna, from Mexico; Debi Nova, from Costa Rica; Mon Laferte, from Chile; and Zhamira Zambrano, from Venezuela.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
During the conversation, presented by Ulta and moderated by Ingrid Fajardo, social media manager/staff writer for Billboard Latin, the six Latin music stars created an atmosphere of camaraderie at The Fillmore Miami Beach as they spoke about the challenges of being a woman in the industry and the advances they have seen in recent years.
Trending on Billboard
“I feel that the world is changing positively. Slowly, but it is changing,” said Mon Laferte. “When I started in music there were fewer women, not only on stage but behind the scenes. I see tech women, audio engineers, producers, and that speaks to the fact that there is a change in the world.”
While they highlighted the importance of collaborating and support each other, they noted that in many cases they have encountered men in the industry who have been their accomplices and allies.
Here are their best quotes from this year’s Women’s Panel.
Bad Gyal, on mental health and social media: “One way to handle it with more peace is to accept that insecurity is going to be there and that if one day you feel like not uploading anything, that’s fine. I’m Bad Gyal but I’m also Alba (her real name) and I live a real life. I am connected to my childhood, to my essence, and that also helps.”
Belinda, on her recent foray into Mexican music: “Three or four years ago they told me that that genre was not for women, that I would not be able to record those songs. Natanael Cano inspired me a lot […] Life changes when you do things by feeling them and fighting for what you want. Taking risks is what one has to do, and lose fear little by little.”
Danna, on female alliances in music: “They are important and necessary. We talk to each other and the world moves. Being able to turn around and know that we are colleagues and not competition […] We are making a very big change. Women are taking charge of everything. Here we are shaking the world.”
Debi Nova, on the music industry in her native Costa Rica: “Growing up there, I really didn’t have any reference in the country of women who dedicated themselves to music and now I see a whole generation of girls who are taking that leap, that challenge to say that yes it is possible, and I want to say that in part it is this generation of women who come to my country where little girls see them and say ‘if she can, I can.’”
Mon Laferte, on how she deals with haters: “I have learned to enjoy even having hate thrown at me. Sometimes I love that they think I’m the worst […] It’s the character: ‘She’s terrible, she’s bad.’ I laugh at it at home with my daughter. Maybe it’s because I’m older, age also [helps].”
Zhamira Zambrano, on how she maintains her essence despite the pressures of the industry: “I am very attached to God, to having my feet on the ground, to relying on my family, my husband, my daughter. Having that strong foundation at home is what works for me […] If you are happy and content with yourself and you are confident in yourself, you are going to radiate that to the world. We see that much more, woman empowerment, but it is never enough; “We have to continue watering that little plant.”
The 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week coincides with the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Awards set to air at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 20, on Telemundo. It will simultaneously be available on Universo, Peacock and the Telemundo app, and in Latin America and the Caribbean through Telemundo Internacional.
Grammy-winning singer Paula Cole; singer-songwriter and performance artist Amanda Palmer; artist, songwriter and vocal producer AIJIA; rock journalist Katie Daryl; and Shure Inc. chairman, president and CEO Christine Schyvinck are the first honorees announced for the 13th annual She Rocks Awards.
The show is set to take place Jan. 25 at the Hilton Anaheim Pacific Ballroom in Anaheim, Calif. Doors open at 6 p.m.
Trending on Billboard
The Women’s International Music Network produces the show. NAMM is the presenting sponsor.
Lindsey Stirling and Jennifer Batten will co-host this year’s event. Stirling is an electronic violinist, dancer and artist who blends classical violin and modern electronic music. Her 2012 debut album Lindsey Stirling logged 96 weeks on the Billboard 200. Her next two studio albums, Shatter Me and Brave Enough, both cracked the top five. Stirling has more than 13.7 million YouTube subscribers and has won two Billboard Music Awards.
Batten is renowned for her guitar work, having toured the world as part of Michael Jackson’s solo tours for 10 years and with Jeff Beck for three years. With three solo albums and numerous global performances to her name, Batten continues to influence the guitar world through her instructional DVDs and masterclasses.
Shantaia, a Nashville-based singer-songwriter, will open the event. Named the 2023 female artist of the year by the Saskatchewan Country Music Association, Shantaia has toured with The Washboard Union and opened for such notable artists as Kane Brown and Chris Lane. Her most recent concept album is Exes and Friends. Shantaia’s performance is sponsored by PRS Guitars.
“The She Rocks Awards has become a beacon for recognizing women who have broken barriers and set new standards in the music industry,” Laura B. Whitmore, founder of the WiMN and co-producer of the She Rocks Awards, said in a statement. “This year’s event will shine a spotlight on these incredible role models, with much more to come.”
The She Rocks Awards is one of the premier events during the NAMM Show, bringing together industry professionals, artists, fans, and media to celebrate the achievements of women in music. The event will feature live music, speeches, celebrity appearances, and a silent auction, along with dinner for attendees.
The 2025 She Rocks Awards is open to the public. Tickets are available now, and a variety of sponsorship opportunities are also available. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.sherocksawards.com.
Here’s more detail on the initial 2025 She Rocks Awards honorees. This post will be updated as additional honorees are named.
Paula Cole
Cole, who won the Grammy for best new artist in 1998, is known for her hits “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” (a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100) and “I Don’t Want to Wait” (a No. 11 Hot 100 hit which logged 56 weeks on the chart). The latter song, which became famous as the theme to Dawson’s Creek, was heard on the 2024 Primetime Emmy Awards. Cole’s latest album Lo is her first collection of new original songs in nearly a decade.
Amanda Palmer
A pioneering singer-songwriter and performance artist, Palmer gained fame with the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. She is known for her TED talk “The Art of Asking,” which became a best-selling book. Palmer’s fan-funded 2012 album Theatre Is Evil (a collab withThe Grand Theft Orchestra) made the top 10 on the Billboard 200 and remains the top-funded original music project on Kickstarter.
AIJIA
A versatile artist, songwriter, and vocal producer, AIJIA has worked with such artists as Selena Gomez and Anderson .Paak. She is an advocate for women’s equality and has been an ambassador for Rock Camp for Girls for more than a decade.
Katie Daryl
A rock journalist and former vp of programming & original development at AXS TV, she has developed such popular shows as The Top Ten Revealed and Sounds Delicious while maintaining a successful on-air presence as a host and producer.
Christine Schyvinck
Chairman, president, and CEO of Shure Inc. Schyvinck has led the global growth and innovation of one of the world’s leading audio electronics manufacturers. Schyvinck is recognized as one of the few women in executive leadership in the pro audio industry.
The ASCAP Foundation has launched the new “In Her Voice” scholarship which will provide funds to female-identifying music makers who are trying to break into the songwriting field. “In Her Voice” Scholarship will be granted to two undergraduate or graduate students who are female-identifying and are ASCAP members or have not affiliated with any other performing rights […]
Electronic violinist, dancer and artist Lindsey Stirling; classically trained pianist-turned-touring keyboardist Bonnie McIntosh; and veteran music journalist Melinda Newman, Billboard’s executive editor for the West Coast and Nashville, have been added to the list of 2024 She Rocks Awards honorees.
Other newly-added honorees are Holly G, writer and founder of the Black Opry and Black Opry Records; Jamie Deering, CEO of Deering Banjo Company; and Lindsay Love-Bivens, artist and community relations manager for Taylor Guitars.
These trailblazers join previously-announced honorees Debbie Gibson, Laura Karpman, Britt Lightning, Kelsy Karter and Sylvia Massy.
The 12th annual live awards show will take place on Thursday, Jan. 25 at 7:00 p.m. at the Anaheim Convention Center Ballroom in Anaheim, Calif. The show will be co-hosted by Susanna Hoffs, co-founder and frontwoman for The Bangles, solo artist and author, and AIJIA, artist, songwriter, vocal producer and performer.
For the opening act, PRS Guitars international touring artist Jimena Fosado will perform with her trio, which features Melanie Jo on drums and Lex Wolfe on bass.
The She Rocks Awards is the premier event during the NAMM Show, bringing together music and audio industry professionals, artists, fans and the media. The celebratory evening includes live music, awards and speeches, dinner, a silent auction, gift bags and more. The She Rocks Awards is open to the public. Find out more and purchase tickets at sherocksawards.com.
The She Rocks Awards will be live-streamed by AXS TV, Spin magazine and NAMM. Learn more about the She Rocks Awards and get tickets at sherocksawards.com.
The Women’s International Music Network (the WiMN) presents the annual event. Founded in 2012, the WiMN unites women who work within all facets of the music and audio industries. Music industry veteran Laura B. Whitmore founded the organization. For more information, visit www.TheWiMN.com.
Barbie has delighted audiences and critics alike – and has made history in the process. The Greta Gerwig-directed film has become the highest-grossing film that was directed or co-directed by a woman in U.S. box-office history, according to boxofficemojo.com. Barbie has grossed $526.3 million in the U.S. as of Monday (Aug. 14), which puts it […]
Sinead O’Connor made history at the seventh annual MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 6, 1990, becoming the first woman to win for video of the year. Her striking clip for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” directed by John Maybury, took the prize, besting Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun,” Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence” and Madonna’s “Vogue.”
In the VMAs’ first six years, just two women had even been nominated for the marquee award. Cyndi Lauper was nominated in 1984, the VMAs’ first year, for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Madonna was nominated in 1989 for “Like a Prayer.”
Even after O’Connor — who died at age 56 on Wednesday (July 26) — broke this barrier, it took awhile for women artists to achieve parity with men at the VMAs in this category. The award went to all-male rock bands the next four years, before TLC won in 1995 for “Waterfalls.” And then we started to see real change. Madonna and Lauryn Hill won in 1998 and 1999, for “Ray of Light” and “Doo Wop (That Thing),” respectively, marking the first time women won back-to-back awards in the category.
[embedded content]
Women won six years in a row from 2007-12, thanks to Rihanna (featuring Jay-Z), Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna again (this time featuring Calvin Harris).
Even though male artists and groups won 10 of the first 11 awards presented in this category, with only O’Connor busting up that streak, women have nearly caught up. Male artists and groups have won 21 times, to 18 for women.
O’Connor won two other “Moonmen” (the gender-neutral term “Moonperson” was still years in the future) that night – best female video and best post-modern video, both also for “Compares.”
When the Grammy nominations were announced at the end of 1990, O’Connor was up in four categories, including record of the year and best pop vocal performance, female. (Prince was nominated for song of the year for writing the song.)
At the inaugural Billboard Music Awards in December 1990, “Nothing Compares 2 U” won for #1 World Single. (Phil Collins’ …But Seriously was named #1 World Album.) At the Brit Awards in February 1991, she took international female solo artist against an incredibly strong field – Mariah Carey, Neneh Cherry, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Madonna and Tina Turner.
When the Grammys were presented in February 1991, O’Connor won best alternative music album — which was presented for the first time that year — for I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. It was her only career Grammy win.
O’Connor received three more Grammy nominations after that night, all in music video categories – a sign of how strongly she was associated with the art form after “Nothing Compares 2 U.” She was nominated for the Year of the Horse long-form video and two short-form videos, “Fire on Babylon” and “Famine.”
Three decades (to the day!) after its June 22, 1993 release, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville feels as essential and modern as ever — a vivid portrait of an artist at the height of her power, fearless and raw, and a crucial entry in feminist rock history. So it’s little surprise that when Phair announced she’d be celebrating its 30th anniversary with a tour playing the album in its entirety, a certain segment of the world seemed to collectively lose its mind.
“I heard from just about everyone I know,” Phair readily admits. “I think pretty much every single person I know was like ‘Heyyyy, can I get tickets?’ or ‘I’m gonna be there!!’ It’s kinda nice — better than a birthday.”
Phair has made return trips to Guyville before: in 2018, Matador Records reissued it and released Girly-Sound to Guyville, a deluxe box set including the remastered original album and the first official restored audio of Phair’s self-released 1991 Girly-Sound tapes. But she hasn’t always been quite so keen to revisit her debut album-era self. For one thing, she had a whole career since then — a wonderfully rich one including five albums (her most recent full-length, the well-received Soberish, came in 2021) and an acclaimed memoir, Horror Stories — even if Guyville set a perhaps unfair standard critics and fans alike seemed to often hold her to, even as she evolved as an artist.
Today, the 56-year old singer-songwriter says she’s able to look at Guyville with both affection and awe, and she’s thrilled to take it on the road for what she expects will be the last time. Before setting out for the North American tour (it runs Nov. 7 – Dec. 3, with Blondshell opening select dates) Phair spoke to Billboard about the show she hopes to create for fans, and why preparing for it has involved spending a lot of time with old pictures of herself.
You’ve done major remembrances of Guyville before, so how did the idea for this tour evolve? Did your reunion with producer Brad Wood on Soberish have anything to do with it?
I think it did. A lot of things coalesced with me when we did the box set with Matador. There was a part of my psychology around Guyville that finally settled. I had different feelings about that album over the years. At one point early on, it felt like the fans had taken it and it didn’t even belong to me. When I became a mom and I was trying to be all fresh and clean, I was embarrassed by my times in the Wicker Park underground scamping around a bit. But bit by bit it returned to me over the years. It started like five years ago, where it kept being noticed on lists as an important album, and I kept flowing back into my younger self… does that make sense? It sounds ridiculous, but I reconnected with my younger self and that was a glorious thing for me.
It’s a glorious moment to feel personally connected, to have fans feel connected, and to say it’s the thirtieth and let’s do this, let me tell the emotional story behind the songs. Can you imagine revisiting your college self with thousands of other people? It’s a crazy thing. It’s both hard when you’re still growing and when you’re older it’s a gift. How many people get to have a snapshot of their life shared communally so we’re all screaming the words out at the same time?
You mentioned telling the stories of the songs; will there be a narrative aspect to your show?
Yes, and hopefully it will not be cumbersome. I’m working with Kevin Newbury, who I encountered first [when he directed] Kansas City Choirboy for Courtney Love and Todd Almond. I was so blown away by that production — it was like watching somebody develop a new language about speaking emotionally through music. That’s what Kevin and I are trying to develop right now [as co-directors of the show] – without doing big production numbers, telling a little more of the story of the girl living that life. We’ll see; we’re definitely trying to do something different. I want to create, for people coming to the show, a much more immersive experience, so even if they think they know the album well, they come out with a new take on it. I’d like you to come into the theater and kind of be transported.
We last spoke when the live music shutdown was just starting to end, and you were still understandably feeling a little edgy about going on tour again. Was coming to terms with touring again, period, part of this process for you?
I think I always need a good reason [to go out on tour]. I need something beyond myself that I believe in. Because it isn’t easy for me to tour — it’s not something that comes naturally, and frankly I don’t necessarily miss it. I miss my fans, but I always think of creating rather than performing. To think of this as an opportunity to tell that story from a new angle, to deepen that angle, that really gets me going.
Plus, I’m not at the beginning of my career. This is the last time you’re gonna see me do Guyville in its entirety. If people really like it, we’ll put some more dates up, but there’s something poignant about knowing you’re doing something that won’t happen again.
From both a technical and emotional perspective, what has preparing for the tour entailed for you?
I’m taking all these supplements for lung health, doing vocal stuff, working out. It is a physical endeavor and as you get older, you have to prepare a little harder. It’s easier to be out of shape when you’re older. It takes a ton of stamina. That’s something I always think about and am mindful of: can you physically do it? And yeah, I know I can.
And the other thing is just listening to the old music. I’m not even kidding: This sounds strange, but I will look at a picture of myself when I was young and be like, “Talk to me.” I know that sounds freakish but I’m literally communing with my younger self and getting her to open up to me. And she’s saying that I don’t have the balls to do what she did! She’s saying I’m like, a sad sack! [Laughs.] It’s a challenge. She has these like, haunted eyes, but they’re determined. There’s a sharpness. When you’re out in the world and young and fighting to be creative, and fighting to make your voice known, there’s something intense about that. She’s like a warrior chick. I’m trying to get my warrior back on.
Courtesy of Matador Records
Are there things you’ve learned about singing in the past 30 years that you think will make performing these songs each night easier than the first time around? Or are there elements the way you performed back then that you want to get back in touch with?
You are so smart — and that is the challenge for me at the moment: [What do I do with] this voice I have developed over the years, that does have more range? Most artists start with a higher voice and it ends up lower, I started with a lower voice and ended up with a higher one. Guyville songs are hard to sing onstage. The register is very low. Brad loves a talky vocal, which I really appreciated – he’d just be like, “Just say it into a mike while you’re sitting there!” So how do you get this to cut [through] when you have this young, hot band behind you? How do you get that low, casual off-the-cuff delivery?
These are the kind of things that I thrill to – how do you solve that problem? It’s better than the Spelling Bee. If you can hear my low voice cut through the auditorium and it gives you thrills, then I won.
Is listening to the recording itself part of getting ready for this, too?
Normally I don’t really do that a lot — but this time I will, because I want it to sound closer to that era. I will do departures from that during the show, but yes, I am literally studying myself. I’ve sung these songs so many times that I’ve developed my own way of performing them live. But for this show in particular, we’re gonna break it back down to build it up again.
It’s weird — I’ve never ever before for a tour studied my earlier self this much. I could not have done this any earlier [in my career]; I could not have felt relaxed about it. Any time before now, I would have been acutely aware of… I mean, I’m still acutely aware of how much I dared to go onstage unprepared when I was young. I just had this chutzpah. I honestly feel like I’m kind of getting into character. I mean I’m not going full Daniel Day [Lewis] but… a little bit. Management calls, I’m like, “I’m at a bar. I don’t know where I am. Can someone come get me?” [Laughs.]
Do you think the concept of “Guyville” has changed since you were coming up? There are so many great women playing rock music now; at the same time, it’s dispiriting to see what so many of them still face, whether it’s the trolls accusing the Haim sisters of not really playing their instruments or the dudes upset that Phoebe Bridgers smashed a guitar on Saturday Night Live.
I was just really worried about [Bridgers’] shoulders and wrists! That can be very damaging to your body now! [Laughs.] Part of me is cynical. Part of me thinks we’re going to be struggling with these things for awhile. I don’t know that it’s a top-down fix. I think it’s essential that we continue on, because bottom-up fixes are better anyway. And so much has changed. But then when I hear these stories of young female artists, and they’re like, “It’s no different,” it’s just… I can’t believe it. It doesn’t happen to me anymore, but it still happens to them, and I cannot whitewash everyone’s experience who’s still going through it.
But when you see how many female artists are doing their thing with their own voice and their own vision, that’s proof things are better. When I came up, I would tour and I’d hardly see a woman out there. Now it’s the opposite, and to me that’s wonderful.
Blondshell seems like such a perfect choice as your opening act for this tour — how did she come on?
I was freakin’ spoiled for choice. They sent me a bunch of artists who were possibilities, and I said yes to like, all of them. I would love to tour with so many people. Blondshell’s music — the songwriting, the sound, the point of view — I just loved her immediately. Just such talent and presence. I can’t wait. I’ll definitely rope her into performing with me for sure.
Is there a Guyville song that stands out as one you have a very different relationship with now?
It’s interesting because we found a song from the Guyville sessions, a Girly-Sounds [tapes] song called “Miss Lucy” that we’re putting out. In my song-by-song response to Exile on Main Street, it was potentially a replacement for “Flower,” for the [Rolling Stones’] “Let it Loose” slot, but “Flower” is what I ended up going with.
I wouldn’t play it during the Trump era because I didn’t want to give men the satisfaction. So it became this thing of, I’m still thinking about it, how do I want to contextualize “Flower?” It’s a lightning rod song and it means different things depending on what’s going on around me. It’s a difficult song to do in the spirit it was performed on the album. How does one deal with the blowjob queen when you’re 56 and coming back in? [Laughs.] I mean, now, with what porn stars do, I’m a blowjob jester — I’m not a queen anymore!
I know Guyville felt like a perfectly normal album for you to putting out when you did, but has your perspective on how radical it truly was changed in the years since?
Well, yeah. Considering how history went afterwards, it’s fascinating and horrifying to realize, living through the #MeToo era thirty years later, very little had changed. I was shocked at how pertinent it still was. But proud too, because it meant I’d spoken up about something that needed to be spoken up about. I was working off of artists that came before me, and then people worked off of the people from our era in the ‘90s.
And to see the continuity of women picking up the baton and saying, “I’m gonna say what no one expects me to say, I’m gonna bare my shames and embarrassments and the strength that comes from that and the strength we continue to amass for women to be full participants in society, and to be protected and to have autonomy” — it’s an ongoing fight. It’s wrapped up with everybody’s fight to live a fair and equitable and safe life.
-
Pages