Rock’s not dead; it’s ruled by women now
For years, we, the pop music team of The New York Times — Jon Caramanica, Joe Coscarelli, Caryn Ganz and Jon Pareles — have wondered where exactly the guitars went. While there’s never been a shortage of quote-unquote traditional rock bands — say, a mostly male, mostly white four-piece — their cultural impact has continued to wane in the face of increasingly diverse musical tactics, distribution networks and messengers.
But as we’ve spoken among ourselves about the music that most excites us, we have consistently marveled at how much outstanding rock music is being made by female and non-binary performers who work just below the surface of the mainstream.
Indie rock, especially, has undergone an identity crisis this decade. Often, male-fronted indie bands have begun to feel rote or even parodic, as if they’ve run out of ideas or exhausted the passion to develop new ones.
But time and again, we’ve been heartened, cheered, inspired and, sometimes, astonished by a new generation of innovative female singers and musicians — punk in style or spirit, and coming from the all-ages warehouse and Diy-venue ecosystem — singing about tactile emotion, rousing politics and far more.
It’s time to take stock of this vibrant moment and honor these artists by spotlighting the force and elegance of their work. We spoke with them about why they make music, and what obstacles the music industry, and society at large, have thrown in their paths.
We sat down with eight songwriters and frontwomen, whose music ranges from intimate whispers (Vagabon, Soccer Mommy) to invigorating vulnerability (Diet Cig, Sad13, Snail Mail) to radical grit (Downtown Boys, Sheer Mag, War on Women); below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How did you first start making music? Was there a moment when you realized you didn’t just have to be a fan of bands, but that you could be the band?
Sadie Dupuis, 29, of Sad13 and Speedy Ortiz: Am I the only person who was very inspired by the “Josie and the Pussycats” movie? It’s sort of telling that the example I use is a fictional band [laughs]. Because I was 13 when that movie came out, and I was like, “Oh, cool, a band of all women — I can do this, too.”
Shawna Potter, 35, of War on Women: I saw Courtney Love playing guitar on MTV in the “Doll Parts” video, and I immediately was like, “I can do that.” I hadn’t seen any other woman on TV playing music before, so I didn’t even realize it was possible.
Christina Halladay, 32, of Sheer Mag: It takes a long time when you don’t see someone who looks like you doing it. I was trying to get in with the boys I knew playing music, and I would just hang out when they were practicing, like, “I’m here and I can sing.” But it took forever — until I demanded it.
Potter: Representation really matters — you can’t be what you can’t see.
How do you think about being a frontperson?
Victoria Ruiz, 30, of Downtown Boys: It’s frustrating when you don’t play an instrument in the band, you quote-unquote just sing. Because the baseline is to be a dude that can shred on the guitar — that’s what people think of as a good musician.
Dupuis: I’ve learned a lot about like fronting a band just from seeing [Victoria] perform and touring with you, actually, because the things that you say between songs opened my eyes to what you can do with that space and how it can be really galvanizing for the people in the audience. There’s such obvious thought and intention and preparation that goes behind everything you do.
Potter: I had to deal with that “just a singer” [expletive], and the only thing I kept telling myself was: “No one ever said Robert Plant was just a singer.”
What are some of the most egregious forms of sexism you’ve experienced as a musician?
Halladay: “Are you the tour manager?” Potter: “Do you play keyboard? Whose girlfriend are you?”
Dupuis: I do really like when that happens when I’m literally standing next to a huge poster of my own face.
Alex Luciano, 22, of Diet Cig: Yeah, like, “I’m carrying three amps right now.”
Lindsey Jordan, 18, of Snail Mail: I said I didn’t want to work with someone and they were like, “Do you want to send nudes?”
Dupuis: I hate dwelling on the misogyny porn. But one of my favorite examples is a sound engineer who was male, he picked me up to get past me. He blew me off and I was like, “Cool, I know who owns this venue,” and I contacted them and he was fired.
How else have you taken control in these situations?
Dupuis: As a headliner obviously you have power. My favorite thing is having the power to hire women to do front-of-house or tour managing or any kind of crew position.
Potter: I toured with Brooks, our guitar player, just me and him as a duet for a while, and we just started telling people we were brother and sister, so they would stop asking us if we were dating or married.
Halladay: Heaven forbid we’re just in a band together.
Ruiz: It’s hard though, too, because so much of the discussion around sexism in music is so one-dimensional. Because I’m a fat woman of color, no one ever thinks the really hot white guy in my band and I are dating.
Laetitia Tamko, 24, of Vagabon: Yeah, it’s crazy how there are two different experiences and they’re both equally bad. One is where people are just gawking at you as if you’re, like, this thing to be acquired by them. Or they’re just not even checking for you — like you’re not a factor in this equation at all.
How are listeners handling this shift in power when it comes to gender?
Halladay: Teenage boys are very upset. [Laughter]
Potter: I think I really like playing in War on Women, because it’s a heavier band, super overtly feminist. Robert Plant — again — he was sexual, right, but he was a sexual subject, not a sexual object. I feel like I can do that and I can also scream about abortion or rape culture and make men, especially, uncomfortable. Maybe they’re attracted to me, maybe they’re also confused or scared or realizing this music isn’t necessarily for them. If I can make them feel all those things, then I don’t mind if they think I’m hot, because I am a fully formed human being with a range of qualities.
Dupuis: A lot of the music that I grew up on was very heteronormative, confessional stories told from a man’s view. The things that are most exciting for me are introducing narrative elements that, like, aren’t atypical, but just aren’t part of the canon — things that are normal to my experience as a feminine person. So I’m obviously the most psyched when I meet with a 13-yearold girl who reminds me of myself. But it’s also awesome when I see a 45-year-old guy who probably likes Pavement and Sebadoh and Guided by Voices, but is now connecting to a narrative outside of what was the onslaught in rock for so long.
Jordan: Women are expected to write outside of relationships, because it’s been deemed as being trivial and dumb. Some sad white boy can get up on the microphone and be like, “I miss my girlfriend —” Potter: He’s a genius.
Jordan: Yeah, but if a woman gets onto the microphone, people are like, “Ew, that’s whiny.” I realized as I started writing songs that I like singing about relationships and women that I like and being a gay person, so it sucks that you feel like you have to exceed expectations to be just as good as someone who doesn’t try half as hard.
Sophie Allison, 20, of Soccer Mommy: I didn’t make music until I was about 18. I’d been playing my whole life, but I wasn’t putting it out, because I didn’t feel like people would take it seriously. I thought people would be like, “It’s just like sad girl music — it’s like Taylor Swift.” But it’s really vulnerable to be feeling super broken down by another person or oppressed by people that you love. And I think just expressing that to a wide audience on its own is kind of political, because you’re going against everyone who says that you can’t feel that.
Who’s your ideal listener?
Ruiz: Beyoncé. [laughter]
Allison: My ideal listener is young women, especially in the scene that I’m from [in Nashville, Tenn]. I’ve had so many young girls come up to me after a show and say, “How do I start putting my music on Bandcamp?” That’s just the most amazing feeling.
Ruiz: I think the ideal listener understands the contradiction of being able to talk about what it’s like to take power [while] we’re also often the least powerful in situations and have to deal with all the emotional labor of the people we travel with, who are in our bands. To simultaneously think about how to front the band and then also be behind the band holding it, it’s just a completely contradictory role. And I think that the listener who gets that is going to help us push toward freedom and justice much more than anyone who’s trying to put us into a box.
Luciano: The role of handling everyone else’s emotional labor has so often fallen on women in bands. Your tour mates are relying on this, and you have to go out and perform and gush out all of this emotion to a crowd of people who like might like it and might not, and then go back after and be emotionally supportive outside of the band and on the internet.
Allison: It’s really draining. It’s like you can’t have a bad day.
Dupuis: I’ll have a bad day. I’ll have a [expletive] bad day. [laughter]
What role has the internet played?
Jordan: I definitely started on Bandcamp. I was 15 and I posted four or five songs that I recorded in my room on Garageband, just for fun. That’s pretty much how I got the opportunity to play our first show. I was in high school, just hanging out in my room all the time. So it was really cool to just record songs and then be able to play with my favorite bands like a week later.
Tamko: There’s a grind to it. I don’t romanticize the grind, but it’s there. I was a double engineering major in college — the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my life. And I decided that I’m gonna put these demos up. Bandcamp is the reason I play music.
Potter: I’m just showing my age, but we were banging on doors: “Please let us play first, and of course we don’t need money, and of course we don’t have a demo yet!”
Jordan: I think Bandcamp and the DIY route are really cool, because it allows people who may not be able to afford guitar lessons or maybe come from different financial backgrounds to, like, put their stuff out and not necessarily pay a million dollars for studio time. Everybody gets a chance.
Potter: I’m just glad that things like Bandcamp exist, so that if you actually care about music and you want to find music, you can. It’s so much more positive than on Youtube. And if you just like want to comment and be [expletive], you can do it over there away from my music.