just me and my pimpmobile
Apr. 3rd, 2005 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdeI love music and I love talking about music. Well, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theantimodel was talking about how she wasn't listening to many female artists; I've been thinking a bit about this as well recently as over the past couple years my tastes have changed such that the m/f ratio I am listening to has gone from say, 90/10 to 50/50. She asked for recs (incidentally I'd love some too), and, because this is a subject close to my heart and I have a tendency to go overboard I thought I'd post mine here. I've tried to limit the number of songs for each artist but comment if you'd like to hear more. Probably best to download one at a time, speedwise, as we don't have a very big pipe here; please tell me if you've any trouble.
Billie Holiday: old time blues singer. Famous for her unique-sounding, croaky voice and being the first to sing "Strange Fruit"
Gloomy Sunday - one of her more famous songs, probably due to the urban legend that versions of it were banned because they caused too many suicides.
Stormy Weather - you know it's good when it's referenced in an Oz fic.... He voice is so gentle and wise in this song.
Bjork: not too keen on her early stuff but I love her later more experimental work. A lot of her stuff has really interesting textures and rhythimc interplays and fantastic production, and I love her voice and accent as well. She also has awesome video clips.
Hyperballad - one of her more dancy songs.
All is Full of Love - the one with the infamous lesbian robot video clip, but a great song as well. I love the mix of huge bass, soaring vocals and delicate guitars and strings.
Pagan Poetry - the first song of hers I heard that really made me sit up. From Vespertine, her (imo) best album.
Cat Power: Her voice is hard to describe, sort of throaty but sweet and desperate and angry sometimes too. Her songs are often simple and piano- or guitar-based, and she makes great use of repetition in a way that's somehow not at all monotonous. Her cover of Lou Reed's "I Found a Reason" was recently featured in V for Vendetta.
Cross Bones Style - the first song of hers I heard, and it really captured my attention. I've been known to play this song over and over, it's almost hypnotic.
Werewolf - She tells us how much it sucks to be a werewolf. Great strings.
Nude and the News - strident and angry and forceful.
Love & Communication - the closer on her latest album, The Greatest, and completely, completely fabby; masterful in the way the rhythms and tickles of melody get under your skin. Gently intense, if that makes any sense.
Janis Joplin: you might be able to notice a bit of a theme developing here *g* I adore distinctive voices and Janis Joplin's a queen in that area. Her voice is the kind with those ragged edges that can just pick you up and carry you along.
Work Me Lord (live) - from Woodstock. Again, the first song of hers I ever heard and the power of it blew me away. At the end it's almost like her voice is so huge she can barely force it out.
Kozmic Blues - I adore this song; in terms of songwriting it's probably one of the more simple and powerful things she's done and her vocals are a perfect compliment. The lyrics are also gerat; this is one of those songs you can't help moving along to.
Jefferson Airplane: still in the 70s Grace Slick on vocals here is fantastic. She has this kind of majesty that reminds me of Gustav Klmit's women. My dad has a whole bunch of her stuff I keep meaning to listen to (all on vinyl and we're short of a turntable atm unfortunately). These two songs are probably well-known to everyone but, well, they're the best....
White Rabbit - one of the classic psychedelic songs. Awesome.
Somebody to Love - another classic.
Nina Simone: the one, the only *g* Her voice is the definition of "chocolatey" and she has astounding control of it. She's like the Johnny Cash of blues in that she often covered quite popular songs like "Don't Let me Be Misunderstood", "Here Comes the Sun" and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" (maybe I lied about "popular"). She was the first woman to perform the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun" which obviously threw a whole new meaning on the lyrics and she imbued it with a real power and sadness. Her scatting on "I Put a Spell on You" was also one of the inspirations for Paul McCartney's "Michelle".
Feelin Good - it's a classic for a reason. Wonderful with the delicate piano and stomping, celebratory, almost ominous brass and her scatting at the end is fantastic.
Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair - here's that control I was talking about, wow.
I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl - hmmm, can you guess what she's talking about here? :-D I love the lazy, sensual feel of this song.
Mississppi Goddamn - she was quite involved in the civil rights movement and this is an excellent, angry song about race relations in response to, I think, some very violent suppresions of demonstrations in Mississippi and Alabama in the early sixties.
Patti Smith: one of the best things to come out of the American punk movement.
Piss Factory - one of my absolute favourite songs of hers. The lyrics (well it's more of a spoken word piece/poem really) are smart and angry and desperate and the piano is a perfect accompaniment, it really makes me wish I could play.
Gloria - one of her more famous songs, I think. Half cover of van Morrison, half original, all lesbian *g* Very good and surprisingly danceable, if you dance like a dork like I do.
Rock 'n' Roll Nigger (live) - angry and vicious and excellent; fantastic driving bass line.
Paz Lenchantin: she used to be the bass player for A Perfect Circle and then Zwan. I have no idea what she's up to now but a few years ago she released on the net a CD full of stuff she recorded on a four-track when she was like 18. She's weird and gorgeous and a very talented bass and violin player and she likes to play with words. Her stuff is quite difficult to characterise (as you can see) but don't expect anything like A Perfect Circle.
she can - weird. But fun.
Y a r r o w - weirder. But groovy.
PJ Harvey: post-punk poster girl. But she is excellent, and I love both her early, raw stuff, her later, more soundscapy stuff.
The Life and Death of Mr Badmouth - A simple but really, really enjoyable song that needs to be played very loudly; it was fantastic live. The opening track of her latest album and one of the best things about it.
Dress (live) - an acoustic version. I love the lyrics and the sarcastic little nyah nyah nyah interlude in the middle.
Is This Desire? - Also simple but excellent and with a fantastic bass line. They rhythms in this are so cool.
Rid of Me - opener for her second album. Fantastically sinister and creepy lyrics and music.
Rasputina - extremely weird, original, talented and gothicy cello trio. Opened for Marilyn Manson once and got booed off the stage by his retarded fans.
Diamond Mind - funny and quite biting quickie about women.
Sister Sleep - ethereal and melodious song about smoking pot. Sorta.
You Don't Own Me - excellent cover with a very cool arrangement.
Steeleye Span: English folk rock band with the stunning Maddy Prior usually taking vocals. This woman has an amazingly loud, clear, versatile voice. I wish I had more examples to share because they were really very good.
Cam Ye O'er Frae France - I've no idea about the history of this song but it's awesome. As you can tell by the title the lyrics are Old English (or perhaps Scottish?) and it's fun to try to work them out (the story's pretty funny too). It has surprisingly sparse and harsh instrumentation that actually complements the melodious vocals very well.
Gaudete - a ahort and sweet a capella Latin chant that acutally made the charts, would you believe. The harmonies are amazing.
Female Drummer - pretty generic folk song but it's a charming story charmingly played.
Tori Amos: I've really gotten into her over the last year. She's an amazingly talented pianist and singer, with a (warranted) reputation for absolutely bizarre lyrics. Her songs are quite difficult to describe, they really need to speak for themselves. She's at her best when moving away from a traditional rock or ballad format.
Professional Widow - this song always blows me away; it has an extreme quality about it and achieves the kind of uniqueness that other artists can only aspire to. The end section is fantastic and it's best when played loudly.
Spark - Really lush production and a great performance by her that leads up to this stunning crescendo at the end.
Me and a Gun - incredible a capella song about a rape she experienced.
I Can't See New York - a song in response to the collapse of the Word Trade Centre.
Ute Lemper: often characterised as a German cabaret singer, but she does lots of musicals as well and is really very versatile. She sings in tons of different languages and she has a wonderfully rich voice that has a real solidity to it.
Split - Funny duet with Neil Hannon, with a great thumping beat in the background.
Wenn Die Beste Freundin - Cute duet with herself, covering a great lesbiany song from Weimar Germany (that Marlene Dietrich herself used to sing) that was banned as degenerate when the Nazis came to power.
Sex-Appeal - also a banned song from Weimar Germany. Very sexy and funny; she manipulates her voice so that it sounds, well, well used *g*
Little Water Song - awesome song written for her by Nick Cave; the lyrics are fantastic, I won't spoil them, and she sings them perfectly.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: great modern punk band that reminds me of The Birthday Party. Part of the resemblance is Karen O's fantastic vocals; she seems to get to the same menacing extremes that Nick Cave did, albeit in a less bizarre way. They have a similar sparse, vicious, syncopated sound, although there's less overt humour.
Maps - fantastic drums and catchy chorus. This is about as cute and romantic as they get and it fits really, really well.
Mystery Girl - I fucking love the bass in this song. An excellent example of how they treat pop rhythms and structure. Clap along!
The Warrior - a vulnerable, plaintive song from their latest album. Karen O sounds stretched to her thinnest here.
Gold Lion - also from the latest, Show Your Bones, this is just a nice tight pop/rock song, great beat, great vocals by Karen O in the chorus, very enjoyable.
Misc
Lucia Di Lammermoor/The Diva Dance (aka that opera song) from the 5th Element - I'm not sure who performs this but she's amazing, although some of the second half is synthesiser. But it's very funky nonetheless.
Blume by Einsturzende Neubauten -electromoon, is it Anita Lane who guests on this track? She's not really singing, exactly, but, well, I love this song and I really like the way she uses her voice. One of the weirder Neubauten tracks, which is saying something, but quite pretty and not scary like the rest.
Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby (aka the sirens's song) from O Brother Where Art Thou. Alison Krauss and two other women. Has a very eerie and seductive quality, which you would expect seeing as the women are supposed to be sirens.
The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd - Caire Torry's wailing, wordless vocals on this track are always stunning no matter how many times you listen to it. The instumentation is very simple and she just picks it up and turns it into this huge ecstatic thing which at the end becomes surprisingly melancholy and almost regretful. They brought her in and she just totally improvised it, it's amazing.
In a quirk of timing, the latest Big Issue has great article about music blogs (plug! plug!).
Edited Cat Power and Yeah Yeah Yeahs stuff 16/7/06 .
theantimodel was talking about how she wasn't listening to many female artists; I've been thinking a bit about this as well recently as over the past couple years my tastes have changed such that the m/f ratio I am listening to has gone from say, 90/10 to 50/50. She asked for recs (incidentally I'd love some too), and, because this is a subject close to my heart and I have a tendency to go overboard I thought I'd post mine here. I've tried to limit the number of songs for each artist but comment if you'd like to hear more. Probably best to download one at a time, speedwise, as we don't have a very big pipe here; please tell me if you've any trouble.Billie Holiday: old time blues singer. Famous for her unique-sounding, croaky voice and being the first to sing "Strange Fruit"
Gloomy Sunday - one of her more famous songs, probably due to the urban legend that versions of it were banned because they caused too many suicides.
Stormy Weather - you know it's good when it's referenced in an Oz fic.... He voice is so gentle and wise in this song.
Bjork: not too keen on her early stuff but I love her later more experimental work. A lot of her stuff has really interesting textures and rhythimc interplays and fantastic production, and I love her voice and accent as well. She also has awesome video clips.
Hyperballad - one of her more dancy songs.
All is Full of Love - the one with the infamous lesbian robot video clip, but a great song as well. I love the mix of huge bass, soaring vocals and delicate guitars and strings.
Pagan Poetry - the first song of hers I heard that really made me sit up. From Vespertine, her (imo) best album.
Cat Power: Her voice is hard to describe, sort of throaty but sweet and desperate and angry sometimes too. Her songs are often simple and piano- or guitar-based, and she makes great use of repetition in a way that's somehow not at all monotonous. Her cover of Lou Reed's "I Found a Reason" was recently featured in V for Vendetta.
Cross Bones Style - the first song of hers I heard, and it really captured my attention. I've been known to play this song over and over, it's almost hypnotic.
Werewolf - She tells us how much it sucks to be a werewolf. Great strings.
Nude and the News - strident and angry and forceful.
Love & Communication - the closer on her latest album, The Greatest, and completely, completely fabby; masterful in the way the rhythms and tickles of melody get under your skin. Gently intense, if that makes any sense.
Janis Joplin: you might be able to notice a bit of a theme developing here *g* I adore distinctive voices and Janis Joplin's a queen in that area. Her voice is the kind with those ragged edges that can just pick you up and carry you along.
Work Me Lord (live) - from Woodstock. Again, the first song of hers I ever heard and the power of it blew me away. At the end it's almost like her voice is so huge she can barely force it out.
Kozmic Blues - I adore this song; in terms of songwriting it's probably one of the more simple and powerful things she's done and her vocals are a perfect compliment. The lyrics are also gerat; this is one of those songs you can't help moving along to.
Jefferson Airplane: still in the 70s Grace Slick on vocals here is fantastic. She has this kind of majesty that reminds me of Gustav Klmit's women. My dad has a whole bunch of her stuff I keep meaning to listen to (all on vinyl and we're short of a turntable atm unfortunately). These two songs are probably well-known to everyone but, well, they're the best....
White Rabbit - one of the classic psychedelic songs. Awesome.
Somebody to Love - another classic.
Nina Simone: the one, the only *g* Her voice is the definition of "chocolatey" and she has astounding control of it. She's like the Johnny Cash of blues in that she often covered quite popular songs like "Don't Let me Be Misunderstood", "Here Comes the Sun" and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" (maybe I lied about "popular"). She was the first woman to perform the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun" which obviously threw a whole new meaning on the lyrics and she imbued it with a real power and sadness. Her scatting on "I Put a Spell on You" was also one of the inspirations for Paul McCartney's "Michelle".
Feelin Good - it's a classic for a reason. Wonderful with the delicate piano and stomping, celebratory, almost ominous brass and her scatting at the end is fantastic.
Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair - here's that control I was talking about, wow.
I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl - hmmm, can you guess what she's talking about here? :-D I love the lazy, sensual feel of this song.
Mississppi Goddamn - she was quite involved in the civil rights movement and this is an excellent, angry song about race relations in response to, I think, some very violent suppresions of demonstrations in Mississippi and Alabama in the early sixties.
Patti Smith: one of the best things to come out of the American punk movement.
Piss Factory - one of my absolute favourite songs of hers. The lyrics (well it's more of a spoken word piece/poem really) are smart and angry and desperate and the piano is a perfect accompaniment, it really makes me wish I could play.
Gloria - one of her more famous songs, I think. Half cover of van Morrison, half original, all lesbian *g* Very good and surprisingly danceable, if you dance like a dork like I do.
Rock 'n' Roll Nigger (live) - angry and vicious and excellent; fantastic driving bass line.
Paz Lenchantin: she used to be the bass player for A Perfect Circle and then Zwan. I have no idea what she's up to now but a few years ago she released on the net a CD full of stuff she recorded on a four-track when she was like 18. She's weird and gorgeous and a very talented bass and violin player and she likes to play with words. Her stuff is quite difficult to characterise (as you can see) but don't expect anything like A Perfect Circle.
she can - weird. But fun.
Y a r r o w - weirder. But groovy.
PJ Harvey: post-punk poster girl. But she is excellent, and I love both her early, raw stuff, her later, more soundscapy stuff.
The Life and Death of Mr Badmouth - A simple but really, really enjoyable song that needs to be played very loudly; it was fantastic live. The opening track of her latest album and one of the best things about it.
Dress (live) - an acoustic version. I love the lyrics and the sarcastic little nyah nyah nyah interlude in the middle.
Is This Desire? - Also simple but excellent and with a fantastic bass line. They rhythms in this are so cool.
Rid of Me - opener for her second album. Fantastically sinister and creepy lyrics and music.
Rasputina - extremely weird, original, talented and gothicy cello trio. Opened for Marilyn Manson once and got booed off the stage by his retarded fans.
Diamond Mind - funny and quite biting quickie about women.
Sister Sleep - ethereal and melodious song about smoking pot. Sorta.
You Don't Own Me - excellent cover with a very cool arrangement.
Steeleye Span: English folk rock band with the stunning Maddy Prior usually taking vocals. This woman has an amazingly loud, clear, versatile voice. I wish I had more examples to share because they were really very good.
Cam Ye O'er Frae France - I've no idea about the history of this song but it's awesome. As you can tell by the title the lyrics are Old English (or perhaps Scottish?) and it's fun to try to work them out (the story's pretty funny too). It has surprisingly sparse and harsh instrumentation that actually complements the melodious vocals very well.
Gaudete - a ahort and sweet a capella Latin chant that acutally made the charts, would you believe. The harmonies are amazing.
Female Drummer - pretty generic folk song but it's a charming story charmingly played.
Tori Amos: I've really gotten into her over the last year. She's an amazingly talented pianist and singer, with a (warranted) reputation for absolutely bizarre lyrics. Her songs are quite difficult to describe, they really need to speak for themselves. She's at her best when moving away from a traditional rock or ballad format.
Professional Widow - this song always blows me away; it has an extreme quality about it and achieves the kind of uniqueness that other artists can only aspire to. The end section is fantastic and it's best when played loudly.
Spark - Really lush production and a great performance by her that leads up to this stunning crescendo at the end.
Me and a Gun - incredible a capella song about a rape she experienced.
I Can't See New York - a song in response to the collapse of the Word Trade Centre.
Ute Lemper: often characterised as a German cabaret singer, but she does lots of musicals as well and is really very versatile. She sings in tons of different languages and she has a wonderfully rich voice that has a real solidity to it.
Split - Funny duet with Neil Hannon, with a great thumping beat in the background.
Wenn Die Beste Freundin - Cute duet with herself, covering a great lesbiany song from Weimar Germany (that Marlene Dietrich herself used to sing) that was banned as degenerate when the Nazis came to power.
Sex-Appeal - also a banned song from Weimar Germany. Very sexy and funny; she manipulates her voice so that it sounds, well, well used *g*
Little Water Song - awesome song written for her by Nick Cave; the lyrics are fantastic, I won't spoil them, and she sings them perfectly.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: great modern punk band that reminds me of The Birthday Party. Part of the resemblance is Karen O's fantastic vocals; she seems to get to the same menacing extremes that Nick Cave did, albeit in a less bizarre way. They have a similar sparse, vicious, syncopated sound, although there's less overt humour.
Maps - fantastic drums and catchy chorus. This is about as cute and romantic as they get and it fits really, really well.
Mystery Girl - I fucking love the bass in this song. An excellent example of how they treat pop rhythms and structure. Clap along!
The Warrior - a vulnerable, plaintive song from their latest album. Karen O sounds stretched to her thinnest here.
Gold Lion - also from the latest, Show Your Bones, this is just a nice tight pop/rock song, great beat, great vocals by Karen O in the chorus, very enjoyable.
Misc
Lucia Di Lammermoor/The Diva Dance (aka that opera song) from the 5th Element - I'm not sure who performs this but she's amazing, although some of the second half is synthesiser. But it's very funky nonetheless.
Blume by Einsturzende Neubauten -
electromoon, is it Anita Lane who guests on this track? She's not really singing, exactly, but, well, I love this song and I really like the way she uses her voice. One of the weirder Neubauten tracks, which is saying something, but quite pretty and not scary like the rest.Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby (aka the sirens's song) from O Brother Where Art Thou. Alison Krauss and two other women. Has a very eerie and seductive quality, which you would expect seeing as the women are supposed to be sirens.
The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd - Caire Torry's wailing, wordless vocals on this track are always stunning no matter how many times you listen to it. The instumentation is very simple and she just picks it up and turns it into this huge ecstatic thing which at the end becomes surprisingly melancholy and almost regretful. They brought her in and she just totally improvised it, it's amazing.
In a quirk of timing, the latest Big Issue has great article about music blogs (plug! plug!).
Edited Cat Power and Yeah Yeah Yeahs stuff 16/7/06 .
