Do You Think Pop Artists Were Talented Do You Think Pop Art Creators Were Talented
I t'due south been a giddy few months for women in pop. If you oasis't been living in a cave, you may take heard about Miley Cyrus swinging naked on a wrecking ball, and Sinéad O'Connor's subsequent open letter to the old child star. "The music business doesn't requite a shit about you," O'Connor wrote. "They will prostitute you lot for all you are worth."
Another former child star reacted to the Miley/Sin̩ad saga later РCharlotte Church building, in an hr-long Skin lecture for 6 Music. The male-dominated music business organisation had "a juvenile perspective on gender", she railed, before slamming how acceptable this state had go. She added: "the culture of demeaning women in pop music is so ingrained every bit to have go routine, from the way we are dealt with by management and labels, to the fashion we are presented to the public."
But behind the scenes on Planet Popular, women besides work. They're in the minority, equally Church acknowledged, but they also direct videos, produce records and develop artists' careers. Director Diane Martel may take defended her video for Robin Thicke'southward Blurred Lines – topless girls were in a "power position", she said, if they stared at a camera while strutting most fully clothed men – simply many other female voices haven't been heard, until at present.
As a announcer who has encountered some sexism in her own career (being directed to put more than shoes and less debate in my feminist pop culture site, the Lipster, by our funders – that was fun), my conversations with these women were equally fascinating as they were complex. Many praised Church'southward lecture, but also acknowledged how huge and knotty her subject was; several emailed me later to clarify their positions. Whatever decent discussion of these bug is e'er difficult, I observe, because women always know the criticisms and bad-mannered questions that inevitably crop upward. Hasn't sex sold records for ever? Aren't you prudish if you say women shouldn't express themselves sexually? Are women being exploited by others or happily exploiting themselves? In that location aren't like shooting fish in a barrel answers, either.
I practice know one thing, however. A year ago, I wrote a piece for the Quietus about my experience of the Rihanna marketing machine, noting that her career success was being measured not only by her sales, but by Twitter followers and video views. Similarly, this July, Miley Cyrus was delighted to get 306,000 tweets a minute during her notorious "twerking" performance with Robin Thicke at the VMAs – and didn't seem to mind that many of them were negative. YouTube views count towards chart placings in America, and influence United kingdom radio playlists these days, so mainstream pop's economy is driven by one matter: hits and clicks.
The irony of this feature adding to that whirlwind is not lost on me. Neither is the fact that past focusing on the perils of lowest-mutual-denominator sexism, we're ignoring the commercially successful pop women who avoid them (Emeli Sandé and Taylor Swift take outsold Rihanna this twelvemonth, for example). There are other glimmers of hope in the conversations that follow likewise. Simply by bringing different women into the mix who have had valid experiences can nosotros broaden this contend, and lessen that juvenile perspective after all.
MAIREAD NASH
Manager of Florence and the Machine since day one, later discovering Florence Welch singing in a toilet in a nightclub, and founder of Luvluvluv Records. Formerly half of female DJ duo Queens of Noize, who had an MTV show and made a single in which the girls deliberately dressed like boys in the video.
My company is pretty much all women. I didn't do that on purpose, but we do feel more powerful as a troupe. Maybe I did do it subconsciously, because the industry'south so male person-dominated.
I got involved with music immature. It infuriated me that men were allowed to hang out with musicians, merely if women did, they were groupies. I used to say if y'all worked at a dentists, you'd hang out with other people from there, wouldn't you?
The backlash against us turned nasty, though, and I concluded upwardly leaving the country. I had to rethink what I wanted to do in the industry, how I wanted to be a part of it.
I've worked with Florence from the start and, like u.s.a., she volition not compromise. On big Television shows, if someone says to her: "You lot've got to clothes sexy for this", she'll become: "Right, then, give me the blackness bin purse." I thought her Brits wearing apparel [a long peach gown with sheer panels] was amazing, though, and a great compromise. It also irritates me if you practise anything equally a woman, you've got to say why. If Florence collaborates with a writer, she's got to justify it. If a man does, he doesn't.
I think the traditional music manufacture collapsing – in terms of how the digital world has changed information technology – has been a good matter for women, though. If you can make something work and come upwards with a good idea, you can own information technology. It'due south almost like punk over again... yous can make up your own rules. Plus, there are more women coming through now who don't conform, like Lorde, who's fantastic. Despite everything, I tin simply meet information technology getting better.
DAWN SHADFORTH
Award-winning music video director who has directed videos for Kylie, Oasis and Florence and the Machine. In 2000/2001, she directed and edited Kylie's Spinning Effectually and Tin can't Get Y'all Out of My Head videos, which were widely considered to accept reignited her career worldwide.
When I went to art school, at that place was an expectation that if you were a woman you had to make work about your gender, while men were gratuitous to express themselves how they pleased. I felt that was unfair. I have always carried around a little feminist fine art tutor on my shoulder, though. Now I am older, I listen to that vocalism more.
Probably the two sexiest videos I take made were for Kylie. When I edited the video for Tin't Get You Out of My Head, there were more risqu̩ shots where the suit was more revealing, so I cut them out. As well, I very conspicuously remember Kylie and I sitting in my grotty little flat in Brixton, deciding whether to put the close-upward shot of her bum into Spinning Around. Kylie looked at me and said: "What do you call up about that shot, Dawn?" I probably said I liked it, and it stayed in without me considering its wider sociopolitical implications. I never said: "Let's film her arse now" though Рwhen she swung into frame, there was just this beautiful floating bum. Plus, the real sexiness of Kylie's performance comes because she just is sexy.
More recently, withal, I've been booked on jobs where they desire things to exist sexy. I was recently shown a picture of girls wearing thong swimsuits by a director as a styling proffer, but I didn't style it like that because I'd feel very uncomfortable with girls wearing thongs dancing around a human. The dancers all thanked me for dressing them in big knickers too.
I was also making a video recently for a very talented, ballsy girl, who at twenty wrote a global No 1 hit for another ring. She wanted to apparel in a way that was punky and violent, merely at that place was a push from the label boss for her to wear a low-cut top, testify her breasts, and exist less "scary". That male executive tried to use my influence as a woman to influence her – information technology's the start time anyone has said annihilation like that to me. I told them where to get.
What bothers me at present more than annihilation is that large artists are very straight in terms of their sexuality., perhaps with the exception of Lady Gaga. Men have to be cool and hardass, which is repressive too; they couldn't dry hump a guitar similar Prince today, or get naked like D'Angelo did in 2006. The glamorisation of female victims is also everywhere, in videos such as Rihanna's Pour It Upwards, only also ones past Drake and the Weeknd. It'southward similar we have gone dorsum to moving-picture show noir times, where voracious sexual women are punished and die, rather than have fun like Madonna did.
The pressure today is to make your video ascent to the pinnacle amongst all this stuff. As a result, the music industry is more risk-averse, going for shock tactics, the lowest common denominator. Very simply, it's market forces in operation.
ADRIENNE AIKEN
Just female director of the Music Producers Order, where less than four% of listed producers are women. Producer and engineer for more than 30 years, making records and music for Television receiver.
Whenever I see new people in the music industry, they presume I'm a singer or artist-manager. It gets abrasive, only and then again, that'south just statistics. There aren't many female producers, but women have qualities that are very suitable for the job. Every bit child-bearers, nosotros're supposed to have compassion – not that I'm maxim men don't – but "feminine" qualities of empathy and sensitivity are very useful around artists.
I've only experienced straight prejudice once, working on a co-production with a guy who didn't show for about of the sessions. The guy commissioning the chore knew I was doing all the work, merely at a meeting later on that everyone attended, he wouldn't even wait at me and only talked to my male person partner – proverb he was happy for the other guy to carry on doing his work! So I said fine and walked out, shaking with anger. I also observe if there's a problem at any level in the music industry, and there'due south a woman backside information technology, then information technology'south mentioned. It's not mentioned so much the other manner.
When I'm producing female artists, I don't tell them not to cantankerous lines. If they are a sexual person trying to go that out in their music, I draw that out. I don't concur with the overtness of some artists today, just that makes me sound erstwhile – every generation has its Elvis, after all!
What is incorrect to me is that younger artists, appealing to an even younger audition, are existence overt sexually before they know what it all means... just as, how could you end kids watching this stuff? You'd have to become all large blood brother with retina or fingerprint scans! The only way to moderate what is fed to new generations is to moderate what is delivered, and that responsibleness needs to come up from the labels.
AMY MORGAN
Talent scout for Isle Records at academy, and so worked in A&R/publishing for Island, Zomba, V2 and Cooperative Music in her early on 20s. Now a creative manager at Beggars Music since 2009, working with True cat Power, Warpaint and US rapper Kitty.
When I've faced bug in the industry considering I'm a woman, information technology's always been at the mainstream pop finish. I dipped my toe in in that location, and it was awful, a existent boys' club. Being a 21-yr-old girl in a company signing 21-year-old girls who never take any wearing apparel on... I sat in rooms thinking, if they're talking that way about them, what must they be thinking about me?
Young A&R guys are also taken more seriously than women because there's this weird tradition where knowledge of music has always been considered quite male.
The real trouble is that in that location aren't plenty women high up in the industry, because it'due south a very unfriendly identify to be an older woman. It's quite hard to take children, for instance, considering of the nature of the chore, and the industry is likewise obsessed by younger women.
Just the music industry is too only a mirror to bigger social problems. All information technology's doing is producing cultural products that people desire to buy, whether that'due south the Chris Brown and Rihanna thing, which horrified me, or the Robin Thicke video, which will have been brainstormed and worked out from a formula – they'll have got the influences from how people are, how people are dancing on dancefloors. And all Miley Cyrus is doing, even if it was her decision, is being reflective of a wider sense where to be successful as a immature adult female she has to accept all her wearing apparel off and lick a hammer.
I feel as frustrated almost this as everybody else, and that'south why I've chosen to have my career in the independent sector. Without women in more positions of power everywhere, beyond this industry, information technology's not going to change.
LISA PAULON
PR/marketing director who began her career working for indie labels Wax Trax, Caroline and Sub Pop. Joined Polydor/Universal in 1997, helping launch Queens of the Stone Age, Ian Brown and the Cardigans. Manager of own marketing company Traffic since 2001, and director of Camden Crawl festival since 2005.
My original ambition was to be a major record visitor director, but it took me a long time to realise that that was never going to happen. Why? Because y'all accept to modify your behaviour – essentially, you had to behave as one of the lads to progress.
Working in PR and marketing with the Cardigans taught me a few lessons, though. Nina [Persson, the singer] is a brilliant woman, and she was going for a sexy biker chick look at the end of the 90s. Nosotros did a shoot for Loaded, and she did go topless, only they said it was going to be shot artily, in black and white, really cool. It ended up looking icky, so we actually stopped those photos coming out. That'southward a rare positive case of an artist not being sold down the road, but you have to have the strength to practice that.
There are and then many artists that major labels know they tin't sell just through their music, so they try and create a stronger hook. Heavy rock and metallic artists are fabricated more angry and shocking, for example, but there isn't a female equivalent of Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson, where the imagery is aggressive rather than sexualised.
With Camden Clamber, our booking committee is very mixed, male-to-female, and my experience working on it has been so positive. It's besides funny how people expect differently – and positively! – at women when they're working independently from a large visitor, equally I have done since 2001. You lot're not a cog whatever more than. The music manufacture is becoming more mixed too. Five years ago, in that location were no female person agents, but at present about 50% of the people I'm dealing with are women. Information technology gives me faith that the old boys' clubs are being torn apart.
ALISON HOWE
Former John Peel producer, now series producer of Later... with Jools Kingdom of the netherlands. Also executive producer of Glastonbury coverage.
I don't have any advertisers, sponsors or shareholders to bargain with at Later, so I'm quite lucky. I oasis't had any issues because of my sex activity either, only that might be because I don't work in the music industry – I work in broadcasting.
I don't volume artists because of their gender, but I do try and get a good mix. I would never refuse to book an artist because of the way she presents herself, though. I hateful, I'd love Lady Gaga on Subsequently, and whatever she wore would exist entirely upwards to her.
Equally for the sexualisation of women today, I don't call back it'south a million miles abroad from what Madonna was doing. The difference at present is that kids tin can picket these clips endlessly, which only x years agone just didn't happen. But every bit, they might watch an Adele performance, and that might make a mark. Equally long equally they've a choice of things to take in and talk most, and then that's fine. If they start to feel they've got to be provocative to get on, that volition be a sad day.
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