So I noticed that my first music post featured bands or musicians that were all guys. Well I figure for this post I'd look at the women of music that make me happy. So here it goes:


1)

Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

This is a bad ass song for many reasons. It's Billie Holiday. It's anti-racism in a way that doesn't force feed you the message. The striking lyrics evoke a dark time in America's past and stay with you long after the song ends. It's just fucking beautiful to me.




2)

Bjork - All is Full of Love

Bjork makes music that sounds to me like that way she thinks. Considering she's fucking nuts, that's pretty impressive. If Bjork were not a successful recording artist, she'd just be some annoying, crazy foreigner that people ignore, like the bum that asks you for change via the dirty sock puppet on his left hand. However, her combination of creative brilliance and fucking nuts work for her and her music has stayed with me for a long time, especially this song.



3)

Bobbie Gentry - Ode to Billy Joe

The first time I heard Bobbie Gentry I thought she was a black woman. Now before anyone (or the two of you that read this) get riled up it's a known fact that in the realm of white female singers from the 60's and 70's this is the highest compliment that you can be paid. Disagree with me? Ok, name an amazing white woman singer from that time. Ok, now compare them to Aretha Franklin. WOMP. Not so much. The closest contender I can think of is Janis Joplin and she didn't so much sing as scream her tortured soul out on stage. Anyway, Bobbie Gentry wrote her own songs, played her instruments and handled her shit. Intelligent lyrics, an amazing voice, and smart both on stage and off? Oh my, that just fucking fabulous.



4)

Debbie Harry & Kermit the Frog - The Rainbow Connection

Debbie Harry is like if Marilyn Monroe had gotten into punk and formed a band. Debbie Harry may have been viewed as a sex symbol but that never confined her to some unattainable object. She was there at Studio 54 and then CBGB's when it all began. She was friends with Andy Warhol. She fronted Blondie. She acts and still performs with Blondie nearly forty years later. Debbie Harry is fucking awesome. If you disagree then stop reading this and go back to imagining that Megan Fox is anything but an ugly, boring slag.



5)

Patsy Cline - Three Cigarettes in the Ashtray

Patsy Cline will always remind me of my mom cooking dinner when I was a kid. She didn't know I was listening but I would go right up to the edge of our kitchen and listen to her sing along to her Patsy Cline tape. It's one of my favorite memories I have of my mother. That's the music of Patsy Cline, the soundtrack to memories. Her songs are timeless and its the kind of music that just instantly hits you , at least when you are ready for it. The fact that she died at 30 but Lady Gaga is still around creating aural abortions makes me believe in a God that is either A) a vengeful, cruel deity or B) writes for Pitchfork. Maybe both.