Bands like L7 and Heavens to Betsy were instrumental to the birth of the grunge scene, but for decades were treated like novelties and sex objects. Thirty years later, it’s time to reassess their legacy.
women in music
Posted inReading List
The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form
Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Carly Rae Jepsen’s Exhilarating, Emotionally Intelligent Pop Music
Although music often involves emotional expression, pop star Carly Rae Jepsen has built a career and a persona out of big, unguarded emotions, a range that could be called “too muchness,” which is just right for some of us.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story, Uncategorized
Violence Girl
How a young bilingual Latina became one of punk’s enduring icons and helped create a new musical universe.
Posted inNonfiction
The Story of Salvador’s Banda Didá
In a country with violent history and violent politics, Brazil’s first all-female, Afro-Brazilian percussion group drums and dances and changes lives.
Posted inStory
Why Lhasa de Sela Matters
Raised in a school bus by itinerant hippie parents, with one foot in Mexico and one in the US, the singer blossomed into her true multicultural self in bilingual Montreal.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Why Karen Carpenter Matters
For one brown, queer Filipino-American, Karen Carpenters’ music anchored her to her musical family’s past while helping chart her path in their adopted Southern California.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Shelved: Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine
How the songwriter’s abandoned third album became two albums.
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Country Music … Was Anything BUT Pure’: An Interview with Bill Malone and Tracey Laird
The co-authors of ‘Country Music USA’ – a revised edition of the genre’s definitive history – talk with music writer Will Hermes about the music’s African-American tributaries, its unpredictable politics, country radio’s woman problem, and working on Ken Burns’ forthcoming doc.
Posted inBooks, History, Nonfiction, Story
The Brief Career and Self-Imposed Exile of Jutta Hipp, Jazz Pianist
Europe’s “First Lady of Jazz” moved to New York in 1955, played for five more years, then disappeared — while royalty checks piled up with her record label.