From Janet Jackson and Kate Bush to Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, women just can’t get a break! While female artists are often criticized and dismissed for not having “serious” music like their male counterparts, we take a closer look at how each of these women are far smarter than the critics make them out to be. But are these women really the most criticized women in pop?
We examine what makes these women stand out in history with special guest, Lesley Chow, author of You’re History: The Twelve Strangest Women in Music, out now via Repeater Books. Expanding on her book, we focus specifically on what makes their music unique – from tonality to lyric choice, these women hold nothing back.
Lesley Chow is an Australian writer on music and film. She is associate editor of Bright Lights and has been published widely for two decades, including Salon, Times Literary Supplement, The Quietus, Pop Matters and CNN. Find Lesley on Twitter for more.
This is a music commentary podcast based on pre-existing knowledge and facts cited over on our website Name3Songs.com. If you’d like to discuss anything we talked about today in greater detail with us, you can find us on Twitter @Name3Songs or @sara_feigin & @jenna_million
To hear more related content you can check out past episodes of Name 3 Songs such as, Breaking the Pop Star Archetype with GIRLI or Successful Women and Their Inescapable Exes
Sources for The Most Criticized Women in Pop
All of our research for this episode was through Lesley’s book You’re History: The 12 Strangest Women in Pop and a bit of help from Wikipedia!
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