Best Ever Albums

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

cestuneblague — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 04:15:39 GMT

Author: cestuneblague

Posted: 02/22/2016 09:15

Mercury wrote:

This is possibly due to the fact that we're used to the underrepresentation of women musicians in charts. If the average ratio is 90/10 male to female then it's of course MUCH more obvious to an observer that that 90 is 0 on a chart rather than that 10 being a 0. It's just way way more of an obvious trait.

I think if you're using your chart as a means to empower a gender, okay. But I think it's probably more an intentional point of empower wrong and shedding light on female musicians more than a situation where this person literally didn't love any one album made by men in this person's top 100.

Anyway, I like this discussion.

Yeah I wasn't trying to anaylze why a particular chart would have only women and if that's something that hurts or helps more in the long run when trying to give more exposure to female artists, I know my current overall is 99 percent female (thought mainly I just did that as a kind of a launching pad for the new account and wasn't planning on keeping it in it's current form, but alas gotten too lazy to change anything). I guess the main thing that is interesting about a chart that happens to have all female artists is how people automatically took immediate notice "wow, this is all women" and seem to have wildly mixed reactions to why that may be so, and yet nobody (including myself till I actually looked over some charts afterwards) seems to notice or really care if all the albums on a particular chart are entirely made by male artists... mainly cause yes I think the point that has been hammered home here a few times is that yes the musical world as a whole is still often viewed as a very male-driven art form.

You can question the how and the why of the chart and if she's intentionally excluding male artists for whatever reason, or this could just be the genuine 40 albums she likes best, there doesn't have to be an ulterior motive. And again it just seems like a bit of a double standard that these questions are never asked of a male member who has 40-100 favorite albums and none are female artists, nobody seems to question his sincerity, whether he "intentionally" left female artists off or if anything seems a bit exclusionary about the chart as a whole.

And I guess what I think is your chart is your chart, you do what you want with it for whatever rhyme or reason. If it happens to be all male, that's fine... just as if it's all female. There's no right or wrong way to make a chart on BEA and shouldn't be subjected to the authenticity police.

And I guess to get back to a previous point made I do think it can be particularly hard for women to get into a certain type of music that is viewed as very "masculine music", and often can be kind of a damned-if-I-do-or-don't response to whatever route they take. I remember frequenting a lot of old, now-defunct metal forums back in the 00's and often they (unfortunately none too surprisingly as they let their more misogynistic views be known in the crudest way possible) would often ridicule bands with female singers. They would often go after the more melodic-sounding metal that was pretty frequent at the time and berate it (well the female singers in particular) for trying to "soften" or homogenize metal for the masses... but when some people did actually point them to metal albums sung by women that did go very hard and took a much more brutal death/doom metal approach, they were instantly compared and contrasted to male singers of the genre and were not so subtly accused of appropiatiting, or that this was just something a women couldn't do and dismissed the music entirely at face value.

Now this was a while ago and you could chasten these forum members for just (sadly) garden-variety online-misogyny, and I don't want to offend any of my good open-minded metal friends here with all of this Emotion 😉 but I do think there are particular genres and styles of music where it is much harder for female artists to gain respect and attention because there can seem to be just a really ingrained, structural bias of it being something only men can do, and do well. So it does bring more spotlight towards a female artist who does truly breakthrough in the art form and have more wide-reaching success... but she shouldn't be viewed as a "succesful female metal artist", rather just a successful metal artist.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:28:24 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/22/2016 02:28

Romanelli wrote:

sethmadsen wrote:

I listened to Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison last night with my wife. She asked if June Carter was in the recording. We were listening to it on Spotify as we were driving and it didn't mention featuring June Carter, etc. Reminded me of this conversation.

Having said that, I don't think it was a sexist thing... they also didn't name the other backing members.

My copy of At Folsom Prison certainly does include "(With June Carter)" on the tracks she joins Cash on.

Good to know.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Mercury — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 20:45:54 GMT

Author: Mercury

Posted: 02/21/2016 01:45

CryingGameDahlin wrote:

Yes, a man can be supportive towards a female artist in any particular genre and they can certainly *help* them, but her success is not beholden, or "owed", to him either.

Also, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be honest and say "I prefer male artists, or I think men are generally more artistically successful in a particular genre", but that's a subjective opinion, not a fact. It's also silly to pretend that there's no gender biases in how one views particular music, or the comparison of music made by men and women, either. That can happen from all sides. One particular oddity remember is when I first viewed TheyCallMeStacy's chart, and there were actually some negative comments about why they were giving a low score, often in some way saying it was somehow "wrong" for her to exclude male artists from her chart. Now we could argue the exclusion of EITHER sex from a particular chart... but I have never seen a chart made up entirely of male artists to get the same type of criticism. Somehow, there's something "off" about a chart free from some type of male representation, but nobody gives it a second thought when it's reversed. Having all males is just somehow "normal", or unrecognizable. (Not to say at all this was a universal complaint, but it was definitely a pretty telling moment that gender biases do indeed exist- on both side).

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Romanelli — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 19:57:10 GMT

Author: Romanelli

Posted: 02/21/2016 00:57

sethmadsen wrote:

My copy of At Folsom Prison certainly does include "(With June Carter)" on the tracks she joins Cash on.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

RoundTheBend — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 19:52:49 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/21/2016 00:52

I listened to Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison last night with my wife. She asked if June Carter was in the recording. We were listening to it on Spotify as we were driving and it didn't mention featuring June Carter, etc. Reminded me of this conversation.

Having said that, I don't think it was a sexist thing... they also didn't name the other backing members.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

cestuneblague — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 17:34:22 GMT

Author: cestuneblague

Posted: 02/19/2016 22:34

Yes, a man can be supportive towards a female artist in any particular genre and they can certainly *help* them, but her success is not beholden, or "owed", to him either.

Also, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be honest and say "I prefer male artists, or I think men are generally more artistically successful in a particular genre", but that's a subjective opinion, not a fact. It's also silly to pretend that there's no gender biases in how one views particular music, or the comparison of music made by men and women, either. That can happen from all sides. One particular oddity remember is when I first viewed TheyCallMeStacy's chart, and there were actually some negative comments about why they were giving a low score, often in some way saying it was somehow "wrong" for her to exclude male artists from her chart. Now we could argue the exclusion of EITHER sex from a particular chart... but I have never seen a chart made up entirely of male artists to get the same type of criticism. Somehow, there's something "off" about a chart free from some type of male representation, but nobody gives it a second thought when it's reversed. Having all males is just somehow "normal", or unrecognizable. (Not to say at all this was a universal complaint, but it was definitely a pretty telling moment that gender biases do indeed exist- on both side).

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

bcmandude — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 16:27:57 GMT

Author: bcmandude

Posted: 02/19/2016 21:27

Satie wrote:

We began discussing this, for those who didn't see, in the "Will there ever be a new best ever album?" thread when bcmandude was trying to compare BEA's and RYM's overall inclusion of women in their respective Top 1000 lists. Assuming we believe that barriers to female success exist in music to whatever extent we think we do, what form do we think those barriers take and whose responsibility is it to undermine those barriers?

To me personally, it seems that there are a lot of scales at which this question can be directed. For example, if our criterion of success is critical acclaim from music nerds online, I think that misogyny in music communities, while a problem, is perhaps overshadowed by broad socialization of women to have artistic ambitions in narrower realms of music. I think there is less emphasis on women as master composers, geniuses, etc. and more a societal tendency to push women towards incredibly emotive, straightforward music, whether it's pop or singer/songwriter or whatever. Of course, this emphasis has to be changed in a lot of places - when women succeed at different kinds of artistic pursuits, they should perhaps be elevated to set examples and help to break the cycle of societal expectation and female self-assignment into certain genres. I also don't want to pretend that there's just some sort of economic shift that needs to happen here - while record labels continue to take fewer risks, it would appear, on creative female auteurs (can anyone even name a major label female producer besides M.I.A. and Grimes in the last ten years? i'm straining), there's also the issue of music industry publicity for women. This is an issue I alluded to briefly, but I feel that poptimism, while making strides in getting female-centric genres like pop more critical evaluation, which I think is a good outcome, also breeds a certain pigeonholing of female creative energies. It also creates dilemmas for assessing female representation - if females are very well-represented in pop, does that help them to become more represented elsewhere?

I think all these causes and effects are mixed up, but I think a big thing is emphasizing the roles of women in diverse musical fields and having a serious look at what we assess as positive female representation. I obviously don't have any solid answers to these questions, as I'm not a woman, but it seems to me that emphasis should be placed first and foremost on the radical female creators of today and perhaps also on re-evaluating historically large female figures in musical history instead of just creating a political urgency for people to buy female-fronted pop records which, newsflash, are not where the problem is coming from. Taylor Swift doesn't need your rapid pseudo-feminist defense (especially as she acts like an utter oaf in her own attempts at female solidarity through white-washing), in other words. You know who does? Yoko Ono, a genius of her epoch whose role in musical history to the average music consumer is "John Lennon's crazy girlfriend who ruined his band." You know, the one who made provocative pro-woman art and participated in radical leftist activism for the liberation of people of color and the poor? Not the girl who got mad at Nicki for not respecting #AllWomenLives.

This was all over, but hopefully something can be taken from here.

I've been mentioned! 😈

I think in online music communities like this one, the users are predominantly straight white men (I'm part of two of these categories so this isn't an attack). Maybe its just that there are lots of people general who don't try to listen to music coming from people outside of their own experience. I'm an anomaly that I listen to a lot of female vocalists and female produced music, but I try to expand my musical catalog to be more inclusive. I do think music journalism also plays a big role, and I'm sure even a lot of female journalists don't feel like they can be taken seriously by peers if they don't constantly praise the same testosterone-fueled "canon" of the boys club.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:33:19 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/19/2016 20:33

Pentagonal, we're articulating the same approach. I'm just emphasizing how it might look when women go to genres where they're less likely to go and you're emphasizing what should happen when they go to genres they're more likely to go . I'd say we share ideals and methods.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

meccalecca — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:54:03 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:54

dividesbyzero wrote:

I mean the two aren't mutually exclusive, and the latter isn't always obvious or even outwardly intentional

Yeah totally.

I'm more or less responding to the concept that there's big label execs urging women to stay away from genres

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:50:41 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:50

meccalecca wrote:

I see it more to do with girls not having female role models in these genres than any sort of patriarchal push to keep women away.

I mean the two aren't mutually exclusive, and the latter isn't always obvious or even outwardly intentional

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

meccalecca — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:30:25 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:30

I see it more to do with girls not having female role models in these genres than any sort of patriarchal push to keep women away.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:26:13 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:26

Yeah it seems more than plausible as an extension of just a general gross societal trend where its perceived that women need male approval and support to do basically anything not already expected of them. A lot of these industry problems are problems plaguing society as a whole

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:09:31 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:09

benpaco wrote:

While I wouldn't be totally surprised by this scenario, like I said earlier I really don't know enough about the industry in a lot of these cases. Do you have any examples of this happening? Or of the other hypothetical fictional situation? This is less me trying to be a smartass and more me legitimately just not knowing if either of these are common, totally hypothetical, or what.

Oh, I don't know how common it is, either. I'm only presenting it as a hypothetical scenario of male activism on behalf of women. Market forces are strong, however, so I'd be surprised if this kind of thing didn't happen on occasion with the major labels.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

benpaco — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:02:30 GMT

Author: benpaco

Posted: 02/19/2016 19:02

Pentagonal wrote:

[woman sings a song]

LABEL EXEC: That might be difficult to market. Maybe you should try something more along the lines of pop or singer-songwriter.
WOMAN: But this is the music I love!
MALE ARTIST: I say go for it anyway. You should feel free to express yourself in whichever way you want. I'll help promote it.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 13:44:48 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 02/19/2016 18:44

Satie wrote:

Okay, after reading your article and the above, I think I see how you interpreted my position and I believe I'm saying (or at least thinking) something slightly different. I want to be clear that I do think men can be active in breaking down barriers to women and I do think that social change is something that happens through the agency of more than just the disadvantaged group. To illustrate that point more vividly, here's an alternate fictional exchange to what I presented earlier:

[woman sings a song]

LABEL EXEC: That might be difficult to market. Maybe you should try something more along the lines of pop or singer-songwriter.
WOMAN: But this is the music I love!
MALE ARTIST: I say go for it anyway. You should feel free to express yourself in whichever way you want. I'll help promote it.

I think the above is a great way for men to promote change in how society views female musicians, and if this is what you were trying to express, then I completely agree. To me, the key difference between this and the previous situation is that the man (or society) isn't dictating what type of music the woman should make. She still does that herself, but the man can still help to break down any barriers she might face.

The main reason I think this distinction is important is that, as I'm sure you know, human societies are very complex things. Even though it might be tempting to look at gender ratios in various genres and declare them deficient, I don't believe that equal gender participation in everything is necessarily ideal. Metal was discussed as an example of a genre that's very male dominated, but in my experience, that's probably because very few women even like metal. I still support breaking down barriers for female metal musicians, if possible, but I don't think we're ever going to know when we've reached an ideal gender ratio, or if that's even a meaningful thing. Whether this male preference for metal is due to something in the socialization process or (*gasp*) intrinsic differences between the sexes, I think that the type of music a person chooses to make is part of how they express themselves. If I can be said to have an ideal, it's that men and women can feel encouraged to make whatever kind of music they want, regardless of whether it satisfies the expectations of others. And that includes the expectations of progressives.

Re: Point of Discussion: Barriers in Music

RockyRaccoon — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 08:23:37 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 02/19/2016 13:23

craola wrote:

someone needs to call you guys out on this. CCM playlist, now, please.

I mean if you really want it I can give you a playlist.

Or you can just listen to these albums