Female Voices

  • A bloke I follow on twitter does these music 'challenge' months. e.g. in May anyone taking part was invited to post one track per day from the new wave/postpunk era, 78-84, any genre as long as it was from that time period, and a different artist each day. He then collated all the responses and posted a 2-cd compilation made from the top choices across the month.


    The one for July was female voices - simply that, post a track each day by a different artist, the only criterion being it has a female voice, no time/genre restrictions (some people included ones where a male voice featured too but still had a lead female one too). I find so much of my listening revolves around female-voiced music so I had a struggle to hone it down to 31 tracks across the month, reluctantly discarding ones I really hoped to include. It was interesting seeing other people's choices, which have led me to some good stuff I didn't know.


    This was my list for the month:


    1 SYLVER TONGUE – Hook You Up

    2 KYLIE MINOGUE – Stars

    3 JUDEE SILL – Jesus Was A Crossmaker

    4 AROOF AFTAB – Inayaat

    5 EMIKA – Common Exchange

    6 COLOURBOX – Arena II

    7 LANTERNS ON THE LAKE – Beings (live at the Quay Sessions)

    8 LADY GAGA – Joanne (piano version)

    9 MALL GIRL – Bubbly Cool Drink

    10 JAIN – Makeba

    11 SOPHIE – Faceshopping

    12 RAISSA – Your Summertime

    13 DUBSTAR – Not So Manic Now

    14 ANGEL OLSEN – Lark

    15 SLEIGH BELLS – Sing Like A Wire

    16 KIKI DEE – Amoureuse (live on TOTP)

    17 KT TUNSTALL – In This Body (live)

    18 CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS – Starshipper

    19 BEABADOOBEE – Cologne

    20 WENDY & LISA – Why Wait For Heaven

    21 NADINE SHAH – Kitchen Sink

    22 GOLDFRAPP – A&E

    23 SHARON VAN ETTEN – I’ll Try

    24 SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – Put Your Sad Down

    25 ARLO PARKS – Softly

    26 TUNEYARDS – Water Fountain (live on Later)

    27 LISA GERMANO – Everyone’s Victim

    28 JULIANA HATFIELD THREE – Supermodel

    29 JULIA HOLTER – Turn The Light On

    30 THE CARPENTERS – Goodbye To Love

    31 MADONNA – Drowned World (Substitute For Love)


    PS - his next theme will be B-sides, in September.

    Abandon all reason

  • Ahh, a fellow Judee Sill fan! Tragic that her life was cut short.

    Her voice on this song with its tricky melody line is like a bird soaring, swooping and diving in the air. It was one of the first ones I thought of including.

    Quote

    Happiness is a great album, some parts sweet, some parts a bit off-kilter.

    I first saw LG as part of Simple Minds touring band then bought Happiness on impulse and didn't regret it. This is the standout track for me and one of my favourite songs of the 90s. Your "off-kilter" kind of applies to this one as everything sounds at cross-purposes but in a way that creates an implied drone, then you get those little rising sequences of skewed organ that sound quite Banksian. I love how it all hangs together.


    You're the only other person I'm aware of who's got or at least heard that album!

    Abandon all reason

  • 1. Patsy Cline: I Fall to Pieces

    2. Lesley Gore: You Don’t Own Me

    3. Ella Fitzgerald: I Love Paris

    4. Sarah McLaughlin: Building a Mystery

    5. The Supremes: Stormy

    6. Laurie Anderson: Flying Birds

    7. The Carpenters: Superstar

    8. Suzanne Vega: Marlena on the Wall

    9. Frida: There’s Something Going On

    10. Joan Baez: Farewell Angelina

    11. Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love

    12. Bobbi Gentry: Ode to Billy Joe

    13. Petula Clark: I Know a Place

    14. The Crystals: He’s a Rebel

    15. Maxine Nightingale: Get Right Back

    16. Natalie Merchant: Carnival

    17. Claire Lynch: Dear Sister

    18. Jane Siberry: Symmetry

    19. The Cranberries: Linger

    20. Carly Simon: You’re So Vain

    21. Judy Collins: Clouds

    22. Dianna Ross: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

    23. Emmylou Harris with The Band: Evangeline

    24. Linda Ronstadt: Long, Long Time

    25. Laura Nyro: Stone Cold Picnic

    26. Carol King: You’ve Got a Friend

    27. Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams

    28. Aretha Franklin: Respect

    29. Cyndi Lauper: Time After Time

    30. Mary J. Bilge with U2: One

    31. Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac): Gold Dust Women

  • Nice mix.

    19. The Cranberries: Linger

    Generally not a fan but this song is so gorgeous.


    Dolores 😪

    Quote

    20. Carly Simon: You’re So Vain

    Man do I love this. I'd have included it but Amoureuse occupies the same space as a major song from my childhood, and happened to win out.


    As a child I puzzled over what I thought was "I had some dreams there were clouds in my coffee". I continued to puzzle it for decades, well into adulthood. It's only recently, when it came up in a discussion, that Mrs Backdrifter set me straight and said it's "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee". Which makes sense.

    Abandon all reason

  • I quite agree about “Linger.” It’s lilting and beautiful. I suspect my list may lean more old school than many would. Nice to know you appreciate those particular songs too:)

  • Her voice on this song with its tricky melody line is like a bird soaring, swooping and diving in the air. It was one of the first ones I thought of including.

    I also really love her album Heart Food. Some gorgeous stuff on that too.

    I first saw LG as part of Simple Minds touring band then bought Happiness on impulse and didn't regret it. This is the standout track for me and one of my favourite songs of the 90s. Your "off-kilter" kind of applies to this one as everything sounds at cross-purposes but in a way that creates an implied drone, then you get those little rising sequences of skewed organ that sound quite Banksian. I love how it all hangs together.


    You're the only other person I'm aware of who's got or at least heard that album!

    I also recommend her first album On the Way Down From the Moon Palace if you haven't already heard it.

  • Many great songs on this list, but I am going to focus in on this one. Clever and hilarious, great groove, awesome harmonies.

    Thanks, though in rereading my list I realize I had a brain freeze on #24. It should read Stone SOUL Picnic. One of the many superb songs written by Laura Nyro. Re Symmetry: I hadn’t thought of or listened to that song in years until I put the list together. I’d forgotten how much I love it! There’s a killer video on YouTube that sets the song to film from a 1930s Busby Berkeley musical. It’s really fantastic.

  • I don't see any mention of Joni Mitchell here. Her voice can at times be annoying but her songs are superb. I recommend the Hejira album. You could always start with a couple of her best known songs, Big Yellow Taxi and Help Me (which was supposed to be about Glenn Frey. A lot of her songs were about musicians with whom she had affairs).


    Mr FIC would want me to mention the late Kirsty MacColl, particularly My Affair (song) and she did a beautiful version of the Kinks' Days.


    If Stevie Nicks gets a mention, so should Christine McVie for You Make Loving Fun & Songbird.

  • Kirsty McColl's "In these Shoes?" is superb, and Nazareth's version of Joni's "This Flight Tonight" (Very much NOT a female voice! :)) is brilliant too.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • With "Called her name" on the b-side. Another brilliant song. Wasn't my first single, but I did buy it.

    And on the pleasingly distinct Mooncrest label.


    Mine was 30p from MJM, Central Road, Worcester Park. A shop in which I spent a lot of time well into my early 20s.

    Abandon all reason

  • Also love Lush.

    Miki Berenyi... that hair...


    I saw them a few years back on a reunion tour (the hair sadly was 'just' black). They concentrated on the earlier shoegazy stuff rather than the bright poppy hits, which suited me.


    In the early 00s she worked as a copy editor for ITV listings. I was doing the same job, but for the BBC and saw her name on an email distribution list about programme schedule changes (the channels shared information, we needed theirs for Radio Times). I asked a contact who worked there if it was that Miki Berenyi. He confirmed it was, still with the vivid pink hair and did I want to meet her. Well, yes I did, but opted not to.

    Abandon all reason

  • OK, I'll try to come up with a female voices list. I'm doing this at lunch break at work, so I'll probably overlook some artists in my collection.


    1. Tori Amos - Ribbons Undone
    2. The B-52s - Deadbeat Club
    3. Jonatha Brooke - Crumbs
    4. Buckingham Nicks - Crying In the Night
    5. Kate Bush - The Morning Fog
    6. The [Dixie] Chicks - White Trash Wedding
    7. Cocteau Twins - Iceblink Luck
    8. Crash Vegas - On and On (Lodestar)
    9. Dalbello - Gonna Get Close to You
    10. Ani DiFranco - Imperfectly
    11. Echobelly - Dark Therapy
    12. Emm Gryner - Stereochrome
    13. Aretha Franklin - Mary Don't You Weep
    14. Indigo Girls - Galileo
    15. Aimee Mann - Could've Been Anyone
    16. Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing In the Street
    17. Kate and Anna McGarrigle - NaCl
    18. Maria McKee - Breathe
    19. Sarah McLachlan - Mercy
    20. Milla - The Gentleman Who Fell
    21. Joni Mitchell - Conversation
    22. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
    23. Sinead O'Connor - Troy
    24. Dolly Parton - The Grass Is Blue
    25. The Roches - Ing
    26. Jane Siberry - The Walking (and Constantly)
    27. Richard and Linda Thompson - Dimming of the Day
    28. Weeping Tile - Dogs and Thunder
    29. Gillian Welch - Tear My Stillhouse Down
    30. Amy Winehouse - Rehab
    31. Suzanne Vega - Book of Dreams

    And I have already run out of numbers! So many others that should be mentioned.

  • If I were to do a top 20 or so list of my favourite songs by 20 different female artists it might look like this:


    1. Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights

    2. Stevie Nicks - Edge Of Seventeen

    3. Pretenders (Chrissie Hynde) - 2000 Miles

    4. Joni Mitchell - Refuge Of The Roads

    5. Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time

    6. Aretha Franklin - Think (love Respect but it's been mentioned)

    7. Carole King - It's Too Late

    8 - Carly Simon - You're So Vain

    9. Cher - Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves

    10. Petula Clark - Downtown

    11. Jefferson Airplaine (Grace Slick) - Somebody To Love

    12. Abba (Frida Lyngstad) - Knowing Me, Knowing You

    13. Abba - (Agnetha Faltskog) The Winner Takes It All

    14. Allison Krauss (with Robert Plant) - Please Read The Letter

    15. Emmylou Harris (with Mark Knopfler) - Red Staggerwing

    16. Roxette (the late Marie Fredericksson) - Fading Like A Flower (althouugh Joyride is their best song IMO)

    17. Tina Turner - Nutbush City Limits

    18. Heart (Nancy Wilson) - These Dreams

    19. Carpenters - Goodbye To Love

    20. Madonna - Live To Tell


    That isn't a bad list if I say so myself! I know there are a couple of duets there; I recommend the album Emmylou Harris made with Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel.

  • From this playlist which are the top ten? :/