Female Singers - Halp?

[beccatoria]

Hey guys
First off I'm really, really sorry I've been so crap about posting here lately and stuff. It's been a bit of a grind-you-down kind of couple of weeks. But I still love you all!

In other news, HALP ME.

For reasons that are far to long and boring to be of interest to many of you, I find that I need some suggestions for female singers, or bands with female lead singers, that I might like. My music taste tends to be somewhere in the vicinity of indie rock with various odd jaunts toward both singer-songwriter and rap artist. I like complicated lyrics. I like when not all the songs are about being in love. Or if they are, the lyrics are complicated and interesting. I like drumming. I like "strong" voices rather than "pretty" voices.

Here are some female artists I already like:

Florence and the Machine
Joan Baez
Tracy Chapman
Pat Benatar (shut up!)
Jefferson Airplane
Regina Spektor
Tori Amos (during her early years)

Any recs welcome!

Thanks guys!

Comments

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, remember when I was shutting up? *g* IT IS SO MUCH EASIER TO DO THIS OVER HERE THAN IN MY JOURNAL, SORRY. :p

As soon as it's something that's going to get a "Fail" appended to the end of its name, it's like there are rules to follow in how it should be talked about which I'm not sure is a good thing?
Yes, this is why I find it uncomfortable. There's this shutting-down-of-conversation that happens on *both* sides. I don't doubt that there are probably fans saying "you don't get it/get over it/omg censorship/etc." stuff right now somewhere, but people engaging in good faith get dismissed right alongside them if they don't accept all the rules and jargon and rightness of your position as a baseline. There is NO middle ground.

On the specific "did she mean to be OTT or not?" issue... I preface this by saying I'm not taking any 'side' here and Palmer's done things before that I respect and others that I find tasteless. At first glance, it seemed like a misaimed joke, not intended to shock and offend as much as be wacky, and I think it's *very* obvious she didn't expect it to be conflated with mocking real people with disabilities (and apparently every kind of disablity ever), probably because conjoined twins are so rare in reality but popular as a cultural image.

Two of the released songs are campy and cute Americana-type stuff. However, listening to "A Campaign for Shock and Awe", I can sort of see where the album/project as a whole might be going? That's where you can hear the 'darker' elements creeping in and the exploitation angle, and to me points to a more active attempt to be audacious and subversive. I'm personally withholding judgment on how compassionate vs. offensive it is until I get a better idea of WTF is going on.

Edit: Not sure if this makes sense, I'm not saying it might turn around and be totally justified and awesome, but I'll be more interested in taking a close look at it and attacking its substance and how it fails from there, rather than just speculating? I'm not the person going "JUST GIVE DOLLHOUSE A CHANCE", I'm the person going "Dollhouse didn't inherently HAVE to suck, there were elements of good and elements that went horribly wrong."

[chaila.livejournal.com]

*talks way more than I intended*

I'm not the person going "JUST GIVE DOLLHOUSE A CHANCE", I'm the person going "Dollhouse didn't inherently HAVE to suck, there were elements of good and elements that went horribly wrong."

I found this a really useful analogy! Because I think it's distilled it into...it's just a personal line/response? Because while I haven't heard the project, mostly I find her response to it all distasteful enough not to want to. Though I do also hope that at the same time I recognize that avoiding it doesn't mean I judge people who respond to it differently and have a different line in a different place than I do?

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

I appreciate that! :)