NPR's 150 Albums Made by Women

Re the lack of blurbs, he wrote:

I haven’t written blurbs for them because I wanted to get this list out while people still remembered NPR’s original list. But I extremely recommend every single last one of them — and the top fifty or so are change-the-world great

that's not enough to be educational imo

i liked the blurbs in the npr list -- seeing the albums listed without them (and the cover art) diminishes the utility of the list imo. they were thoughtful and contextualized the albums for people who may not be familiar. they were...educational!

it makes me long to be 12 and educate myself in the era of streaming

NPR had a team of folks writing those blurbs, Bogart just did his pre-1964 list himself

that's fine, my point is that the that lack of blurbs makes it less useful in this way
doesn't mean it wasn't a good list -- i'm sure it is!

Fair point re the blurbs, but I meant just listening to the albums - however that might happen - would be educational, or perhaps "broadening" would be a better word

yeah -- i think the NPR list acts as a perfect gateway to that kind of further exploration. it's why i like the list! it generates discussion (see the many lists generated by the existence of this one) as well as points of reference for noob seekers.

Nothing very contentious, just a list of more oddball omissions: http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/07/27/25308219/the-problem-with-nprs-150-greatest-albums-made-by-women-list. Love seeing the Shop Assistants on there, was going to mention them.

it makes me long to be 12 and educate myself in the era of streaming

I think about stuff like that often--the trade-off between what I missed out on in access and what I got from the lifelong search.

I remember how excited I was in 2000 during the Napster era when I finally go to hear Mick Jagger's "Let's Work"!

I'm still searching for "Let's Work."

Like that list by The Stranger

Not sure they needed to go this meta though: http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/07/27/25310745/the-problem-with-jezebels-150-worst-albums-made-by-men-list

lol this is getting out of hand

That Stranger list keeps destroying my browser!

I get the discovery angle - any decent list is a gateway - but at the same time I keep imagining that inquisitive 12 year old saying "Oh so women make music too? Wow!" Greil Marcus makes a good point, the overall urge for inclusiveness renders the bulk of NPR's selections obvious, bland or just bad.

I think there's also the issue of the blurb format and how writers will use that. If you're using 2/3 of the space to explain background information on the album, there's not much room left for particular insights on the music.

but at the same time I keep imagining that inquisitive 12 year old saying "Oh so women make music too? Wow!"
you are really underestimating the mental capacity of a 12 year old

A 150 albums list with blurbs suggests right off the back that the writing is going to be dispassionate. A piece like that with 150 blurbs all filled with passion would be a major overload.

it makes me long to be 12 and educate myself in the era of streaming

I was just reading through some person's lists on RYM, and he had probably almost 100 lists which he had made over a couple of years, apparently while in college and getting into music for the first time (this was circa 2010), and it just blew my mind to think how much music this guy had been exposed to in such a short span of time because of the internet. When I was in college I probably spend as much time as that guy trying to discover new music, except I probably ended up hearing about 1% of what he was able to hear with the same amount of effort.

i recently discovered Fairuz (on the 1939-1964 list) when i asked a friend who just moved here from Syria via Lebanon about Omar Souleyman, and he laughed in my face for a good minute, and said 'no one in syria listens to that crap' and 'he's a fool who looks ridiculous and his lyrics make no sense' then told me to check out Fairuz. it's really pretty

I could say that any top list that puts Joni Mitchell’s Blue over Aretha’s I Never Loved a Man or X-ray Spex’s Germfree Adolescents is a travesty, but really, you have to dive into the depths of 130-150 to grapple with the thing, and who will?

What's Marcus' stance on Mitchell anyway? The extent of my knowledge is that he didn't include her in Tresure Island, and that obviously he prefers lady Punk Rock to her.

If you scroll down a few questions on the "Ask Greil" page, there's actually a question specifically about Mitchell:

07/21/17
I recently reread your review of The Last Waltz movie and was struck by, among many things, your wonderful description of Joni Mitchell singing “Coyote”:

“Joni Mitchell, swaying her hips for ‘Coyote’ is mesmerizing; she acts out the role of a goddess on the make, an image only slightly undercut--or reinforced—-by the pack of cigarettes jammed into the waistband of her skirt.”

After reading that, I looked around to see if you had any other writing on Joni Mitchell but I couldn’t find any. I’d be curious to know your thoughts about Joni Mitchell’s music or, more briefly, which songs of hers, if any, have resonated with you over the years.
Thank you!
– Andy

I think I’ve only written about Joni Mitchell one other time, in a Real Life Rock Top 10 item from February 1998

4. Darren Starr, creator, Melrose Place (Fox, November 24, 1997) Dr. Brett Cooper, who has a real serial girlfriend-in-a-coma problem, attends comatose Megan. “Music can get through where nothing else can,” Coop says over Megan. “I’m betting you love Joni Mitchell as much as I do.” He slips a CD into a boom box, and as the camera comes in close on Megan’s face you can barely hear “Big Yellow Taxi.” “I’m awake! I’m awake!” screamed a sympathetic viewer. “Just turn off that horrible music!”

Save for a song here or there, that pretty much sums up my response to the endless self-regard and smugness I’ve found in her music--she and Leonard Cohen were made for each other.

As I wrote to a friend, I think his designation of self-regard (which is probably endemic to the early-'70s singer-songwriters anyway) is pretty arbitrary there--not sure how she's any more given to self-regard than Neil Young.

Oh, OK. I also seem to recall seeing a pan of the Counting Crows & Vanessa Carlton cover of "BYT" in a RLRT10 back when it was new and possibly an entry about Mitchell's then-new orchestral LPs in another column.

but at the same time I keep imagining that inquisitive 12 year old saying "Oh so women make music too? Wow!"
you are really underestimating the mental capacity of a 12 year old

i was being totally sarcastic (like a 12 yr old)

my point is despite its worthy intentions this whole exercise is condescending

i haven't pored over the list fully but i got kinda verklempt over Janis' Pearl getting such a high placing at #8

it's no small thing for me. I mean it seems obv to some i'm sure bc she's yawn classic rock

. but goddammit i caught so much bullshit from dudes & even a male teacher for loving janis as a high schooler, always basically summing her up as some kind of caterwauling harpie who only sang about being dumped & unpopular & i would yell and cry and hang my head & get so bummed about it

it's just a list & whatever but women collectively holding up artists who are women & saying HER WE LIKE HER LISTEN TO HER is cool & reinvigorating in a way that I wish i had more of in my early life

la lechera otm re 12 yr old

seeing janis on the dick cavett show at age 12 was a game changer for me. of course 12 yr olds have the capacity to absorb all kinds of music

Without text or context even

they do
i saw xtc on mtv and bought their album and it welcomed me to the garden of earthly delights BUT i would have loved to pore over a list like this too
there is room for everyone

(xposts) I loved seeing Pearl high too. Joplin had some visibility last year because of the documentary, but I don't know how well younger people know her in general (younger meaning, I don't know, 15-25). They should--she's endlessly interesting, and even if something like "Ball and Chain" at Monterey might be a bit much (I love it, but I can see how it might not be the best place to start), there's other more accessible stuff where you can find your way in. For me, as a teenager, that was "Down on Me."

Portishead too low.

http://www.okayafrica.com/music/150-african-records-by-african-women-you-should-listen-to/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/magazine/should-women-make-their-own-pop-music-canon.html

The list might even seem unnecessary at a moment when women dominate popular music. The rapper Cardi B’s song “Bodak Yellow” became, in September, the first song by a solo female rapper to top the Hot 100 singles chart in 19 years. We’re flush with important, popular, critically adored, award-winning music by women. America can’t go 10 minutes with hearing about Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Adele, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Most of the narratives in popular-music culture currently belong to them. (Right now, just about every UPS truck in the country has Swift’s image pasted on it.) But what happens in 20 years? Donna Summer once owned a chunk of popular music. Now she’s the epitome of a bygone era instead of the musician who paved a boulevard for lots of women who top charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eJiN9iAILc

oh come on it's not that bad

idk why he includes the lie that women currently dominate popular music, tho, it's not like telling the truth (that women collectively have never dominated pop music even if occasionally individual women have) would have undercut the thesis

136. Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (Apple Records, 1970)

if there is room for only i woulda gone with "Season of Glass". POB is great but alot of it is dudes jamming. she has written some amazing for-real songs that tend to get overlooked bc she is experimental.

I think the idea is that if you were to ask any random person who is big in music right now, they'd be more likely to cite Adele, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift or even Lady Gaga (who, relatively speaking, doesn't sell that many records anymore) over any current male pop star other than Drake or maybe Kanye (in which case, see Gaga). That this is based as much/more on public profile than sales is kind of the point. The Donna comparison is apt; mention her name and people think "disco," not "the 70s."

disco and the (mid to late) '70s are too tightly intertwined for me to separate

During these three months, I stamped a lot of records and artists “underrated.” Erykah Badu’s 2008 magnum opus, “New Amerykah Part One (4th World War),” was the most tragically timely and timeless album of any I’ve listened to — and I listened to five by Nina Simone. I also checked to confirm that Janet Jackson might always be our most undervalued pop star. (Yup.) A woman who became pretty good at seeing the state of the world had, by the time of “The Velvet Rope” in 1997, become even better at assessing the state of her art.

No arguments from this corner.

re: best Yoko albums, idk kinda depends what yr looking for. The jamz on POB are incredible. Approximately Infinite Universe has her most affecting songs/lyrics imo. Fly is maybe the most representative just for the range of styles, covers both the krautrock of POB ("Mind Train" etc.), the soul-baring balladry ("Mrs. Lennon"), and the avant-garde studio experiments ("Fly").

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/21/594970453/what-do-you-think-are-the-greatest-albums-made-by-women

Vote and post your lists here!

I didn't put a whole lot of thought into mine; just went with the first 10 that came to mind:

1. Pretenders
2. Welcome Home - Til Tuesday
3. Kate & Anna McGarrigle
4. Vanity 6
5. More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley
6. Blue - Joni Mitchell
7. Transgender Dysphoria Blues - Against Me!
8. Middle Cyclone - Neko Case
9. Science Fair - Emm Gryner
10. The Electric Lady - Janelle Monae

10 records, in no particular order:

Sofia Gubaidulina - Symphony, 'Stimmen… verstummen'; Stufen
Kaija Saariaho - Château de l'âme; Graal Théâtre; Amers
Rebecca Saunders - QUARTET; Into the Blue; Molly's Song 3 – shades of crimson; dichroic seventeen
Helena Tulve - Sula
Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir - Aerial
Liza Lim - The Heart's Ear
Clara Iannotta - A Failed Entertainment
Doina Rotaru - L'éternel retour
Chaya Czernowin - Afatsim
Unsuk Chin - Akrostichon – Wortspiel

Henry and Lena Etchison - Songs from the Sourwood Mountains (Folkways, 1953)
Henry and Lena Etchison - Songs of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Botheration of Christ (Folkways, 1955)
Henry Etchison & Family - Waltzes, Reels, and Fireside Ballads (Folkways, 1956)
Bettie, Connie & Ginnie - Heartache Boogie-Woogie (Dot, 1958)
Aunt Olena Etchison - "'Ho!' Said the Guppy" and Other Folk Songs for Children (Folkways, 1961)
Mike Seeger and Aunt Olena Etchison - She Sings, I Strum (And Occasionally Sing!)(Rounder, 1973)
Ginnie Stewart - Night Sweats (Epic, 1977)
Carol Warner, Linda Powell, and Connie Etchison - Banjo Pickin' Gals (Rounder, 1993)
Connie Etchison - The Unbroken Circle (CD Baby, 2000)
Connie Etchison - Wild 'Bout My Lovin' (Third Man, 2007)

These albums.

i haven't submitted my ballot yet bc it keeps shifting. here's where i'm at rn

1. rickie lee jones: pirates
2. janet jackson: the velvet rope
3. sade: love deluxe
4. kate bush: aerial
5. britney spears: blackout
6. fleetwood mac: tusk
7. anita baker: rapture
8. sinead o'connor: the lion and the cobra
9. paramore: paramore
10. madonna: ray of light

I considered Rapture and Paramore

ten FYC

Julien Baker Sprained Ankle
Mary Margaret O'Hara Miss America
Be Your Own PET s/t
Made Out of Babies The Ruiner
Joanna Newsom Ys
Sleater-Kinney The Woods
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset The Bairns
M.I.A. Kala
Shiina Ringo Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana
Cloud Rat Qliphoth

Don't really want to return to the original list but picking the one Nico album where she sang cover versions, of songs written by men, over the ones where she sang her own compositions is particularly O_0

I regretted not having room for Madonna or Sinead, so its good to see others picking up my slack.

Shiina Ringo Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana

ha, just cut this one. it's perfect though

I submitted

Hejira - Joni Mitchell
Broken English - Marianne Faithfull
Indigo Girls - Indigo Girls
True Blue - Madonna
King - Belly
Aaliyah - Aaliyah
Speak Now - Taylor Swift
King's Record Shop - Roseanne Cash
Nightclubbing - Grace Jones
Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris

wish I'd found room for Sade & Kate Bush & Patsy Cline & Sinead &