New List, best female rockers (This is for you Trout)
I love female rock singers, I'll never ever try to hide that. While I love rock and or roll, there's something about female singers that just takes it over the edge for me, especially ones that have grit to what they do. This is a list of my favorites from about 50 years of listening to various different types of music. So there might be some that are a bit surprising to you.
So turn out your lights, turn up your speakers and flick that bic. For some of these artists I might do a kind of then and now posting of videos as they've evolved so much over the years.
Here we go
1) Ann Wilson - Heart
Its amazing that to me Ann Wilson can overpower almost every male rock singer that I like. She has a combination of technique, raunch and power. While Heart is one of my favorite bands, and Dreamboat Annie was one of the first Albums that I ever bought and wore through with repeated playing, I can ignore some of their creative decisions in the 80's as they pursued a more top 40 sound that Anne still creamed. To this day Heart still tours and performs with a more acoustic sound, but Anne still over powers the venue with her voice.
2) Joan Jett
She's the ultimate fusion of rock and punk, and you can see it everytime you watch her. Not the most technical singer out there, but when she belts it out its all beer and pool memories for me. She's the closest thing to rock royalty for me with her time with the way to short lived Runaways to a 40 year solo career that has spawned an incredible list of hits that are still relevant to today.
When I go back and reflect, her anthem song to me of I love Rock and Roll is probably the least memorable to me for some reason.
3) Pat Benatar
Classically trained she truly took the hard way up to stardom grinding her way through menial jobs til she hit it bit. She was the second song played on MTV with You Better Run. She released a long string of extremely memorial hits that ranged from hard crunchy driving songs to anthem ballads. I think in terms of pure singers she's one of the best.
4) Janis Joplin
I didn't get her at first and it took me years and a radical bout of drinking and depression to fall in love with her heavily influence hard blue grass sounds. She had the perfect cigarette and booze fueled voice for her era. Her songs are little masterpieces that managed to surpass the generation that she lived in. She is one that we lost way to soon, but her influence has inspired woman of every generation.
5) Dolores O'Riordan
She was taken from us to soon, but she was such an amazing talent, she was the rare combination of pure singing power and emotion, and sometimes when you listened to her your heart would literally hurt. You could hear her pouring everything that she was in to every piece of her music.
6) Annie Lennox
Something about her combination with Dave Stewart's frenetic guitar style just worked. She possessed a powerful voice, but she could tune it back so easily when she needed to. She was one of the first true feminist rockers that said I can do anything that a guy can do and she proved it for decades. Still I will admit that her Eurythmics stuff resonates with me more, but overall she just over powers you.
7) Maria McKee - Lone Justice
A short lived band, and Maria really hasn't done a lot solo wise. But I admit that I was addicted to this band and its unique country punk sound. Maria was all energy and I have stated that their debut album was one of the most perfect albums that I ever bought. Unfortunately Long Justice didn't last long, but Maria could do it all from incredibly fast paced bar style songs to beautiful ballads.
8) Kate Bush
But Captain you'll all say, she's not really a rocker, and I'd agree, but I put her here because she had an amazing voice and every song felt like something new and amazing. She had has an amazing range and can do any style and there's a lot of amazing emotion to what she does. She really should be recognized in a similar class to someone like Sarah Brightman in the theatrical music genere, but I just love her. I literally get tears everytime I hear the song Wuthering Heights
9) Sinead O'Connor
She captured me the first time I heard Mandingo, but she had a powerful voice, and again she could sing anything. Nothing compares to you literally rips your heard out of your chest and then stomps on it. While she's lead a pretty controversial life, there's no denying that she is an amazing talent, and changed the musical landscape at the time.
10) Amy Lee - Evanescence
I had a lot of debates when I was sitting on my deck listening to different female performers. But I will state, that I love her voice. I love the combination of rock and opera that seems to be a theme. Her songs have a hard defiant edge to them that puts her in this category. I drove my players a bit crazy before a city championship game when I turned off their music and replaced it with Bring me to Life, but by the end they were ready to play.
Honorable mentions
Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick, Courtney Love, Tina Turner, Alannah Myles.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 05-16-2020 at 10:48 PM.
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I'm going to get philosophical for a second and ponder how many great female talents have slipped into obscurity because a) all the sexism gets tiresome b) the rock world doesn't combine very well with having kids.
One example that immediately comes to mind is Nitte Valo, the original singer of Battle Beast. With that voice and unique presence she could have been household name in metal. Instead she left the band to raise kids (or that's what I heard). A true loss for rock and roll.
That said, Battle Beast found a fantastic replacement in Noora Louhimo. Great range stylistically and brings a ton of energy with her on stage.
If you have a chance to see Battle Beast live, don't miss it. They're just a blast, a real classic metal party machine.
New List, best female rockers (This is for you Trout)
