The 100 most important women in pop – places 19 to 15

Music knows no gender: the struck string, the kicked foot drum or the loop in the audio software – everything is completely gender-neutral. Nice thought, right?

But beyond the tone and beat, the charged theme certainly plays a role. Music, once it has left the instruments, is always context. Music depicts realities and also influences them.

There is no need to tell anyone today that pop and society have become more diverse over the decades. But anyone who likes to scratch their beard with all the movement and prefers to turn around again is a tradition-conscious pop culture canon. Countless lists are still topped by Dylan and the Beatles – Radiohead are still seen as young challengers here. This view may also have an appeal for some, but when it comes down to the argument that there are so few influential female musicians, then the lights dim.

We dedicate ourselves in the current MUSIKEXRESS hence all the influential women in the music business. As obvious as all of this may be, the impulses that female acts have given us in addition to their hits are still valuable. Keep it up, we’ve only just begun.

Here is an eighteenth teaser from the list of the 100 most important women in pop – places 19 to 15:

19th place: Janis Joplin

In the 1960s she was the rock’n’roller at the Boy’s Club. When reports were made about Janis Joplin, it was not just about her raspy voice, her energetic live shows and her clever song dramaturgy – contributions to her at the time were only too happy to be placed in the context of the male artists of the rock and blues genre. She had to constantly assert herself – but also in the face of her own demons. She herself called it the “kozmic blues” that made Joplin believe that even the greatest success couldn’t bring true happiness. She ultimately died of a heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27.

Without her the pop world of the 60s would be even more masculine. With anxiety and introversion issues, isolation in her native Texas, alcoholism, heroin and acne scars, Joplin was the outsider who gave other outsiders a voice.

(Hella Wittenberg)

18th place: Cher

Cher, who has now been in the music business for almost 60 years, still says to this day that men are not important and that you can get along just fine without them. And she should know, because her career only really took off after she separated from her toxic and violent husband and business partner Sonny Bono. Her ex demanded a release of two million US dollars and Cher had difficulty bringing in the money. Ultimately she succeeded and thus metaphorically emancipated herself in the male-dominated pop world. Her hits “Strong Enough” and “Believe” catapulted her into the pop world while she was still in her prime, and she bagged $200 million for her Las Vegas shows. Today, at 77, she looks better than ever and enjoys her status as a strong woman in the pop business.

Without her We wouldn’t know what courage, talent and cosmetic surgery can achieve.

(Désirée Pezzetta)

17th place: Stevie Nicks

Fleetwood Mac were the most successful pop rock band of the 70s and Stevie Nicks, as their singer (alongside Christine McVie), brought a new softness to the testosterone-influenced genre. Even back then, the US artist combined hippie and witch vibes in her texts. In the eighth season of the “American Horror Story” series in 2014, she finally played herself – as a singing witch.

Without her there would simply have been fewer hit fireworks in the past. 20 years before Destiny’s Child called people to dance with “Bootylicious” in 2001, Stevie Nicks’ “Edge Of Seventeen” was released in 1981 – the track that Destiny’s Child sampled on their single. And what a driving, catchy solo number it is! Even Miley Cyrus bowed to the piece with her 2020 variation “Edge Of Midnight,” which also features Nicks.

(Hella Wittenberg)

16th place: Donna Summer

In 1977, David Bowie and Brian Eno worked on Bowie’s album HEROES in Berlin. After a trip to a record store, Eno returned to Hansa Studios, brandished a 7-inch single he had just bought and enthused to Bowie: “I’ve heard the sound of the future, this single will be the club music for them “I feel love” by Donna Summer, produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and Eno’s prediction was vastly understated. “I Feel Love” would not only change club music, but would become a blueprint for synth-pop, the electronic branch of new wave, Italo disco, Hi-NRG, house and techno. Donna Summer was already the “Queen Of Disco”, but with “I Feel Love”, the first fully electronic disco song, she made herself immortal.

Without her the history of pop music would have been different.

(Albert Koch)

15th place: Diana Ross

When Diana Ross spreads her arms to the sky in an orange-red jumpsuit and a flowing cape, the rain lashes her face in front of 350,000 people in Central Park. “The sky darkened and the rain came and it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” wrote Andy Warhol, enchanted, in his diary about the famous New York appearance in 1983. Diana Ross was the first female pop superstar, gay icon (“I’m Coming Out”), disco queen – and even earlier, the most elegant, glamorous presence of the golden Motown era of the 60s: as the front woman of the Supremes, she sang splendidly, sugary-sweet soul pop hits that no amount of racial separation could stop. “Stop! In The Name Of Love”, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, “You Can’t Hurry Love” … Ross still performs today, Beyoncé, Janet Jackson and the Queen are among her fans.

Without her Sports playlists worldwide would have to do without “Upside Down”.

(David Numberger)

+++ Our current issue has been in stores since February 9th. There is the complete list of the 100 most important women in pop. Here we often share excerpts from the rankings. +++