The 100 most important women in pop – places 24 to 20

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 a seventeenth teaser of the list of the 100 most important women in pop – places 24 to 20:

24th place: Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey divided music critics in 2012 with her major label debut BORN TO DIE. ME colleague Frank Sawatzki gave the album just three and a half stars and didn’t foresee a great future for the New Yorker. “Lana Del Rey has landed back on the ground after the early high,” was his conclusion. Over a decade later, the soaring continues, especially thanks to albums like NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL and, most recently, DID YOU KNOW THERE’S A TUNNEL UNDER OCEAN BLVD. Del Rey has established herself as an accomplished songwriter, her California Noir style is unmistakable, with it she not only captures the superficial glamor of Hollywood, but also the dark sides of the American Dream in a way that gives you goosebumps.

Without her Internet culture in the early 2010s would have been a lot more boring. Young megastars like Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish name Del Rey as one of their idols.

(Louisa Zimmer)

23rd place: Patti Smith

Patti Smith was punk before the first punk bands even existed. She didn’t have much in common with the three-chord rock of her male colleagues, but in the male-dominated punk genre she made front women socially acceptable. She set a milestone in 1975 with her debut album HORSES, a 43-minute cure for the lame US rock of the 70s, with guitarist Lenny Kaye at her side at the time. She also gave the title “Godmother of Punk” recognition outside of music, as a Polaroid artist, painter and poet. She spoke about masturbation and self-determination, the clenched fist at her concerts and readings became a symbol of a departure from poor, religiously dominated circumstances.

Without her the discussion about taboos and controversial topics would have remained stuck in the infancy of punk.

(Frank Sawatzki)

22nd place: Ella Fitzgerald

Courage and strength are qualities associated with Ella Fitzgerald. “The First Lady of Song,” as she was known from the 1950s onwards, is considered one of the most influential voices in the jazz world. The repertoire of the Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong fangirl, who was born in Virginia in 1917, ranged from swing to bebop, blues, bossa nova, gospel and jazzed-up Christmas songs. Her expression, her vocal volume, the three octaves that she mastered without any problem are legendary. But her improvisations are even more legendary. Ella Fitzgerald is the epitome of a singer with enormous musical intelligence. This allowed her to use her virtuosity with humor and talent for acting. So you can rightly call her one of the first comedians among the singers. The “Queen of Jazz” was able to improvise because she was also a master of scat singing: “Scat” means “hunting”. In other words, onomatopoeia imitate the instrumental elements of music in syllables.

Without her and their songbooks, the most important American composers of the 20th century, such as Duke Ellington or Cole Porter, would never have had the honor of being interpreted most imaginatively and gracefully by a woman

(Kersty Grether)

21st place: Lauryn Hill

Her only solo album to date, THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL (1998), encouraged women to self-determination and linked the music with attitude. Through her presence in male-dominated hip-hop, the Fugees singer not only improved access for women, but also social perception of the genre. She fused rap with R’n’B and soul and fought against the stereotyping of black women in her lyrics. Hill didn’t accept the fact that successful female rappers only existed within men’s groups – which was “normal” in the hip-hop scene at the time – or that her colleagues had the right to have a say about the female body. That was rewarded: in 1999 she became the first five-time Grammy winner.

Without her Female empowerment certainly wouldn’t have made it into hip hop.

(Christin Rodrigues)

20th place: Lady Gaga

Stefanie Germanotta, well known as Lady Gaga, is just like the Queen of Pop Madonna, an Italian-Catholic girl who breaks out, asserts herself in downtown New York and who manages to become a world star early on. And that despite the fact that the experts at the record companies and her discoverer Rob Fusari had doubted whether she even had the looks to be “the pretty girl at the piano”. In her oversized outfits and songs, Gaga took revenge on these bourgeois, normative ideas. And she proved in her flashy outfits, from Roman gladiators to flying nuns: she can be all men and women in the world, all mythical creatures, plants and soap bubbles, in every stylistic variety imaginable.

Without her we would never have known that a pop piano virtuoso can be more than a girl with big doe eyes.

(Kersty Grether)

+++ 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. +++