The 100 most important women in pop – ranks 39 to 35

Music knows no gender: the struck string, the stepped 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 fourteenth teaser of the list of the 100 most important women in pop – places 39 to 35:

39th place: Kim Gordon

The New Yorker represents everything that was exciting about US noise rock of the late 1980s and 90s: this bridge between music, art and style (Kim Gordon, daughter of a seamstress, ran the clothing label X-Girl). As a bassist, she significantly shaped the sound of the band Sonic Youth and her breakup book “Girl In A Band” is also an important piece of the puzzle in female rock history.

Without her if Sonic Youth had just been some kind of grunge-flavored Radiohead.

(Linus Volkmann)

38th place: SOPHIE

SOPHIE died aged just 34 while trying to capture the full moon on a rooftop in Athens with her mobile phone camera. Even during her lifetime there was something supernatural about the Scottish producer. On the debut album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES she used her voice for the first time without the excessive auto-tune that is typical of her. As a producer for Madonna, Lady Gaga and Charli XCX, she also made mainstream pop fit for the future.

Without her The term hyperpop might not exist. SOPHIE was the groundbreaking pioneer of the genre, which is ubiquitous today, but doesn’t sound nearly as innovative as hers.

(Louisa Zimmer)

37th place: Sinéad O’Connor

We claim we want openness – Sinéad O’Connor gave it to us. We saw her cry in the most artificial medium of all, the music video. We saw them angry and combative, suffering and desperate, determined and confused. She has never pretended, not in her music, not in the fight against her demons. Nevertheless, Sinéad O’Connor was alone in the end. Which gives us the task of thinking about how much we actually care about the openness we demand.

Without her we wouldn’t know what attitude means.

(André Bosse)

36th place: Laurie Anderson

Her more than eight-minute, chart-defying musical Morse code “O Superman” stormed the charts in 1982, and Laurie Anderson made her pop debut via vocoder voice as “Audio Drag”. Musician, media artist, storyteller, electronic pioneer, what is she actually (not)? Laurie Anderson has dissolved role models in her performances because she seeks freedom, to this day.

Without her The development of a multimedia art space would have remained largely inaccessible to many.

(Frank Sawatzki)

35th place: Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna was already committed to feminist issues in her youth and consistently continued this effort throughout her musical career. In addition to various underground zines, the American founded the punk band Bikini Kill, now iconic, and sang violently against the patriarchy. Nirvana was also among their prominent supporters – no wonder, after all, it was Hanna who wrote the infamous sentence “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on Cobain’s mirror.

Without her The Riot Grrrl movement would have to do without its best-known representative.

(Désirée Pezzetta)

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