Category: music

Though this beleaguered year 2020 is not yet over, Spotify has released its Top Artists of 2020 USA list. Great songs, but I was quick to notice that the list is 82% male. That is not fair, that is not merit-based, and that did not happen by accident. There is no difference between female and male brains, and there’s nothing about the vagina that makes women inferior singers or songwriters. So what gives?

The answer is that there is sexism both in the music industry itself and among male listeners. Only about 22 percent of signed music artists are women, and women make up only 12 percent of songwriters and 2 percent of producers. Women in the music industry face sexual harassment, overt sexualization, and discounting of their work and skills. Okay, so that’s bad. But why aren’t 22 percent of the most-streamed artists female then? Why only 18 percent? Well, it turns out that men listen to 94 percent male artists , mostly because they don’t want to be perceived as too feminine (shame of being perceived as feminine is misogynistic because it is contempt of femininity in at least one context; any man who debates this is kidding himself). Compare this to the listening patterns of women: 55 percent male artists. (I myself listen to 53 percent male artists, mostly because I succumbed to a couple of curated lists by Spotify, and curated lists by streaming services skew male. That’s why I have 100+ playlists entirely of my own making.) Women are more balanced listeners because we have lived without gender privilege and therefore don’t live in fear of losing it (or let it cloud our perception of the world).

So, now that we’ve gone over how unfair this world is, and how terrified men are at being discovered to like the same things we women like, and to have personalities even the slightest bit like ours (how flattering), let’s imagine a better world. A fair world. A world where a woman has no more obstacles to Spotify streaming success than a man does. A world that reflects the scientific absence of a relationship between brain and gender, as well as the scientific absence of a relationship between penis and musical ability, or vagina and musical ability (or Adam’s apple, breasts, facial hair, ovaries, testicles, what have you and musical ability). Drawing from the Top Female Artists playlist, and using a random number generator for fairness, here goes!

1 ) Dua Lipa

2 ) Gunna

3 ) Mac Miller (RIP)

4 ) Lil Uzi Vert

5 ) H.E.R.

6 ) Taylor Swift

7 ) J. Cole

8 ) Jhené Aiko

9 ) Billie Eilish

10 ) Roddy Ricch

11 ) J Balvin

12 ) Melanie Martínez

13 ) Eminem

14 ) Kehlani

15 ) Bad Bunny

16 ) Rihanna

17 ) Doja Cat

18 ) Post Malone

19 ) Pop Smoke

20 ) Ariana Grande

21 ) Lady Gaga

22 ) Luke Combs

23 ) Kanye West

24 ) The Weeknd

25 ) Future

26 ) Summer Walker

27 ) Juice WRLD (RIP)

28 ) Camila Cabello

29 ) Lil Baby

30 ) Megan Thee Stallion

31 ) Drake

32 ) Halsey

33 ) Miley Cyrus

34 ) Travis Scott

35 ) Trippie Redd

36 ) Katy Perry

37 ) Lana Del Rey

38 ) DaBaby

39 ) Khalid

40 ) YoungBoy Never Broke Again

41 ) Beyoncé

42 ) Lizzo

43 ) Justin Bieber

44 ) BTS

45 ) XXXTENTACION (RIP)

46 ) Selena Gómez

47 ) Nicki Minaj

48) Cardi B

49 ) SZA

50 ) Demi Lovato

That’s a good group, right? Happy listening!

But wait, Spotify made a playlist to recognize top female artists, and another one to recognize top male artists, so isn’t that fair? Well, no. It’s better than nothing. But lists and articles that focus exclusively on women in music aren’t enough to change the dynamics of the industry, or male listening habits. They aren’t enough to generate equal revenue for female and male artists. And in fact, they create this illusion that female artists are profoundly different from male ones (you know, different beyond being shorter on average and having higher voices, and the aforementioned penis-vagina thing). They also create an illusion that, because female artists are so different, they can only succeed in female-only spaces — that is, that there is something about female artists that makes them less successful in a male-dominated industry. When the truth is, there is something about male artists that makes female artists less successful in a male-dominated industry, and that something about male artists is what makes the industry male-dominated at all. That something, of course, being the active exclusion, hostility toward, belittlement of, and harassment of female artists, songwriters, and producers.

So what’s needed isn’t a room off to the side for women. What’s needed is to treat the women in the industry with respect, the same level of respect given to men, so that more female artists are signed by record labels and put their music out to the world. Respectful treatment and earnest promotion of female artists, and an absence of double standards in media coverage, would send a signal to male listeners that female artists are good and should be taken seriously, and therefore that liking them is something to be loud and proud of.

When half the artists, songwriters, and producers are female; when half the award winners are female; when every Spotify playlist is half female; and when female artists receive as many streams and the same amount of sales as male artists; that is when we will know this problem is over.