Who would you select if tasked with choosing “The 50
Fiercest Female Rockers”? Once I was through grumbling about that measly
number, I wouldn’t select a lot of the ones who make it into Meredith Ochs’s
new book Rock and Roll Woman: The 50
Fiercest Female Rockers. To the writer’s credit, she makes a strong case
for even the ones who made my eyes roll while perusing the table of contents. Ochs’s
colorful prose and infectious love for her subjects nearly brought me to the
precipice of reconsidering the artistry of Gwen Stefani or Sheryl Crow.
As you may have already sussed, it wasn’t Ochs’s main
concern to just pick the coolest or finest female artists; she wanted to
represent a wider spectrum from the unquestionable legends (Aretha, Chrissie,
Janis, Debbie, Tina, Patti) to the critical darlings (Siouxsie, Sleater-Kinney,
Kathleen Hanna, PJ Harvey, Kim Gordon) to somewhat cultier figures (The Slits, Fanny,
Poison Ivy, L7) to totally mainstream MOR types (Linda Ronstadt, Melissa Etheridge,
Alanis Morissette, Crow, Stefani). In doing so, Ochs comes a bit closer to telling
a more satisfying story of female artists fighting their way into every basic nook
of the infuriatingly male-dominated Rock world. She also unifies these disparate artists
through a feminist lens that makes even relatively apolitical artists, such as
Kim Deal, seem like righteous soldiers in the cause.
Of course, with just 50 artists, Ochs cannot help but make
the slightest indent in the surface of a rich, versatile vein of Rock music. With
any luck, she’s already toiling away on a second volume that doesn’t leave out Darlene
Love, Kristin Hersh, Liz Phair, Kate Bush, Carol Kaye, Tanya Donelly, Leslie
Langston, Holly Golightly, P.P. Arnold, Meg White, Aimee Mann, Suzanne Vega,
Sharon Tandy, Martha Reeves, Bjork, Kelley Deal, Julee Cruise, LaVern Baker, Nico,
Kate Pierson & Cindy Wilson, Mary Timony, Juliana Hatfield, Carol van Dijk,
Nina Persson, Angie Hart, La La Brooks and the Crystals, The Supremes, Gaye
Advert, Cat Power, Mary Weiss and The Shangri-Las, Louise Post and Nina Gordon,
Elizabeth Fraser, Team Dresch, Nina Simone, Courtney Barnett, Neko Case, KatieJane
Garside, Donna Summer, Justine Frischmann, Dorothy Moskowitz, Laetitia Sadler, Patty
Donahue, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Colman, Rebecca Gates, Sandy Denny, Lene
Lovitch, Mo Tucker, Shirley Ellis, Cynthia Robinson, Bilinda Butcher, Joni
Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Leslie Gore, Nancy Sinatra, Linda Thompson, Luscious
Jackson, Linda Hopper & Ruthie Morris, Mama Cass Elliott, Mary Wells, Dale
Bozzio, Carla Thomas, Petra Haden, Poly Styrene, The Raincoats, Fay Fife, Yoko
Ono…
