It’s International Women’s Day today (March 8), and women are ruling the music industry right now. From Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, to Lainey Wilson and Kacey Musgraves, to Brittany Howard and Mitski and beyond, women are creating and producing some of the best music and art around. To celebrate, here is a (small and humble) list of some of the great women changing the world with their music, from times gone by to today. Additionally, we’ve added a must-listen list of our favorite female artists. Happy discovering!
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Nina Simone
Nina Simone was a classical musician, a pioneer, and an activist. She was known as the High Priestess of Soul, and her music spanned genres like jazz, blues, soul, R&B, pop, folk, gospel, and classical. Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon and initially trained to be a classical concert pianist. She adopted the stage name Nina Simone when she started playing piano in jazz clubs, afraid that her mother would disapprove.
She released a few albums in the 1950s, but it was in the early1960s that she got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, becoming a musical fixture for the movement. In 1964 she released the protest song “Mississippi Goddam,” famously performing it three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Simone is most well known for that song, as well as “Sinnerman,” “I Put a Spell On You,” and “Young, Gifted, and Black,” among many other hits.
Florence Welch
The titular Florence of Florence + the Machine, Florence Welch is utterly ethereal. She looks like a mythical forest witch, writes like a poet, and sings like a howling banshee. Her recent album, Dance Fever, feels equal parts manic and empowering, and her discography has been influential for Tumblr girlies since 2009. More than that, her work and her approach to it is inspiring for poets, musicians, artists, witches, people struggling with religion, women reclaiming their girlhood, dogs, travelers, dancers, and people who like bugging their neighbors by scream-singing in their apartment at 11 pm. This International Women’s Day, why not celebrate with the song “Girls Against God,” in which Florence Welch intones, Oh God, you’re gonna get it / You’ll be sorry that you messed with us.
Lainey Wilson
Lainey Wilson appeared on the country music scene seemingly overnight, but really she had been working at her craft for years. She hails from a tiny Louisiana town of under 300 and comes from a five-generation farming family, but chose to pursue her passion for music. With her signature bell bottoms and genuine twang, Wilson can be spotted from a mile away. Furthermore, her music celebrates her upbringing, her identity, and her beliefs with gorgeous vocals and polished songwriting. She’s a force to be reckoned with, but she’s also open, honest, and welcoming to her fellow female musicians. As she recently said at Billboard‘s Women in Music event, “Us girls, we got a lot to say.”
Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens is a Black and Indigenous artist from Greensboro, North Carolina, and her Southern heritage plays deeply into her music. She is a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, as well as a member of Our Native Daughters. Also, she’s a hell of a banjo player. Her banjo prowess has been featured prominently on the Red Dead Redemption 2 soundtrack, which includes the sob-inducing song “Mountain Hymn.”
Giddens has recently done work to bring attention to wrongful imprisonment in the incarceration system with her song “Another Wasted Life,” which appeared on her album You’re the One. On her website, she wrote about the song’s origins and how wrongful conviction and incarceration ruins lives. “These ongoing societal struggles are so far beyond any one of us, and have been long at play,” she wrote in part, “but, I will use my platform to take things just one step further in the conversation.”
Karen Carpenter
One half of the sibling duo The Carpenters, Karen Carpenter was a beautiful singer and amazing drummer who helped set the stage for female percussionists. It seems that, for every female drummer, the influence of Karen Carpenter forever lingers in the background. This International Women’s Day, it’s time to give Karen Carpenter her props. She wasn’t the first female drummer, but she had a platform with The Carpenters that brought the idea of a female drummer to the mainstream. Additionally, she was good at it. In a 1976 TV special, she showcased her impeccable drumming skills as well as the immense joy she felt behind a drum kit in a skit which included a cameo by John Denver claiming “girls don’t play the drums anyway.” She proved him, and everyone else who thought so, completely wrong.
International Women’s Day at American Songwriter
Check out more exceptional music from exceptional women with this playlist.
Featured Images by Ethan Miller/Getty Images; David Redfern/Redferns; JC Olivera/WireImage
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