List of favorite female/female identified bands or fronted bands

So by request of maehemsez over on twitter, here’s my list of favorite female/female identified bands or fronted bands. I’m using favorite rather broadly here. Basically I went through my Google music list of artists and picked out all of them that I knew had multiple songs I liked. So there’s probably a lot that I’m missing because I only have one or two tracks or they’re all listed under soundtracks. One of these days I need to spend like a snowstorm ripping all of my old CDs.

Some of these, I’m sure, really date me. Some of them are probably relatively obscure. Like, I am half certain I was the only person who ever bought Pet’s album. (bought purely because it was produced by Tori Amos back in the 90’s and I had a horrible case of fangirl, but I still know all of the songs!) I also didn’t put down some of the mainstream stuff from that time period. Probably because I’m attempting to pretend that I have taste. And there’s a couple I didn’t list because I’m pretty sure that they can’t be found for sale any more like some obscure Canadian artists I picked up off MP3.com in ’99 or stuff by a friend of mine who I recently had to upload a copy of her album for because she didn’t even have a copy of it any more.

Neko Case, late 90’s Tori Amos, Vienna Teng, Regina Spektor, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, The Be Good Tanyas, The Nields, Florence and the Machine, Lianne La Havas, Madeleine Peyroux, Adele, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rasputina, Ani DiFranco, Bat for Lashes, The Bird and the Bee, Bjork, Darling Violetta, Pet, Drain STH, The Dukhs, Erin McKeown, Erykah Badu, Escala (string covers of a lot of famous stuff), Estelle, Gypsy Soul, Hilary Hahn, Imogen Heap, Indigo Girls, Janelle Monae, k.d. lang, Lhasa, Melody Gardot, PJ Harvey, Nina Simone, Norah Jones, Paloma Faith, Paris Combo, Poe, Portishead, Sarah Harmer, Sarah Jaffe, Shana Tucker, Zoe Keating, Patsy Cline

I am also debating including Band of Skulls. The songs trades vocals back and forth between a male lead and a female lead. Dead Can Dance, same thing.

Alright, your turn. Give me recs!

Shine Project: Shana Tucker

We first saw Shana Tucker perform at a restaurant down in Raleigh this year. She was totally fabulous and I joined her email list, something I rarely do. A few weeks ago, I got an email about her Shine Project. It’s an attempt to get an independent CD recorded and produced. Like NPR, if you donated at a certain level, you’d get various prizes. One of those was a house concert and I thought, How awesome would it be to support this project *and* have an amazing artist play at my after-the-fact reception in April? So that’s what I did! And hopefully if enough people fund it, she’ll have CDs available for my guests who I hope will be as blown away as I was.

Another part of this that I think is awesome and worth supporting is this bit:

If we reach the $5000 goal, I will donate TEN PERCENT (10%) of album sales for an entire year to 3 arts organizations that are dear to my heart: Project MAP, an outstanding arts-in-education initiative in Durham, NC; the Salim Hylton Memorial Scholarship Fund, which sends young visual artists to college to pursue their dreams; and Community Music School, a program where low-income families can receive private music lessons for their rising stars…practically free.

So if you can, kick a bit into the kitty. It’ll be well worth it.