Before I justify my pick of favorite female rock stars, let me comment on the above.
The "Chatmonchy" videos wouldn't show for me, so I looked at "Shangrila" on YouTube.
I can understand their attraction. They are very pretty young girls, probably teenagers.
They work hard at their video, having costumes, sets and choreography, with pop-punk kind of songs.
Surprisingly enough, they are just a guitar, bass and drums trio.
With so much high tech at their disposal, they could easily use other sounds.
I'm not seeing or hearing any sex, drugs or alcohol references, with almost surgical lighting.
Stevie Nicks: I played a few of her songs with bands and a female duo,
and when I say female duo, they got a big gig and thought they needed a lead guitarist.
Like the rest of North America, I went through the formation, delineation, subjugation, and ultimately,
the divorces within the band, when Fleetwood Mac hit, having record setting sales as a mega-album.
They were promoted as "California rock", or "soft rock", code for "cocaine music".
Would I have wanted to go through all of that, no, that's for sure, I never did.
Stevie Nicks did write my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs.
"thunder only happens when it's raining", you can't argue with that.
The Pretenders were just The Pretenders when I first heard them and got into their hit songs.
"Chain Gang" comes to mind, also looking good on MTV videos.
Chrissie has a unique tremolo to her voice that gave her an edge above other pop vocalists.
Pheobe Snow comes to mind, more of a folk artist, but another female who almost yodelled.
Deborah Harry! I played a few Blondie songs in Toronto show-bands with female vocalists.
They had different styles, more style cues, than the other New York new wave bands,
like Talking Heads, or other MTV acts like The Cars.
Playing a Blondie song could start out with their minimalist musical abilities,
but if it was funk based you could funk it up or if it was raggae based you could jump it up.
What makes me respect her more than anything else, is what happened when her guitarist-husband was ill.
She put her career on hold and visited him every day for over a year when he was hospitalized,
and waited until he got better before they got the band going again.
"the tide is high but I'm holding on, I'm gonna be your number one".
That's not someone who only has a "heart of glass".
I listened to the first thirty seconds of "Nightwish" and that was enough. This is a pale new version of the old.
If you've never heard of this band, I might be doing you a favour.
Wake up Amy, wake up, you have a new listener who is watching you.
For me, and vocals have to be more than just one person singing, male or female,
Ann and Nancy Wilson, "Heart", have the most going for them, then and now.
Then, were the first huge hits "Barracuda" and "Crazy on You", very intelligent and musical.
Here's me, living in Toronto as a lead-guitarist vocalist who saw Jimi Hendrix and George Benson,
playing a lot of r'n'b and jazzy-classical violin influenced riffage,
when all of a sudden everyone was talking about Heart firing their lead guitar player,
and having open auditions in Vancouver.
The lead guitarist had some signature riffs for their songs, but his fills were too Steve Howe for me.
If you listen to "Crazy On You" you can hear a lot of "Yours is no Disgrace".
I thought Ann and Nancy needed to funk and jazz it up as well as their psychedelic excursions,
such as "Magic Man", but I had no chance of making it past out west and over the Rockies.
Ann and Nancy might have had family squabbles, but they kept their careers and Heart going.
People in the business say that when Ann and Nancy harmonize together something special,
something unique in all the world, happens live onstage.
When "Crazy on You" first came out, Nancy started the song with some classical acoustic finger-picking,
and when she launched into the fast strumming for the song with the rest of the band,
that was one of the most exciting moments in hard rock music.
I have another personal recommendation for Ann and Nancy Wilson.
When Led Zeppelin was being honoured by the British government for their musical contributions,
they chose Ann and Nancy to sing "Stairway to Heaven" and it brought tears to Robert Plants' eyes.
Heart was one of the first top ten corporate rock acts to do a Led Zep cover onstage,
and here in Canada, most of us still hear them as being the better band.
"Crazy on You", Heart live with their new guitarist. I still think Ann and Nancy need me.
