Music Coverage
As part of GCN’s mission to cover gay and lesbian culture, its issues included hundreds of book and poetry reviews, album reviews, and scene reports from concerts and festivals. This encompassed a wide swath of performers, writers, filmmakers, and other artists who were out or dealt with LGTBQ+ experiences. Through this continuous coverage, GCN offers a genealogy of the women's music movement and the tensions that arose around commercialization and exclusion.
As Fran Epstien wrote in May 1976:
A more complex question is what is “women’s music”? Is “women’s music” simply music written by women, or should it have something to say about our lives? Does it have to be of a political or feminist nature? These are questions that can run around in circles and grow into greater confusion. (GCN Vol. 3 #44, 1976)
While these questions continued to be asked throughout the history of the women’s music movement, there remained a dedicated community of listeners and contributors. The indie label Olivia Records became one of the most successful and important women’s music record labels, releasing music from singers like Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Holly Near, and June Millington, among others. These singers—and many others—turned away from the mainstream music industry to embrace a more community-oriented practice that built on alternative networks of community spaces, book stores, venues, festivals, and publications.
In an article titled "Women's Music: Politics for Sale?,” part of the 1981 GCN music supplement, Maida Tilchen articulated a critical reflection on the movement complete with interviews with Holly Near, Kay Gardner, June Millington, and Maxine Feldman. In the article, Tilchen explores the economic and political pressures around the movement and the music industry and elevates the contributions of women of color.
Women's music began with white, middle-class performers. Particularly due to the efforts of Olivia Records, the work of women of color was introduced to women's audiences. But again, audiences have not always responded as the industry would like…"It's sort of ironic that the top four are all WASPs. Ironic? It's predictable. Third world performers often have to break their butt twice as hard to get an audience there…I think there's a lot of racism in the whole thing. But then there's other white performers that don't get a huge audience." Hopefully, women of color, younger, disabled and other diverse types of women will be seen and enjoyed by women's audiences in the future. (GCN Vol. 8 #45, 1981)
As part of this digital exhibition, we’ve included a non-exhaustive playlist of artists who contributed to the women’s music movement and are covered in GCN.
The full spread is accessible digitally through Northeastern University Library's Archives and Special Collections or physically at The History Project. The following article in the issue by Aubergine Green Field, “Punk & Gay: Natural Allies,” offers a reflection on the fluidity and subversion of punk and new wave scenes that transcend the rigid stylistic constraints that defined US women’s music at the time. Her coverage highlights bands such as The Slits, Delta 5, The Raincoats, The Bodysnatchers and other women-led punk or new wave groups and includes an early manifesto of the Rock Against Sexism movement. Below is a playlist of some of the artists covered by Aubergine.