A few weeks ago, we heard that women have a hard time with music.
Turns out, that’s not exactly true. (I know; hold the gasps.)
Just weeks after Jimmy Iovine, he of Apple Music and formerly of Interscope Records, weakly apologized for saying “some” women, but really some men too, might find it difficult to find new music, Billboard magazine has released a list of women who work in the music industry, from A&R and marketing to programming and labels.
The magazine’s annual Women in Music issue highlights the roles played by women who aren’t necessarily in front of the microphone, though those women are included, too, from Lady Gaga (first artist to have more than a billion hits on YouTube) to the first to have more than 50 top 10 hits (Loretta Lynn).
The success of these women has been made possible in the usual way: someone believed in them, writes Hillary Clinton, who penned the introduction to this year’s issue.
“My hope is that women and girls around the world will hear these artists’ songs, learn their stories and feel a greater sense of possibility for their own lives,” she writes. “Maybe they’ll recognize themselves in these women. Maybe they’ll be inspired to reach toward their own dreams with greater urgency. Maybe they’ll stand a little straighter or speak a little louder because that’s what Gaga and Missy and Brittany and Tori and Selena and Demi and Kelsea and Lana and Ally and Normani and Lauren and Camilla and Dinah and Loretta would do.”
The issue includes a list of the 50 most powerful executives in the industry, including Emma Banks, Carole Kinzel and Marlene Tsuchii of the Creative Artists Agency; Marcie Allen of MAC Presents and Jennifer Breithaupt of Citi; Sara Clemens of Pandora; and Monica Escobedo, Julie Gurovitsch and Lindsay Shookus, the women responsible for bringing musical acts to ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live, respectively– shows known for profiling and, in some cases, helping to launch artists into the stratosphere.
The whole issue is filled with profiles about women in music–they’re everywhere, right where they should be, helping to shape the artists and songs found in our headphones, on our TVs and cars. It’s worth a read.
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