Why Women Aren’t Equals In New Music Leadership and Innovation

Plenty of media attention has been piled on Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, but in an article published this week on NewMusicBox musician Ellen McSweeney has applied its research to an analysis of how we might better approach gender disparities in the music field. This is an issue that impacts both male and female music makers, and all voices are needed if progress is to be made. We hope you’ll add yours.

What digital distribution means for (especially) female artists

As a fan, I’ve been excited for the rise of digital distribution and for the direct interaction of artists and listeners because it means I’m more likely to hear great music that I like. It means that I get to decide what I want to listen to, rather than having a slew of A&R folks and radio programmers make the decisions for me.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about how record labels are not only gatekeepers for the music itself, but also for the visual image of artists.

I get it. Artists are performers, and looks matter.

But it’s pretty clear when you look at Top 40 artists that the standards for successful female artists and successful male artists are not the same. Music industry executives are predominantly male, and their professional tastes are, frankly, boring. So female artists have to be conventionally attractive, but male artists can look like Nickelback—middling-attractive guys (whose videos are then stuffed full of women in bikinis).

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