Tag Archives: women in music industry

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New database tracks gender equality projects within the European music industry

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The brand new project, which was launched just this week, tracks and catalogues networks that tackle gender equality and equity in the European music industry.

Snapshot from the GENiE website.

The project, called GENiE (Gender Equality Networks in Europe), already has catalogued over 300 networks in 25 countries. On the project website one can look up networks by country or project type (festival, management, radio, community, safe spaces, record labels, workshops, etc.). For now, the project is focused on European networks and designed to motivate cross border collaborations, inspire people to get involved in the music industry in their own countries and showing the paths to do so.

The project was founded by Grace Goodwin, an academic researcher and session drummer from the UK. According to Grace, “geography and regionality can influence the career progression and experiences of women”.

Among the listings one can find in the database are projects that fight for better representation for women, publish job, management and learning opportunities, music festivals representing women and much more.

The project already landed a big, official supporter in the online music service Soundcloud. In an interview with the streaming service and music community Goodwin is quoted saying that there is still a lot of progress to be made. We caught up with Grace via email and asked her a few questions about her project and her academic work within the music industry.

What is your background in the music industry and how did you come up with Genie?

I trained as a session drummer and percussionist at university. I then studied a masters in music industry which led me to advising artists and supporting their work through mentoring. Like most people in the industry I have had many jobs which have included teacher, record label manager, workshop leader etc. I am currently focusing my time on a PhD where I am researching gender equity in the music industry, which also offered some of the inspiration for GENIE.

Can you tell me a bit about your academic background as well? What are some of the things you have researched or published?

I started my PhD in 2023 so I’m considered in the early stages of academia! My research focuses on gender equity with my PhD focusing on regional gender inequality – how where a woman is based can affect her career progression in the music industry. GENIE has recently opened up new doors with research and I am now widening my scope to research in Europe and looking for potential collaborators. I’m hoping to start publishing work during my PhD. I am passionate about delivering research which has tangible outcomes which can make real change in the industry.

I know the project is in the very early stages, but have you gotten any feedback yet from the music community?

The feedback so far has been amazing, I was scared to put it out into the world in case people didn’t really engage with it but I’ve had lots of people get in touch to add their projects since the launch. A lot of people have told me that it has allowed them to find new projects in their own country which is great. I think it is the type of project that will build over time as it becomes more visible.

What do you hope to see this project grow into, in the future? What possibilities do you imagine and what changes do you dream of?

This is something I am really starting to think about as I had to get over the hurdle of launching it first! I think that it is an amazing resource for networking and collaboration so I think these will be some of the wider goals of the project. Maybe organising networking events around major festivals and conferences. Also I want to act as an advocate for these projects- understanding their issues, funding models, best practice; Collating this in some way to then inform cultural policy and support. And now that I am aware of over 350 projects across Europe I want to keep connecting people! The ideal change would be where the type of work I do would no longer need to exist! 

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The death of Pitchfork is worrying news for music journalism – and the women who read it

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Igor Omilaev/Unsplash

Michael Greenwell, Nottingham Trent University

It was recently announced that renowned music website Pitchfork is to merge with GQ. Several staff members have been made redundant. The site’s apparent demise was described by other journalists as a “massive loss in music journalism” and “a death knell for the record review”. There has also been criticism from former Pitchfork writers of the way staff have been treated.

Pitchfork seemed immune to the issues that had plagued – and often closed – its European peers. The dynamic American website, which launched in 1995, became known for its style and acumen to attract the largest daily site audience of any of the Condé Nast titles.

Its notorious rating system meant “death” for some artists and was viciously opposed by at least one DJ and producer. Other bands, in part, were made by Pitchfork. It was this power, along with its irreverent viral content and online innovation, that led the brand to be purchased by Condé Nast in 2015.

The layoffs that have taken place through the merger with GQ suggest great change for Pitchfork’s remit. GQ’s content is far more product and celebrity focused and rarely incites controversy. Pitchfork, however, is known for its often scathing reviews and uncompromising commentary.

GQ’s content is generally complimentary, verging on promotional for the brands and products it features. Listicles and recommendations dominate its homepage. Music reviews at present are similar to Bandcamp’s editorial, an online store and community that links consumers directly to music artists.

The news follows the closure in 2020 of venerated British music magazine, Q, after 34 years, as well as the end of the print version of NME magazine in 2018. Such changes to these iconic publications are indicative of what journalist Chris Richards calls an “ugly omen for the entirety of music journalism”.

When Condé Nast purchased Pitchfork, its president, Bob Sauerberg, described it as “thriving”. And, according to its chief digital officer, Fred Santarpia, Pitchfork was a site bringing “a very passionate audience of Millennial males into our roster”. So what went wrong?

These print cuts are a result of dreaded cost-cutting convergence (the business strategy of integrating or centralising production of different products), increased competition and falling print advertising revenue, as well as changing income streams.

Diversity at GQ

GQ (formerly Gentlemen’s Quarterly) magazine and its obviously gendered remit doesn’t seem like an obvious home for Pitchfork. After all, nearly 44% of the brand’s readers are women.

When Puja Patel became editor in chief of Pitchfork in 2018, taking over from Ryan Schreiber, Pitchfork’s founder and longtime editor, her own story became part of the brand’s narrative.

A “week in the life” feature in The New York Times told of her taste making or breaking power, her position, her platform and the richness of her Big Apple life. Patel’s rise to prominence was allegorical to cultural shifts affirming her as a leader of new-wave feminism and a success story for those keen to promote diversity in the industry.

Women have topped Pitchfork’s album charts every year since 2018. And in the last five years, there has been a continual focus on covering musicians from diverse backgrounds, including female, queer and non-binary artists.

Patel’s tenure has been widely praised on social media as the unfortunate news of layoffs, including her own, broke. But as former Pitchfork writer Laura Snapes noted, the site had fostered a forum for a range of women and non-binary writers from around 2010 onwards. Together, they reshaped the brand’s output from the male-dominated indie-music heyday of the 2000s. It was in this period that hip-hop and pop started to be covered more regularly.

In bringing Pitchfork under the “Gentleman’s Quarterly” brand, Condé Nast’s leadership seems to assume that music is a predominantly male pursuit. Pitchfork is not merging with other Condé Nast titles Vogue or Vanity Fair.

And I find it curious that Wired, (yet another media brand that is under the same ownership) and its progressively geared, environmentally conscious content, was not deemed a better fit for Pitchfork’s current audience. Where will the artistry and writing of musicians who don’t identify as men find its place in GQ? It’s not yet clear.

In 2021, Patel said that listeners care about the “community and humanity” of music. Sadly, it seems this spirit is not being upheld. As Susan DeCarava, president of the News Guild of New York said: “the people who make award-winning music journalism … deserve better than to be treated like disposable parts.”

GQ and Condé Nast did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Greenwell, Lecturer, Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Zere’s new album is a continuation of her fight against gender inequality in Kyrgyzstan

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Her songs provide solace and strength to women and girls

Zere performing songs from her new album. Screenshot from Zere Asylbek‘s YouTube channel. Fair use.

This article was written by Nurbek Bekmurzaev and originally published on the Global Voices (GV) webpage on August 7, 2023. It is republished here according to the media partnership between GV and Shouts.

Last July, Kyrgyz singer Zere Asylbek, widely known as Zere, released a new album called “Men Kaidamyn” (Where Am I) with 12 songs in the Kyrgyz language. It became her third album since her musical debut in 2018, when she made headlines for the music video of her song “Kyz” (Girl) and became famous overnight.

Here is the music video of the song “Kyz.”

“Kyz” was as famous as it was polarizing due to the feminist message it relayed by encouraging girls to be free of restrictive social norms and live their lives as they like and see fit. The new album picks up where her two previous ones from 2018 “Bashtalos” and 2021 “EKEK” albums left off. It continues discussing gender inequality while exploring other social and political problems in Kyrgyzstan against the background of her intimate and personal experiences and stories from childhood.

There are several personal stories told throughout the songs in the new album. Through them Zere shares her childhood memories of spending summer holidays in her maternal grandparents’ home in Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan, listening to fairy tales, the words of wisdom shared by her late paternal grandfather, and the conversations she held with her mother about famous historical figures from the past. These intimate stories serve as parts to songs about gender inequality, discrimination, corruption, domestic violence and other issues in the country.

In the song called “Jangak” (Walnut), Zere shares her childhood dreams and says that she thought she could be anybody and do anything with her life. However, adulthood and restrictive social norms surrounding women taught her that she should have been more careful with her dreams. In another song called “Men Kaidamyn,” she starts off with the fairytale she heard often during childhood and goes on to question where she and other people were when the country witnessed major incidents of injustice and abuse.

Here is the audio version of the song “Men Kaidymyn.”

She then asks Kyrgyz people where they were during the “voting fair” when peoples’ votes were being bought and the future of the country was being decided — it is common in Kyrgyzstan for politicians to distribute money during elections and collect votes. She also asks where people were at when female activists were attacked during a feminist march by the members of the nationalist group called Chorolor while the police officers present just stood and watched. The incident took place on March 8, 2020.

In “Jakshy Kyz” (Good Girl), Zere tackles gender inequality and domestic violence. She asks her listeners if there is a word “human girl” between the two terms “good girl” and “bad girl,” referring to the two labels women and girls in Kyrgyzstan society receive most of the time, instead of being looked at as a human. She fails to find an answer to this question using the old Kyrgyz proverbs and asks what kind of wisdom will the men who beat their wives today leave for the next generation.

This is not the first song in which Zere talks about domestic violence. Her song “Jeneke” (Sister-in-law), which came out in her second album in 2021, tackled the similar issue. Although domestic violence is criminalized in Kyrgyzstan, the situation continues to deteriorate with the number of domestic violence cases growing.

Here is the music video of the song “Jeneke.”

One of Zere’s main messages is hidden in the song called “Vau” (Wow) in which she invites listeners to imagine a future in which she has achieved all her dreams. She pictures a society where all the problems have been solved and she has no haters and everybody likes her. The song ends abruptly with the reminder that even then there will still be people who will call her “bad girl.” It reminds women and girls in Kyrgyzstan that there will always be people who will try to shame them for their behavior and they should just ignore their criticism and live their life beyond restrictive norms.