8 Most Iconic Feminist Musicians
The disturbing past of the United States and the world has come to the forefront. Slavery, the brutal injustices during the civil rights movement, the lack of suffrage for women, are just a few examples of America’s dark history. However, our generation comes with its own set of challenges. The challenge of walking the fine line (Ha, see what I did there?) between being politically correct and standing up for what we truly believe in. The challenge of carrying the weight of a past where no one questioned the not-so-relevant-anymore-borderline-dangerous traditions, and using that as leverage to move towards a better, more just future. Our generation’s biggest challenge is expression. We have to answer a new set of questions, a set of questions no one before has had placed before them. When do we express our beliefs? How do we express our beliefs? Just how important is it that we still remain likable while expressing our beliefs?
Art is a form of expression; many would say the purest one. So, accordingly, music takes down the boundaries of cultural norms and speaks (or should I say sings?) directly to human emotion. So, without further ado, here are the 8 most iconic feminist artists of our age (in no particular order).
Beyoncé
This wouldn’t be a real blog post about iconic feminists without this vocal powerhouse. Beyoncé always had a way of making stuff that was controversial...not. Whether it was the statement she made through her extravagant costumes or how she growled her way through the powerful lyrics that didn’t exactly appeal to misogynists: Beyoncé is iconic. She has become more than a musician, she is basically everyone’s role model, she’s a Goddess. Seriously, I was sitting on the couch eating potato chips while listening to Lemonade for the first time, and it actually made me WANT to work out (FYI I did 20 squats and then reverted back to my couch potato tendencies). She’s a force to be reckoned with, and feminism today would look a lot different if it weren’t for her.
Lizzo
In my mind, Lizzo is Beyoncé’s descendant. She normalizes the things that are never mentioned or are mentioned briefly with a negative connotation. She is the queen of body positivity and fearlessly dives into stigmatized topics in anthems like “Like A Girl”. Lizzo is refreshing: a breath of fresh air in an industry convoluted with both subtle and not-so-subtle misogynistic stunts. Her brand revolves around her being truly herself; she doesn’t care about being controversial or polarizing or ever so scandalous. Lizzo and social change are synonymous: her music doesn’t just advocate for change, it IS change. She is a disruptor in the music industry, and like most disruptors, she is a revolutionary: dramatically reforming harmful cultural norms through her art.
Harry Styles
When auditioning for The X-Factor ten and a half years ago, Harry Styles was just a kid with a beanie who used to “work in a bakery”. Today, he is so epochal that even the mere idea that he used to work in a bakery has become iconic. His last album, Fine Line, was a huge critical and commercial success. Over the course of the album, we realize that he’s the kind of artist who sings random phrases like “watermelon sugar” and makes you automatically know exactly what he’s talking about. The album is an artistic and feministic masterpiece: exploring the uncharted territories of gender expression, self-acceptance and mental well-being, and the equally tragic and triumphant resolution of a broken heart. He blurs the lines between femininity and masculinity and gracefully embraces both. It’s no secret that Styles is
unique and fearless artistically. However, he still has both his feet on the ground, and still is the same person he was when we first met the boy who works in a bakery. This balance is a fine line on its own, and Styles walks it beautifully. Btw, that dress requires a whole post of its own.
Lana Del Rey
I don’t know what Lana Del Rey is like in real life (for obvious reasons), but she crafted this complicated, thrilling persona over the course of her discography. Saying that her work is interesting is one of the greatest understatements of the year (and this year has already been filled with quite a few understatements). She paints depressing fantasies and transports us to a land where even the most articulate can’t name what they’re feeling. Her last album, NFR (abbreviated to avoid expletives), was absolutely sensational, and many would say her best work so far. Del Rey explores the theme of human complexity in this body of work, painting vivid oxymorons, and sculpting some of the most interesting characters.
She traverses through the fantasy that was supposed to be America. She introduces us to annoying and clingy cinnamon girls with heartbreaking backstories and an irritable painter with a revolutionary political opinion. Much like Norman Rockwell (the namesake of the album and the title track) in some of her songs, Del Rey takes us to a land that is not too far from reality. In stark contrast, she also illustrates California, a fantasy land that’s apparently just a “state of mind” and uses it as the backdrop of her daydreams. Del Rey shows the distinction between the two ways of life, whilst equally romanticizing and resenting both. Serenely crooning her way through lyrics like, “You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you” and “But I can’t change that and I can’t change your mood” she highlights the toxic masculinity in both systems. In “Mariner’s Apartment Complex” (my personal favorite on the album), she whispers “I’m your man”, putting herself in a greater position of power while embracing her femininity. At the heart of it, NFR is a political statement: a call to the future to come closer to achieving the American Dream. At the end of it, Del Rey leaves us devastated, thrilled, and most of all hopeful for the idealism Norman Rockwell first introduced in his time.
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift started working on her self-titled debut album when she was thirteen years old, and released it in 2006, at sixteen. I was a one-year-old. Tay-Tay is a really personal choice. I remember being four years old, dancing to “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me”, and trying to emulate Swift’s girl-next-door, boy-crazy teen appearance. She has one of the most impressive careers, spanning over fourteen years. She has grown as an artist and a person, and I feel like I’ve
grown with her. I even had my first feminist realization around the time that “Blank Space” came out in 2014. Swift is an exceptional songwriter, a beautiful person, and so much more. She’s a star: performing in enormous arenas and selling millions of albums. She’s also the most relatable star on the planet. Her last two albums, Folklore and Evermore, are mystical, terrifying, bittersweet, and gut-wrenching all at the same time. Swift tells vivid tales, folklore, if you will, of the most exciting characters. Her lyrics are eloquent, but she never strays from that girl-next-door undertone. Simply put, her work hits hard. Like really hard. And so, when she questions the hypocrisy of the patriarchy, whether in cheeky lyrics like “Every conquest I had made would make me more of a boss to you” or in heartbreaking ones like “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky/Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life”, it just….makes sense. She tells stories in her songs and makes you empathize with every character in the screenplay. Even the ones who cheat on their girlfriends and then give crappy apologies (*cough cough* James *cough cough*). From remembering the holy ground all too well, to mad women, to paper rings, to an invisible string tying it all together, Swift has done it all. She is a legend, one that will be passed on in folklore for-evermore (hehe).
Lin Manuel Miranda
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And when I meet Thomas Jefferson. Work! Imma compel him to include women in the sequel. Work!” This line from Hamilton has no doubt been sung a million times over by now, and the song listened to many more times. I think we can all agree that Hamilton is one of the greatest lyrical masterpieces of the twenty-first century. Lin Manuel Miranda manages to infuse dry humor into his raps and songs, tell a story and somehow make it rhyme as well. In the masterful play, Miranda walks the thin line (I would have said fine line, but I think we’re getting sick of it now) between representing history as it was and history as it should have been. He includes people of color, because, who cares how accurate it is? The story of Alexander Hamilton is one of an immigrant’s and his grit and perseverance are both beautifully represented in hip-hop, as Miranda portrayed it. He
also wrote “How Far I’ll Go” in Moana, a song illustrating a young girl’s dreams and aspirations, as well as working with Emma Watson on the HeForShe movement. Miranda has shown us that men can be and are feminists (although that should be obvious). He has taught us that gender does not determine our worth; men, women, or otherwise.
Lorde
She is one of the most forward-thinking, individualistic artists of this generation. The cover of her second studio album, Melodrama, is enough to prove it. Like her music, it’s filled with eye-opening colors that preach a multifaceted lens when looking at an individual. She debuted in 2013 with Pure Heroine, her first studio album, and we have fallen in love with her ever since. I mean, she was freaking 17 (maybe even younger) when she wrote the lyric “Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams”. Lorde’s music is, like I said, multifaceted. Her beats have a powerful undertone and her voice is always sure and steady. Her lyrics, however, are those of an unsure romanticizing teenager who has too much to offer and too little to gain. It’s heartbreaking and magnificent. Her work is a careful analysis of what it means to be a young woman. In her songs, she screams youth and maturity at the same time. She makes us want to dance, or cry, or both. Her writing is personal and vulnerable and gives us goosebumps. As we dance along to beautiful
lyrics like “We’ll end up painted on the road, red and chrome”, we wonder what it means to be young, and we do eventually get that answer. Youth is a melodramatic stage of life, as Lorde once hypothesized and then efficiently proved. It brings both chaos and joy and artists like Lorde remind us of just how beautiful it is. She forces us to feel grateful to be alive, just to relive the memory of the dramatic, Shakespearean-like, scary masterpiece that is our coming-of-age. Like I said, multifaceted.
Little Mix
If we didn’t mention Little Mix, there would be a problem. This girl group has broken down so many barriers and obliterated the glass ceiling of the music industry. They have been uncompromising in what they believe; whether it’s about what they wear or what they sing. These four women: Jesy Nelson, Jade Thirwal, Perrie Edwards, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock have been shouting out (or rather, singing out) self-love from the beginning. All four of these extraordinary ladies preach about the importance of being comfortable in your own skin and loving every single aspect of yourself. They don’t shy away from any topic that could be deemed too controversial and have always stood up for what they believed was right, whether it was for the LGBTQIA+ community,
feminism, or BLM. These singers have inspired a generation of people and shown them that it is okay to be yourself, and to be different, and to speak your mind. They have taught us the importance of never putting ourselves or letting anyone else put us in a box, and to never compromise on what’s right.
This day and age is the epitome of social change: change that is truly necessary. These artists are fearless, and we need to be too. Expression is a means by which we can gain perspective, and it requires fearlessness. And you don’t have to be a singer to do it.
