Another hottest 100, another absence of women ...

Triple JJJ's latest top 100 countdown in January 2015 yet again is disappointingly male-centred. The same debates are going on as for the last 5 years (and before!). If you feel like signing a petition to say you're angry, go here. If you feel like being passionate on Twitter, use the hashtags #women4hottest100 and #countthewomen.

My apologies to Lady Gaga

For thinking she didn't have any kind of 'point' with her performances. In fact, I'd call it performance art. I missed her live concerts here in Melbourne, but I've since spent a lot of time getting to know her through her video clips, and I'm at the point where I just cannot look away.

Standard disclaimer: I wish that to be truly At The Top Of Her Game, being Challenging and Artistic, a female artist would not automatically have to strip off, display a standardised body, and wear it as some kind of badge of pride.

But.

If they have to do it, I hope they do it like Gaga. Wearing her performances. Sneering at the camera. Demanding sex when she wants it. Rivaling the Cremaster Cycle in profusion of allegorical, symbolic and downright confusing imagery. Encasing body parts and concepts in materials weighed down by layers of meaning. Doing some damn fine music. Exploring colour, movement and texture. Toying with expectations and demands of others, and then throwing them off effortlessly.

When I grow up into a toned, bosomed and bleached body, I want to be Lady Gaga.

Hummingbird 100 results

So for those who felt that the Hottest 100 Women countdown was too 90s-heavy and too alternative-ish, head over to the Hummingbird 100 and enjoy their very very pop-py countdown! Some artists they included which we didn't, are P!nk (crazy popular in Australia), TLC (awesome R&B), Bic Runga (local-ish!), Kylie Minogue (we loved her when she was Charlene), Beyonce (that woman is astonishing - watch the Single Women video and tell me she isn't half Amazon!), and Kate Miller-Heidke (I think we're all ashamed she wasn't in the H100W). There is a clear focus on songs from the last decade or so, suggesting that the average Hummingbird voter was younger than the average H100W voter. There's also a preponderance of "mainstream"y music - songs you'd hear on Fox rather than on 3RRR (here in Melbourne).

Hey, it's not a countdown I would like to listen to - because I am a 90s alternative fan! But that's not to say that it isn't just as valid a countdown, or as valid a set of results (they had almost 10 times the votes that we did, after all). Are we all into "Women's Music - but only if it is Artistically Valid, which means She Can't Show Her Boobs, and There Will Be No Pop Melodies"? I admit there are elements of some of the Hummingbird artists that I dislike - the "raunch is empowerment" philosophy of Christina Aguilera, the "shock doesn't need to have meaning" of Lady Gaga (though I may be misinterpreting her whole schtick). But that doesn't mean that they are not artists. Their art is not my art. Their values are not my values. But hell, they are still artists, and their music IS music! Whether the countdown promotes as much of a variety of music styles - as much of a feminist flavour to the music - and as much musical invention and creativity as the H100W countdown - well, that's really a personal call. And as you could expect, as a left-leaning, feminist, alternative woman, I do prefer my own countdown. I don't like raunch culture. I don't like Fox FM. I don't like "post feminist" culture. But hey. That's me.

Just as the JJJ countdown should really have been called "Top 100 songs of all time by men", the Hummingbird countdown can be called "Top 100 noughties-heavy pop songs of all time by women", and the H100W countdown can be called "Top 100 90s-heavy alternative-cred songs of all time by women". We all have biases. There is no such thing as "better" music. Sorry!

(BTW, there will be another post with some fun comparisons in more detail.)