First of all, let's gush about Kate Bush. She's a goddess.
Second of all, St. Vincent
. Classic pop forms put through a somewhat frightening experimental rock kaleidoscope. Sort of like the Distaff Counterpart to Andrew Bird, only not at all.
Third of all, Sleater-Kinney
. Riot grrl meets Television meets the Breeders? I dunno. They have amazing guitar-vocal interplay and great angry lyrics. No bassist though.
Fourth of all, Electrelane
. Kind of post-rock-ish (not to apparent in this song), kind of Velvet Underground-y (also not to apparent in this song), really good (readily apparent in this song).
Fifth of all Janelle Monae
. You have probably already heard all the hype about her, and she deserves every single big of praise she's been given.
edited 2nd Jan '11 3:24:21 PM by merton
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.
Absolutely spot on with basically every single one of those, St. Vincent in particular.
Have some Joanna Newsom.
edited 5th Jan '11 4:43:30 AM by Saeglopur
Listen to Music with Tropers at The Troper Turntable!Kate Bush has definitely produced some of the finest music in history. It's too bad that she never appears in any "top X musicians" list. Nobody has replicated her brand of uniqueness, no matter what the elitists say!
I like Emilie Autumn. I'm glad she incorporates the harpsichord in her music. I enjoyed listening to Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane. I should listen to them more often.
edited 3rd Jan '11 6:13:11 PM by SoapMagic
A few I can think of right now are Emileigh Rohn, Pat Benatar, Sharon den Adel and Beth Gibbons. They're all actually either creators of their own music project (Emileigh Rohn is Chiasm herself) or are Face Of The Band like all the rest I mentioned.
edited 4th Jan '11 12:38:49 AM by whataboutme
Please don't feed the trolls!That's Michael Stipe
backing her up on the chorus, by the way. Hips And Makers is the only Kristin Hersh album I've heard, but it's a really good one. I guess on a related note, I'll give some praise to Throwing Muses and pretty much all the related artists I know of - 50 Foot Wave, Belly, and what little I've heard of Tanya Donnelly's solo stuff. Even The Breeders sort of count, since Tanya Donnelly was briefly in that band.
edited 4th Jan '11 1:31:56 PM by MikeK
How about Lauryn Hill (present craziness aside):
And Nicki Minaj:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSFyrrhKj1Q
(the video embed won't work for some reason)
edited 4th Jan '11 12:42:06 PM by wuggles
I forgot to mention X-Ray Spex! I will rectify this. They're probably my favorite first-wave British punk band. They've got saxophones and introspective lyrics. They're really good.
Seconding the Lauryn Hill mention.
You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!My kind of music.. definitely need to second basically all of Soap Magic and Merton's suggestions.
Sia
. A hell of a singer and has so much material she's written for other artists too. And this one
.
Warpaint
. I already plug this band too much round these parts.
Wallis Bird
. Impassioned Irish singer/songwriter/guitarist.
Charlotte Hatherley
. Formerly of Ash and Night Nurse, I think she's quite under-rated and has some great, if sometimes poppy songs.
Seen all of them play more than once, so they're live recommendations too.
Jean Grae
*, Bahamadia
, A-Love
, Heather B
, and possibly Lady Of Rage
. And yeah, Lauryn Hill's music is tip top.
edited 5th Jan '11 4:57:07 AM by yukijin
...is out to lunch.Kaki King. Fantastic songwriter, fantastic guitarist, fantastic singer.
edited 5th Jan '11 11:09:14 AM by sca_punk
They're off the streets now, and back on the road on the riot trail. http://www.last.fm/user/sca_punk

Let's be honest - the music world is dominated by men, and women are often overshadowed by them. Just compare how popular Joni Mitchell is to the popularity of Bob Dylan! Let's celebrate the ladies that have contributed a lot to music, like the aforementioned Joni, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Björk, PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Liz Fraser, Madonna, Nina Simone, Patti Smith etc. We can also discuss female musicians that aren't know for their songwriting, if you prefer.