Since I am putting off doing several boatloads' worth of work, I thought I would post about something that interests me lately. I was browsing YouTube and realized I was finding a pretty striking pattern in the successful music-related videos out there: so many of the successful artists now in the limelight are strong, style-savvy young women 18 to 30 years old.
Here are some musical ladies I'm seeing and hearing a lot about. What do you think? Are they actually phenomena, or just silly and over-publicized?
Lady Gaga - 23 (Song: Paparazzi)
My roommate first mentioned Lady Gaga to me a couple months ago, and I hadn't heard of her or heard any of her songs. But I kept hearing her name after that, and her song "Poker Face" has been everywhere. She reminds me a lot of one of my idols, Gala (:D) in her style and love for sequins and girliness. Apparently Lady Gaga dropped out of NYU, which is interesting, and she has a very provocative side that I think shows just how mainstream dirtiness has become...
P!nk - 29 (Song: So What)
Unfortunately a lot of the official music videos on YouTube have disabled embedding, but this is still a great song minus the actual video. P!nk has been around for a while, and I remember being skeptical of and even disliking her earlier stuff, because it was too something for me. Maybe it was too aggressive, too rock, too overt for my teenaged self. But I think P!nk is really good at being an empowering woman figure and her songs are bitingly clever. She also just looks like a badass.
Beyoncé - 27 (Song: Ego)
Beyoncé has also been around for a while, and I think she is genuinely talented. She has also been a consistently good role model for girls and their body images. She has a really great team behind her, and she does so much with her time. She's just an overall impressive individual.
Miley Cyrus - 16 (Song: The Climb)
This one is kind of the exception to the age range I posted above (Miley Cyrus is 16), but it's the same idea. You can hate on her all you want, but Miley Cyrus is genuinely successful right now, and she has so many fans I barely understand it. But her vocal chops are kind of awesome for her age.
Katy Perry - 26 (Song: Waking Up In Vegas)
Katy Perry is great. I thought her song "I Kissed A Girl" last summer was annoying because of how much it got played, but it's still really catchy, and her voice is so unique that you have to like it. Again, you can hate her songs as much as you want, but she's out there and she's doing well.
Taylor Swift - 19
This one's a bonus video of Taylor Swift rapping as T-Swizzle with T-Pain. This girl is famous too, and I hear a lot about her, but I haven't really looked into it more than that. I just thought this video was funny.
Did I miss anyone that you think is really in the spotlight these days? It's not to say that there aren't successful men doing music right now, but I feel like the artists getting the most exposure are women, for whatever reason. Maybe I think that way because I am also a woman, and I have my own tastes that make these ladies stand out to me. In any case, this is what I'm seeing, and I think it's really cool.
