An entry in which I fail to mention where the alleged conversation took place, which was Bondi, which, by the way, was beautiful and clean, the cleanest beach I've ever seen. It was also deserted, which might have played a role in its cleanliness.
Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 - 23:26

When I have nothing to do I do nothing.

But anyway.

A long time ago, like a year ago, and maybe I was in Australia or maybe I was here, I don't remember, and I might have already written about this or I might have just discussed it with my friend Rose, and I know I did discuss it with her because I remember the conversation, which leads me to believe that 1. I thought about it in Australia and not here, meaning it was, oh, yeah, it's September, so a year ago, and 2. I think I haven't written it here, I just talked about it with her, so I'm free to type away right now once I get back to the point, which is: I was walking on a sidewalk in the rain in Sydney apparently (no, this isn't the point yet, it's incidental, it's my damn proclivity for setting things up, I'm always setting things up, I always have to give some sort of meaningless context that has nothing to do with anything and it wastes time, and then I always write about how I'm wasting time and that wastes even more time, and I just keep going in circles, circles and circles, etc.) regretting the fact that I seem to prefer male singers to female singers. Most of my favorite [singers/bands/songs] were [*/led by/sung by] men. And I was wishing this weren't true and wondering why it was. Because, yes, most of the music I listen to has guys singing.

And I thought of the female artists I knew of, and I realized I really didn't like their voices. And I wondered if maybe I just don't like women's voices in general. And that bothered me, because I don't want to be like that.

But then I decided that it's because male musicians/singers/artists are held to a different standard than their female counterparts. Or perhaps it's better stated the other way around.

The girls who get signed, who get recording contracts, are usually the girls who look a certain way. Who cares if they can sing or not, and usually they can't. Their talents can be mediocre as long as their boobs aren't. And so we have the marketable Britney Spearses of the world.

And those are the female singers we usually hear.

I was reminded of this conversation I had with myself and with Rose when I recently read that Fiona Apple's new album, which is finished apparently, has been shelved by Sony because they don't think there's a single on it. It's not marketable. Fiona Apple isn't marketable enough. Who cares if her music is good or not. They want a video and a song to put all over the radio and that's it.

I don't care how big her boobs are. I'd like to hear her music.

There are amazing women out there with amazing voices and it's annoying that we don't hear more from them.

But lately I've been getting deeper and deeper into smaller labels and finding more female singers, and more female musicians in general, and not just girls who make pretty music but also girls who make interesting music. So I'm happy about that.