click to enlarge Luke Awtry
While sampling some of Burlington’s finest indie rock at Radio Bean recently, a friend turned to me with something like a revelation.
“Have you noticed that all the new bands in town have girls in them now?” she remarked. “They’re either all girls or the singer is a girl. It’s full-on girl power in Burlington now! We’re taking over, baby.”
While I concurred with my friend’s observation (and shared her excitement), I also knew the numbers. Having done plenty of research for my story this week on the GRRRLS to the Front event taking place throughout March at the Stone Church in Brattleboro, I knew that women’s overall involvement in the music industry is still woefully low.
To be clear, I’m not talking about how many female or female-fronted bands or artists exist in Vermont currently. I wouldn’t know where to start in ascertaining that — new bands appear and disappear more quickly than a Burlington apartment listing. But anecdotally, I agree with my friend: We’re seeing more and more female and female-fronted acts in our local scene, from Lily Seabird to Robber Robber to Heady Betty to the Burning Sun, just to name a few.
What we’re missing here, however, and in the music world at large, are woman producers. A recent study underwritten by Spotify found that slightly more than 22 percent of titles that appeared on the Year-End Hot 100 Songs chart between 2012 and 2022 were produced by women — and that number has held steady for a decade. The sta
