Upon rock legend Stevie Nicks’ recent SNL performance, watching her familiar prowess in layers of black chiffon, I became acutely aware of the divergence between her identities — female and rockstar. In the ’60s and ’70s, societal standards largely placed women on a periphery: While making inroads in the workforce, they primarily occupied subordinate positions. To be a musician however, much less a rockstar, required absolute authority to take up space and roar into the microphone, regardless of the microphone feedback that followed.
Grooming, dating and eventually dumping young groupies was commonplace for the male rockstar — just look at John Oates, Elvis and Steven Tyler. With a bit of alcohol, debauchery and womanizing became another privilege of stardom, a given, left untouched until brave women began to speak up decades later. Predominant hits of the time further paint the scene of coercion and female subjugation, with The Beatles’ “Run for Your Life,” and The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” coming to mind.
The rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and product denoted women as an object of indulgence. How did women rockers fit into this archaic scene? To put it frankly–they didn’t. To be a successful rock frontwoman requires a willingness to deviate from conventions of both rockstar and woman. These female rock legends’ longevity comes in their ability to subvert expectations of what they should feel and perceive.
To further understand their genius divergence and perseverance in rock, we must look to the product of their life’s work, the music itself.
Debbie Harry: “I always felt entitled to be the man I wanted to be.”
Blondie’s frontwoman proudly stood out like a sore thumb among her male bandmates. Looking at Harry’s “One Way or Another,” the opening guitar’s grit truly foreshadows this song’s powerful command. As Harry snarls into the microphone with rich vibrato, she flatly declares her desire to get with someone. The nastiness to her vocals, dubious intent, and utter determination – all brash and ‘unfeminine’ — clap back at the narrative, declared by male rockers, that a woman should be understood by what she is, her physicality, rather than by what she does. Moreover, the menacing nature to each line, of eavesdropping and crowd-lurking, simmers with a rage, similar to Nicks’, making right a past neglect and commanding a respect where there once was none. Inverting the norms of who should be the object of desire, Harry roars.
Joan Jett: “We had to do it ourselves…and we did it.”
Although rising to fame later than her fellow female rockers featured, I couldn’t help but include her reinvented anthem “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” for its nonchalance and agency. Jett rallies with self-assuredness as she vyes for what she wants, leaving it ambiguous who takes who home. Through her fiery jukebox love, she is cool and grounded, simply “singin’ that same old song,” subverting any expectations of who is in control. The fact that she gender-bent this Arrows original speaks volumes to her transformative presence in rock. Through Jett’s confident delivery, the song becomes her own, female sexuality no longer the passive aftermath of male desire. Acknowledging this history, she truly embodies the lyrics to her subsequent flaming staple “Bad Reputation,” creating a “new generation” of women in rock musicianship.
Janis Joplin: “For a woman to sing, she really needs to, or wants to.”
While late rock icon Joplin didn’t write most of her own music, she sang each song with such fervor, often reinventing lyrics, that she shattered their male-centered origins. Of the songs she did write, “Women is Losers” shines with a bitterness and subtle irony that rips notions of male saviorism at the seams. A bluesy tune that, at first glance, speaks of the hardships women face, the second chorus slyly argues that the suffocating subversion of women is unfounded. She pokes at the ultimate shortcomings of so-called ‘championing’ men, crooning that men “wear a nice shiny armor until there is a dragon for to slay,” and that, when needed most, “they’ll turn and run away.” She cultivates a restlessness and intolerance of the disparate gender dynamic, and of the men who benefit from this system, rendering a bold criticism of men.
Grace Slick: “I do what I love to do. What I choose to do.”
In her work, “Somebody to Love,” Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane cuts right to the chase, revealing an absence of faithful love, previously unconceived. Slick leads with a cool perceptiveness. Her voice commands in a call to action, “you better find somebody to love,” not negotiating with the subject to reciprocate an unrequited affection. She creates the space for women to be the accredited messenger in a love song. Slick ultimately guides the broken subject, revealing that the “garden flowers” of a sure relationship “are dead,” disillusioning love rather than seducing, a narrow means through which women conventionally assert themselves in love.
Stevie Nicks: “Assert your independence.”
Regarded merely as the ‘girlfriend’ of guitarist Lindsay Buckingham upon joining Fleetwood Mac in 1974 — Buckingham had to negotiate her joining — Stevie Nicks ultimately transformed their sound and spearheaded their international success. In looking at Nicks’ emotional declaration of love in “Silver Springs,” she recenters the focus of a painful breakup on how she reckons with it, and away from the reckless actions of her lover. While the verses set the tone of pain and longing, as she begs “can you tell me, was it worth it?” she holds the subject accountable for their failures of unfaithfulness, dismantling the rashness of male desire. Her anger climaxes in the plodding chorus with the lines, “time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me,” building in pitch and intensity, turning her pain into control. She damns her lover, assuring that they’ll “never get away,” from the sound of her love, leaving the listener to contend with the haunting feelings she imposes. Her emotionality proudly takes up space, becoming a source of power to be wary of, no longer dismissed as a weakness of femininity.
This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of the women who dared to take to the stage in these key decades. But through pondering the great labor for success these rockers put forth, we acknowledge how this fight is still necessitated by current gender disparities in music — predatory producers and hypersexual lyrics serving as a cruel reminder.
It is crucial that we honor the rich history of pioneering female rock giants, for in taking the time to appreciate these rogue musicians through their work, we more fully realize the music’s capacity to subvert otherwise accepted narratives.
Alessandra Giragos is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].