Links & Bits for 1/29/10

Top 50 Lesbian Songs Are Not Just From Lesbians (AfterEllen)
While I love a lot of the artists mentioned, it’s unclear as to what the requirements were to be put on the list. You’ve got your obvious lesbian/bi women (k.d.lang, Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, Me’Shell Ndegeocello, I am staring at you) but then you’ve got your straights, (Sade, Patti Smith, Kim Gordon) and then some fake gays or people who play them on T.V. (t.A.T.U. — I am still not a fan).
(My $0.02 - "Pink Triangle?")

Do We Need a Lilith Fair in 2010? (Monitor Mix)
According to Billboard.com, women accounted for nearly half of the "20 music stars with the best performance on the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Hot 100 over the last 10 years." Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child, Britney Spears, Pink, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey. If you count The Black Eyed Peas, of which Fergie is the most recognizable member, then women were equal to their male counterparts in terms of chart performance and staying power.
(My $0.02 - Confession: I have never attended Lilith Fair. When it was hugely popular in the 90s, I guess I deemed it to "hippy dippy" for my punk rock sensibilities. I feel a little guilty. I didn't even know it was still around.)

Is Indie Dead? (Paste)
In 2010, we again find ourselves in strange times. More than 20 years have passed since the punk movement and its offspring ground a steel-toed boot into the shin of America’s cultural consciousness, and in that time we’ve seen it rise up, triumph and retreat in an endless cycle, each time leaving shards of itself behind to float or sink in the mainstream.
(My $0.02 - I thought indie, or indie as us senior members of Gens X and Y knew it, died a long time ago. If anything defined the 00s, particularly the latter half, it was the death of the underground. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing.)

Amanda Palmer's Armpit Hair Attracts Hail Of Online Criticism (Jezebel)
Palmer still attended the event in a conventionally beautiful dress, wearing high heels, with her hair and makeup professionally applied, and her arm hair is pretty faint; it's not as if she were wearing a Margiela human-hair coat and a shaved head — hardly matters.
(My $0.02 - Really? Armpit hair? It's 2010. Shouldn't we be beyond caring whether someone shaves her pits or not? Between this and the brouhaha over Mo'Nique's unshaven legs, I'm shaking my head. And raising a hairy armpit in solidarity.)