Lollapalooza: Where Are the Female-Fronted Acts?

Apparently not headlining this year's Lollapalooza. Brooklyn Vegan just posted this lineup for the 2011 Lollapalooza, and not one female artist, or female-fronted band is on the list of headliners. Says Katie Presley for Bitch Magazine's B-Sides blog:

Mega-Feminist Eminem is the headliner this year (last year Lady Gaga ran the show), which is sort of, you know, THE OPPOSITE of having a lady-fronted band, but that is far from the only issue here. Sure, talented male acts exist all over the place, and absolutely, they deserve to headline festivals. But reading the list on Brooklyn Vegan, I got to the TWENTIETH ACT before finding a band with a female member. And those are the 20 biggest acts in the show. A male headliner? Totally cool. 19 main attractions with not a single woman anywhere to be found? Not even a little bit cool.

The sad fact is Lollapalooza wasn't always such a sausage party. Even last year's festival featured (the over-exposed) Lady Gaga, as well as Mavis Staples, The New Pornographers, and Erykah Badu. Looking through this list of past Lollapalooza lineups, the nineties were a bit female-friendly, while actually having fewer acts overall.

Not to romanticize the nineties because, but it did seem to be a better time to be a woman in a band: riot grrrl, for all its faults did offer women a way in to punk rock that didn't exist before, and left-of-center singer-songwriters like Alanis Morrisette, Liz Phair, and Meshell Ndegeocello were actually played on MTV during most people's waking hours. Although the playing field has leveled with things like youtube and Facebook, making it easier to gain an audience without major label support, indie rock seems like more of a boy's club than ever before.