Pitchfork's 60 Favorite Music Books Short On Female Authors

I don't fault Pitchfork's writers for only including two female-penned books -- the new Ellen Willis anthology and Ann Powers and Evelyn McDonnell's Rock, She Wrote -- in their list of 60 Favorite Music Books. When I think of the volumes of music criticism I've read over the course of the last two decades, just as a fan, not enough of them were written by women. I'm trying to rectify that.

And if putting together a list of music writing where women are fairly represented is hard enough, designing a list of criticism solely written by women is near impossible, not because women aren't writing about music, but because women's music criticism is largely unread. Though to read some of the selections on Pitchfork's list, you'd think women weren't interested -- or worse, in capable of -- critically thinking about music. What's most disappointing, though, is more than a few of the writers whose books made the list have some pretty archaic ideas about women as music fans. I'd like to see a list where a Tricia Rose shares billing with Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau, but it's no secret that music criticism is still overwhelmingly a boy's club.