Night falls over the forest. Operatic voices raise in a Gregorian chant an abandoned church cemetery. Ghostly figures spin to the beat of drum and bass. Those ghosts wear eyeliner, fishnet gloves, and leather. Here the duo Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry become one with the ancient Visigoths, gothic cathedrals, and the goth club all in one album. Their neoclassical gothic is a timeless cross between ritualistic and liturgical. Lisa's inhuman utterances are at their most untamed, and her avant-garde multiculturalism contrasts Brendan's dark jazz crooner beautifully. Still too this day, the pinnacle of romantic goth.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “Avatar”

♡ “Mesmerism”

♡ “Circumradiant Dawn”

♡ “Advent”

♡ “Enigma of the Absolute”

The vkei and jgoth legend Luci'Fer Luscious Violenoué's lyrical world revolves around vampires and dark fantasy, actively seeking to transcribe the works of Anne Rice into echoing gothic rock recorded in lo-fi and live. There's a fearsome romanticism in her yearning vocals and the cavernous quality of the recording. The self-made hazy, dreamlike films that star herself as an androgynous scarlet-haired heroine accompanying these songs are aesthetically perfect in a way that adds to the mysterious allure. For the vamps with red claws, sharp teeth, and a rose on the breast as they lay in their coffin.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “Seraphita”

♡ “Crimson Decadence-Decadance of Rose”

♡ “Blood and Roses”

Mood music for a long, slow, sad romantic break-up in 80s era Europe. Trying to forget all that passed between them in empty, liminal cafes and museums. Cate recreates New Romantic art school drop-out reverb-and-horn-section- heavy sophistipop with poetic, wistful, intimate nostalgia that feels like a ghost time traveled to record it in the time period it references. Her mournful Nico-touched contralto's winsome delivery makes each song like the cusp of dawn, not day or night, left in-between pain and healing. For vintage souls not quite ready to begin again, but the memories fall away with every dusty record they spin.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “About Time”

♡ “Pieces of My Heart”

♡ “I Know What's Nice”

♡ “Love Unrehearsed”

♡ “Body As A River”

I see a certain set of complaints consistently being made over the past few years, mainly by men who work in music criticism. They keep insisting that critique is dying due to fan/stan culture. On the surface, this seems to make sense. On the surface, the poor good critic just trying to give an "objective" opinion (which doesn't exist and is impossible- I can not reiterate that enough) getting harassed and harangued by evil nasty random fans and wealthy celebrity music artists in social media spaces seems like a straightforward good vs bad situation (it's framed that way, at least). Yet every time I read one of these articles or watch these videos where reviewers either potray themselves as innocent underdogs at the mercy of stans and singers or insist review isn't “mean” enough anymore, I feel a prickle under my skin. Because I know damn well they're not telling the full story and that the way they typically brush over a certain detail is a calculated choice.

This is the key fact that keeps getting minimized: 99% of the time the fans and artists they're referring to are women, fans of women, and artists whose fandom majority is women. These writers and YouTubers know this, too. So they note this fact fleetingly, typically with an air of disdain and distaste, then move on, pretending as if it has nothing to do with anything. When I take that into account, that prickle under my skin makes sense. I'm reading lies by omission. I'm getting gaslit. And sadly, many people aren't noticing it and are falling for it. These posts and videos get tons of likes and views. "Music criticism is dying". Okay why? "Fans and artists with big egos!" Okay, but what do all of them have in common? "Wealth!" Nope, a lot of music critics are wealthy, and a lot of fans are poor, try again. "Ummm..." Yeah, they're mainly women. Say it with your whole chest or say nothing. The truth is, these “hot takes” feel satisfyingly us-vs-them in a time in history when celebrities and fan culture are increasingly reviled, even if the take being given is purposely not the full picture but small pieces to a far larger puzzle.

If we look even just a little deeper, this has less to do with the cult of personality and celebrity than we are being told. What if I told you that fangirls, women artists, and girls, girls, girls aren't the problem? What if I told you that what we're actually seeing play out, in real time, is a backlash against the system of male-centric, male-invented, numbers-and-ratings-centric music review from women and women-centered people? What if I told you that this “rise of the fangirl” was an inevitable backlash towards this imposed impossible concept of "objectivity" and a step towards that old platitude "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"? The truth is that this was always bound to happen as long as women listeners are starting to become more and more invested and active in music spaces. The anger we keep seeing isn't coming from nowhere. Most of it is a systemic after-effect of experiencing and witnessing years on years of phallocentric brutality towards women in music and music women love.

Let's take a step back to look at the decades of examples: First we had Frank Sinatra and Elvis. Beloved by and championed by girls and women. Those women were mocked viciously by male-centric media for admiring them. Men now consider them to be geniuses. The Beatles. Another group of men first admired predominantly by young girls and women. It was "Beatle-mania" back then. Now, once again, considered one of the greatest bands ever by men. No one tells them they have “Beatle-mania”. Duran Duran in the 80s (though they go often unmentioned, they were a cultural phenomenon) with the Durranies fandom, were made fun of consistently. Now many Gen X men whose demographic considered it "music for girls" see it as some of the best music of that decade. Perhaps the likes of Backstreet Boys or NSYNC or kpop and BTS will never be the darlings of men in mass but if the pattern keeps going this way, one day there will be men gushing over Arirang (maybe after they realize that the Motown Records music they love so much basically invented the idol system that jpoo and kpop use- even the photocards).

The critics and YouTubers acting shaken by the aggression towards Fantano or Pitchfork are obscuring just how much of this revolves around fangirls and women pop artists. Instead, they've been simply writing it all off as caused by delusional worship and ego, posing in the position of the persecuted and innocent, or acting as if we're too stupid to tell the difference between genuine constructive criticism and line-crossing mockery. They fail to comprehend (or actively choose to ignore) all those aforementioned decades women artists and fans have endured misogyny from men writing columns. They think they have an excuse to target these women with disdain, vitrol, or not-so-covert sexism ("main character syndrome" will never be said of a music artist who is a man) because they are light-skinned (white or mixed) and wealthy (nevermind many of these women are self-made and not from rich families). But we're slowly starting to see women and their supporters wise up. That "white" or "wealthy" are often used by covert sexists as excuses to attack women by shrinking the demographic. That this behavior has no political adherence and sexism is truly everywhere. That it IS that bad.

They call Halsey or Charli XCX "in poor taste" for attacking the music critic industry, but is it truly “poor taste” to finally smack back after being punched down for so long? I'm not stupid enough to believe that everything written by these reviewers is in good faith and "objective". That's a laughably obvious lie. The numbers, the contests, the rewards are a lie just as well when we see who usually is the winner. When we see who are usually the managers, the producers, and the songwriters, including those leering behind the women of pop. We know it was men who own the record industry who created this system, then fans came up and made their own zines, but, alas, male-dominate opinions were found there too. Above and underground, it's been an unrelenting assault of sexism. The worst end result of this mindset that's been so widely accepted is that if these critics, who on a high average prefer men's art, are genuinely to be accepted as “objectively” correct, then their “objective” opinion is that women artists are not as talented on average. The omission of women on all their lists and favorite albuns makes it painfully clear where they really stand.

Do I think there's something to be said of issues with fandom? Yes, of course. Humans aren't meant to deify other humans. It just leads to delusion and pain. Celebrity past a certain threshold is deeply dangerous to both the fan and the idol because it goes past genuine enjoyment of art into mass hysteria and worship. Hold those you admire accountable. Is there something to be said of fans having knee-jerk and overly aggressive reactions when people dislike their favorite music? Of course there is. People have every right to dislike whatever music they dislike. Bullying, hatred, and threats are wrong. What's not correct is simply blaming female fans and musicians/singers without recognizing there's obviously something bigger going on here. What's not correct is acting as if misogyny isn't prevalent in popular music reviewing to such a degree that every woman feels on edge and defensive. Blaming fans and singers is an easy place to direct growing discontent. Blaming a capitalistic industry and the male side of music fandom that has consistently shamed women for their tastes is considerably more difficult since the rabbit hole goes far deeper than is convenient for a 15 minute “hot take” with ad breaks in-between.

To be clear, all the lesser-known music critics just doing their work didn't create this inevitable crumbling infrastructure of misogyny, pop-timism, and capitalistic sucking-up. Yet sadly, they much like fans and artists, are also experiencing the after-effects of it. Many bigger music publications have experienced layoffs. Jobs have been lost. Futures are uncertain. Writers deserve better. The truth is that people, writers too, yearn to come to their own conclusions. To read real opinions, not hit pieces or puff pieces. I have said time and again the only sustainable future to be had for music review anymore is in the personal. The intimate. The REAL. Women watch the shallow fawning over their “faves” as a balm for all the times they've had to hear that the “objective truth” is that their taste is only worthy of sexist mockery. If we want to combat this growing content-creation shallowness and fandom malcontent, we must become deeper. Depth is found in an individual understanding the individual. The artist, the fan, and the critic can find a balance if they try to genuinely understand each other without engaging in casual bigotry. That's a sustainable future.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

I've seen this so many times by now, that it can’t be viewed as coincidental, so often I even witnessed this behavior in the comment section of a post here on Substack, which is what inspired this post: Someone wrote an excellent article on the public treatment of the mental health of women in music. Immediately, a man out of nowhere commented that the woman they were talking about isn't talented to anyone but 12-year-old girls (oh, that old misogynistic fallacy), though this had nothing to do with the article itself, and, like clockwork, immediately namedropped Kate Bush as the superior talent among women. His first instinct was to use Kate to put down other musical women, and he's far from the only man in music spaces I've witnessed do so. After blocking him, I began to think back to the sheer amount of times I've seen Kate's legacy (less so Bjork, but she was the one who was talked about and treated this way by men before the Stranger Things popularity boom) used by male music fans on social media and in even professional music review in this “her vs all other women” way.

It has made me wonder for the millionth time, what is it about Kate that has made her the pet "best woman" of misogynistic men in the music commentary sphere? What was it about Bjork? Why do these kinds of men constantly pit these two women against the entirety of all women in music industry history and why do these men's opinions dominate even offical review magazines? I've touched on this subject before in a previous article about how Japanese women's invention of art pop is typically purposely obscured (RYM even once had a separate "Japanese Art Pop" listening box because there were so many of these women in the genre that they eclipsed American and European women- they erased it in recent years, probably because many realized it was the RYM equivalent of the Grammys making a seperate Grammy for Asian artists). I talked a little about how Kate and Bjork have become socially acceptable and safe, the "princesses" of artsy pop music, while any woman who doesn't fit that quality (i.e. most women in artsy music pre-2010) are the ignored and undervalued “witches” by the male-dominated music commentary community, both casually and professionally. I didn't deep dive into this subject, but now I am.

Firstly, I'm glad that I can safely say of Bjork that she would be appalled by the way her name has been used by men to put other women down. She may have spent many years not identifying herself as a feminist, but she was always a defender of other women she was compared to, even when so many women were pushed to and fell for having beef with each other up until the early 2010s. I wish I could be as certain of Kate, since she's been so adamantly anti-feminist in the past (and made some unfortunate remarks about butch lesbians that, as far as I know, she's never addressed). All I have to go by is that her reported friend Toyah Willcox has stated that herself, Kate, Kim Wilde, and Hazel O'Connor refused to compete with each other on the charts and would stagger their releases accordingly, which I definitely hope is true as it would be a wonderful testament to women's solidarity in UK music. Yet regardless of whether either Bjork or Kate are fine or not with being dubbed the most or only worthy talents among women in music history, it doesn't change the fact these men are delusional and deeply wrong to make such claims.

So where do these delusions start? I think what I need to do is break down the linguistic framing these men use. One reoccurring theme is the word "feminine". I've seen Kate's music reviewed with "feminine"-coded language quite heavily, some men referring to her as being in "feminine energy". Even using it to showcase her superiority to more androgynous, punky, rock-oriented, "masculine"-coded women (I once saw a review on RYM under Patti Smith's Horses claiming she was like if Kate Bush couldn't sing or get boys- a rage-baiting comment, but one that holds a grain of truth as to their thought-process). There's also what they claim makes Kate superior, usually framed with these passive-aggrsssive comments and comparisons: "But Kate writes her own music" (a statement they'll never make about a male artist- unless it's the ye olde Prince vs. Michael argument) or "Kate came first" (despite the fact many came before her, such as Laura Nyro, Yoko Ono, Nico, Brigitte Fontaine, Annette Peacock, Lene Lovich, Nina Hagen, Akiko Yano, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Morita Doji, etc, etc, etc.) or they compare her to literally every even slightly quirky woman in music unprompted (which also goes to show how limited most people's knowledge of the illustrious history of women in experimental pop music really is).

I believe Kate is perceived as "feminine" i.e. passive in the eyes of these men because what she writes isn't as overtly aggressive towards patriarchal notions the way women in alternative music usually are. At least, not in a way that is obvious enough to prickle the conscience of these kinds of men. For example, "Get Out of My House" has strong themes of the trauma caused to women by male domestic abuse within the subtext of the lyrics (and in her named inspirations being the films The Shining and Alien- both movies that are inspired by male violence towards women, as horror often is), but because she stated to the media simply that it's about the aftermath of a breakup, they have used this as an excuse to avoid this subtext. Bjork was also once easier to digest for them lyrically because it's only recently that she's incorporated a more overtly eco-feminist message, as her focus has usually been interpersonal between the inner human self or outer relationships. The timing of the switch from obsessing over Bjork, then after her admission of full-fledged feminism obsessing over Kate makes more sense in that regard. In their perspective, Kate feels less abrasive.

Then I look at two women who are often compared to and put at Kate and Bjork's level by women and girls (or by men who aren't taken in by misogynistic competitive drama in the music commentary world): Fiona Apple and Tori Amos. The contrast between Kate's typically indirect storytelling lyrics and Bjork's intimate explorations of her own mind and heart, with Tori's esoteric but still overt rage towards abusive men or Fiona's deep dissertations on the after-effects of male cruelty in her life makes it clear to me why these kinds of men rarely mention these other two in the same breath. As stated before, Kate rarely directly or aggressively expressed anger towards men for their bad behavior in her lyrics, despite there being insinuations in her discography that not all was perfect with the men in her personal life (lest we forget, her long-term ex boyfriend Del Palmer started dating her when she was 16-17 and he was in his 20s, with the knowledge of her brothers and parents), but Fiona and Tori bring out their boxing gloves so to speak. "Precious Things" and "Paper Bag" are scathing attacks on egotistical men, the exact kind of men who hide behind Kate's work to mask their misogyny. I can see why it usually appeals to them far less.

The way these types of men strongly perfer to deify music by women that they perceive as not too lyrically aggressive towards their ilk and the way they usually seek out only hyper-feminine expressions of quirkiness (including in 2010s to today's women in art pop) reminds me of the "manic pixie dream girl". This of course is a well-documented and heavily discussed screenplay trope that is typically written into existence by men with a shallow perspective of whimsical and complex women's inner existence. The women in these stories exist solely to bring fun, girly, extroverted "meaning" into the lives of gloomy, asocial, introverted men (the kind of men who write these stories). These characters typically have no darker side per say (as that would cut into the time they spend attempting to heal the broken male lead) and no genuine anger towards or even perception of misogyny. They live in a bubble, as these men prefer their imagined women to. They're spacey, zany, kooky, flaky, every kind of retro slang for crazy that there is, but in a cute, sophisticated, cool way that isn't inconvenient or unattractive. The man in the story comes to idealize her. She has no deeper self in his perception because of the pedestal he puts her on.

In these mens’ eyes and shallow perception, Kate and Bjork are a real life musical equivalent manic pixie dream girls. Their lyrics and appearance are “feminine” enough in their eyes that they seem approachable because of this perceived delicacy, despite being strange. In these men's skewed viewpoint, these women are the epitome of the aforementioned manic pixie dream girl checklist, which has extended into their musical taste. Hence why several years ago I often saw Kate and Bjork's photos used as profile pictures by men on RYM (in Kate's case, it was always and only screencaps of her at age 18- I highly doubt most of those men were in that age range). These men don't actually like women's music, but unlike the old guard of misogynistic reviewers, they don't want to be called out for it, so to them Bjork in the 2010s and Kate now in the 2020s kill two birds with one stone: They can lowkey project a sexualized "weird girl" fantasy on them while simultaneously their talent becomes a bludgeon they can use to beat down all the "ugly" women that don't fit within their fantasy (which is a lot). The fact that these kinds of men are so common in music spaces is worrisome, and what's worse is how common they are in professional music review.

The reality of Kate Bush and Bjork is very different. They are two of countless pioneering and remarkable women in music history worldwide. Two of many women who have been in art pop and experimental music. They aren't a tool to be used to denigrate the legacies of other gifted musical women. They're not a constant comparison to hold over every alternative-leaning woman in the Western music world. And they aren't in above all other women creators. I think the only way to end this misogynistic framing of them is to make it abundantly clear that they aren't alone out here. They're not the only artsy, eccentric women who have written music and lyrics over the decades. If the talent of women is treated as commonplace, not rare as these kinds of men try so hard to frame it, and if the history of women in music is made as readily available and as borderless in language and genre as men's music is, that sexist mindset will no longer be as easily unnoticed as it has been. The knowledge of that history is powerful, and makes it clear, "Women are talented", is and always will be an all-encompassing statement.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

This is the second part of a continuous series of archiving the 1000+ albums that will be featured at the back of my book.

(Note: As stated in my first post, these are archival entities that will be featured at the back of my future book. So there's not much of an intro to make here. At this point, I was listing more gothic-adjacent albums and becoming more ecclectic in my tastes as there was a definite jazz, funk, and soul phase slowly burgeoning, as well as more all-woman bands. You can see I was slowly stepping outside of my comfort zone.)

51. Sleep in Safety - 45 Grave

Key Song: "Violent World"

Genres: deathrock, goth rock

♡

52. Winter Songs - Art Bears

Key Song: "Rats and Monkeys"

Genres: avant-prog, art rock, experimental rock

♡

53. Parallelograms - Linda Perhacs

Key Song: "Hey, Who Really Cares?"

Genres: psychedelic rock, freak folk, avant-folk

♡

54. Pinky Blue - Altered Images

Key Song: "Think That It Might"

Genres: twee, post-punk

♡

55. Helleborine - Shelleyan Orphan

Key Song: "Melody of Birth"

Genres: baroque pop, dream pop

♡

56. Mettle - Hugo Largo

Key Song: "Turtle Song"

Genres: dream pop, ambient pop, baroque pop

♡

57. Fools and Orphans - Jo Gabriel

Key Song: "Poison In the Well"

Genres: piano pop, ambient pop

♡

58. Catherine Ribeiro +2 Bis (self-titled)

Key Song: "Les Fées Carabosses"

Genres: avant-folk, psychedelic rock

♡

59. The Cyan-Ghost Lake - Yikii

Key Song: "The Light of Anglerfish"

Genres: neoclassical darkwave, ethereal wave, post-industrial

♡

60. Lilith - The Vyllies

Key Song: "Bad Trip"

Genres: darkwave, dark cabaret, ethereal wave

♡

61. Aviary - Julia Holter

Key Song: "Turn the Light On"

Genres: ambient pop, dream pop, art pop

♡

62. Good Evening - Nite Jewel

Key Song: "Artificial Intelligence"

Genres: R&B, hypnogogic pop

♡

63. Strawberry Switchblade (self-titled)

Key Song: "Poor Hearts"

Genres: synthpop, art pop, baroque pop

♡

64. Grandes Exitos - Vainica Doble

Key Song: "Oh! Jesús"

Genres: psychedelic rock, baroque pop, flamenco

♡

65. Nasty Gal - Betty Davis

Key Song: "Feelins"

Genres: soul, funk, jazz rock

♡

66. Come Away With ESG - ESG

Key Song: "You Make No Sense"

Genres: funk, post-punk, no-wave

♡

67. Camino Del Sol - Antena

Key Song: "Noelle A Hawaii"

Genres: samba, sophistipop, ambient pop

♡

68. Oyayubihime - Mami Yamase

Key Song: "GO!"

Genres: art rock, alt metal, art pop

♡

69. Kickabye - Anni Hogan

Key Song: "Story So Far"

Genres: dark cabaret, post-punk

♡

70. Sacrificial Cake - Jarboe

Key Song: "Troll Lullaby"

Genres: post-industrial, ethereal wave, experimental rock

♡

71. From the Heart - Shadow Project

Key Song: "By God"

Genres: deathrock, ethereal wave, neofolk

♡

72. Passaros Na Garganta - Teté Espindolá

Key Song: "Amor E Guavira"

Genres: bossa nova, avant-folk, art pop

♡

73. Deseo Carnal - Alaska y Dinarama

Key Song: "Carne, Huesos y Tú"

Genres: post-punk, synthpop, darkwave

♡

74. Carnaval - Zelda

Key Song: "Watashi No Orchestra"

Genres: art rock, post-punk, neoclassical

♡

75. Everything Could Be So Perfect - Anne Pigalle

Key Song: "Why Does It Have To Be This Way"

Genres: cabaret, chanson, synthpop

♡

76. Serpentine Gallery - Switchblade Symphony

Key Song: "Doll House"

Genres: darkwave, goth rock, ethereal wave

♡

77. The Divine Comedy - Milla Jovovich

Key Song: "Gentleman Who Fell"

Genres: art pop, folk, baroque pop

♡

78. Stuffed To the Gills and Other Fishy Tales - Bone Orchard

Key Song: "Shall I Carry the Budgie Woman?"

Genres: deathrock, horrorbilly

♡

79. It'll End in Tears - This Mortal Coil

Key Song: "Another Day"

Genres: ethereal wave, dream pop, baroque pop

♡

80. All Bagged Up - The Bags

Key Song: "Violence Girl"

Genres: hardcore punk, hard rock

♡

81. Malenhkiye Tragediyi - Kolibri

Key Song: "Прогулка (Walk)"

Genres: experimental rock, cabaret, post-punk

♡

82. Lisova Kolekciya - Svitlana Nianio

Key Song: "Episode 7"

Genres: avant-folk, art pop

♡

83. Nano de Yoisho - Chakra

Key Song: "Watashi To Hyyakkaten"

Genres: art rock, post-punk, techno-kayo

♡

84. Kidorikko (self-titled)

Key Song: "Ohmen Wo Tsuketa Neko"

Genres: synthpop, techno-kayo, art pop

♡

85. Remnants of A Deeper Purity - Black Tape For A Blue Girl

Key Song: "I Have No More Answers"

Genres: ethereal wave, neoclassical darkwave

♡

86. Feather Float - Ooioo

Key Song: "Ah Yeah!"

Genres: experimental rock, noise rock

♡

87. Finally We Are No One - Múm

Key Song: "We Have A Map of the Piano"

Genres: folktronica, dream pop

♡

88. Now Wait For Last Year - Caroline K

Key Song: "Animallattice"

Genres: dark ambient, neoclassical, post-punk

♡

89. Waterbearer - Sally Oldfield

Key Song: "Mirrors"

Genres: folk, progressive rock, piano pop

♡

90. The Magic City - Helium

Key Song: "Clementine"

Genres: noise rock, progressive rock, alternative rock

♡

91. Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes - Moor Mother

Key Song: "After Images"

Genres: experimental rap, industrial

♡

92. Master of My Make-Believe - Santigold

Key Song: "The Keepers"

Genres: indie pop, art pop, post-punk

♡

93. ¡Ay! - Lucrecia Dalt

Key Song: "Enviada"

Genres: art pop, bolero, dark jazz

♡

94. Guitar Passion - Charo

Key Song: "Leyenda"

Genres: flamenco, traditional

♡

95. Gipsy Rock - Las Grecas

Key Song: "Te Estoy Amando Locamente"

Genres: psychedelic rock, flamenco, hard rock

♡

96. Dirty Pearl - Anita Lane

Key Song: "The World's A Girl"

Genres: ethereal wave, post-punk, baroque pop

♡

97. Golden Morning Breaks - Colleen

Key Song: "Summer Water"

Genres: ambient, folktronica

♡

98. Escalator Over the Hill - Carla Bley and Paul Haines

Key Song: "This Is Here..."

Genres: jazz rock, opera, avant-garde

♡

99. Patty Waters Sings - Patty Waters

Key Song: "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair"

Genres: avant-garde, jazz

♡

100. The Loneliest Girl - Princess Chelsea

Key Song: "I Love My Boyfriend"

Genres: art pop, synthpop, dream pop

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

Since I was young, I've been fascinated by "the language of flowers" also known as floriography. Though it's existed in many cultures, it's most famously known as a past time of the British during the Victorian era. Reportedly, it began in order to deliver messages to each other secretively in a repressive society wherein a private chat between a man and a woman could be damaging or even damning in gossiping, tight-knit communities. They could be romantic or tragic depending on the arrangements, as those flowers and their colors became a letter without words. I never had the money to recreate their nosegays and puzzle out the floral riddles they did, but as a very romantic teenager, I still read that codex with devotion.

Flowers have superficially lost a great deal of cultural weight in comparison to the 1800s over subsequent decades, yet Walmart bouquets are still bought for congrajulations, birthdays, funerals, and other special occasions. My first and only stage performance dancing was met with a bouquet of yellow lilies and violets, which I held in my ruby-sequined arms with pride. I've received gladiolus of every color and shade in the summer, as it's my birth month flower, and means "You pierce my heart" due to its spear-like shape. After my grandfather's funeral, our dingy cabin was filled to the brim with wilting arrangements stabbed into damp foam. My grandmother's rose garden and the roses my mother planted along our rock path. A childhood of pressing fallen roses in my books or learning to craft dandelion chains... Flowers may lose culturally, but they hold in memory.

I recently realized, much to my surprise, that flowery patterns appear often in the lyrical tapestry of music I love, particularly three of my favorite Japanese songs. I'm not sure how or why they all happened to center floral symbolism, but perhaps the language of flowers still somehow whispers to my subconscious. I only became aware of this after I began to research translations (or make my own, albiet makeshift, using translating technology) in hopes of creating edits or collages. While lyrics are hardly central to my listening experience, I enjoy a little peek into another layer of the poetics of songcraft. As it is now, I know Jun Togawa uses violent fantasy and horror imagery as a representation of adoration and grief as much as rage. Sheena Ringo makes pained cool girl abstractions of relationships and tragedies. Akiko Yano finds the magic in the mundane and the sparkle in little moments.

Their three songs that I most often listen to (sometimes on loop) and feel defined by are "Osazaki Girl", "Kuki-Stem", and "Rose Garden": I first heard "Rose Garden" as my intro to Akiko's music on YouTube after reading she was a collaborator of Japan the Band. I remember being immediately blown away by its originality and obsessed with the bizarre and bubbly funk-synth and her high pixie-ish singing. It was immediately on repeat. I first heard "Kuki-Stem" when I was sorting through my RYM "art pop" screenshots. I have a preference for the English version, which is orchestral, though the original is still meaningful to me. It felt anthemic, like an "I want" song from a Disney princess movie, all strings and electronica and her smokey voice. A personal theme song. I first heard "Osazaki Girl" when I saw the MV featured on Alfa Music's YouTube channel. I had seen and liked "Suki-Suki Daisuke", but I liked this even more. It was a weird 50s-ish orchestral synthpop bop and her sweet voice that transformed to deranged growls, like a distant sister to my beloved Nina Hagen. I loved it immediately.

Each of these songs is a snap-shot of me and my mind in various states and times. Each a piece of the puzzle that is my life. Now I know it was a sonic nosegay:

"Osazaki Girl" by Jun Togawa

The Flower: Cherry blossom

The Feeling: Desire

The translated title is "Late-Blooming Girl".

To Victorians, the cherry blossom was a sign of spiritual beauty, reflecting the view of it as a symbol of transient life in Bushido code and Celtic fairy lore.

In this song, the cherry blossom is within her heart and body, a symbol of burning hope that the man she wants so badly wants her back. She describes herself as "late blooming" since she's never been on a date before. Her age is a little ambiguous, but she frames it almost like a teenage 50s love song.

"Don't get fooled by me acting shy

Don't keep your hands to yourself

Late blooming girl, late blooming girl ― it's my first date

Late blooming girl, late blooming girl ― I wanna feel electric"

She's childishly intense in her thought process, though her longing is grown-up. The cherry blossoms are humorously the percentages to which her want increases.

"I don't want you to think all girls are super experienced

So I shyly look down at the arm you wrapped around me

But, really, I just want you to attack me

Yeah, mhm, my cherries are 60% in blossom"

She disguises herself to look innocent in his eyes, continually hoping he'll notice her hints and cues. Her frustration increases.

"Late blooming girl, late blooming girl ― I feel excited by your gaze

Late blooming girl, late blooming girl ― this is the feeling of spring I wanted for

I will finally test out my knowledge of adult life which I was secretly preparing for today

I got Chanel No. 5 from my mom and I put it on my neck

You would be a real idiot if you let me down now"

There's a sense almost of anger towards him to notice and fulfill what she wants. She describes herself as the lamb and him the wolf, but it's comically clear, the only wolf here is her.

"Yeah, that's my mood. my cherries are 80% in blossom

Soon enough I'll have to smudge my lipstick nonchalantly

I want you to stare at me like a wolf chasing a little lamb"

This I believe is the line where she breaks from her cutsey damsel guise and suddenly growls this part, "Ah, I'll almost tear apart!" representing her true self beneath the facade.

Ah~ I'll almost tear apart

Head for the image I saw in my dream, the one across the stars

I give my cherries to you, they are wildly blooming

Late blooming girl, late blooming girl ― it's my first date

Late blooming girl ― I wanna feel electric

Please"

To me, the cherry blossom is a transcendent desire to finally feel adult as much as it is female agency. She is chasing after her moment in the sun, and that sun is want and being wanted. We never know if she got her wish. The desire, in all its rage, hangs in the air like an unanswered question.

"Kuki" by Sheena Ringo

The Flower: Clematis

The Feeling: Despair

The translated title is "Stem".

To Victorians, clematis meant ingenuity and cleverness, the beauty of the mind, perhaps as Greeks associated it with Apollo and Romans with Venus.

In this song, the clematis is planted and grows from the seed, a cherished symbol of the dreams the gardener clings to but never seem to come true. It's the little lies of hope that build up.

"There's a door here, but it will not break

There's a stone there, but it won't remain

Up there a heaven now, but it will not wait

And the lies there, the scent of it, just too much"

It's growth and dying cycle is a reflection of loss, being forced to move on, all that sadness. It's a pattern and that pattern hurts. The wishes remain unfulfilled.

"So should you, sow it once and make it grow, the sweet clematis

Let it flower, and paint it all of the colors bold

Instantly things fall and fade, return to silence

Why oh why, why does it all feel so sorrowful?

Dreams of what is real."

The usage of red in this next passage seems to represent to me an attempt to end things, but she's still here. She keeps trying despite the cycle not ending. Reality is slipping away from her.

"There's breath here, but it will not break

There's a face there, but it won't remain

Up there a heaven now, but it knows no name

And the stain is the color of red through red

And thus, you cannot cry, confuse the lies, try to remember

When you rise, you take a steps with a strong desire

Time goes by, a breath it comes, like something given

Why oh why, why have these nightmares not long expired

The real is but a dream"

The flowers may fall, but there's effort towards survival. But here at the end of the song, she finally makes her decision to live. Instead of fixating on the end and her own pain, she stands up boldly, deciding to face the world with hope.

"From now on, should it grow and open full, the sweet clematis

Flower bold, but there's no need for rejoicing more

Precious life, this life just once, it comes just one time

Keep it close, keep it from ever just leaving you

Crying tears, confusing fears, they are no longer

When I stand, I know I'll never be down again

Nothing that I need now, once it comes just one time

Somehow, somehow, someone, ah

Entry Number One"

To me, the use of clematis is for mental health. Thereby it's for a beautiful but broken mind that wants to die yet is fighting to have the courage to live. She's reaching for her own miracle and refusing to lose what she has right now. The song's last line reflects a journal entry, as this is her day one in a new life she's making happen herself.

"Rose Garden" by Akiko Yano

The Flower: Rose

The Feeling: Death

The song title is in English (and often written in all capital letters).

Roses to Victorians were a symbol of love and romance, with each color adding layers of passion or secrecy. It was sacred to most ancient goddesses, and remains the ultimate symbol of adoration in most cultures worldwide.

In this song, the rose is something that will crumple and fall soon. As she says, that's what makes the NOW so precious. She mentions she will have to clean it up after it falls dead. In that we understand grieving is a quiet cycle. Her sadness comes is at the forefront immediately.

"This will end one day

So

It makes NOW so precious

This will one day wither and die

Then

I'll have to pick up every single one and make it neat"

The chorus that she suddenly shrieks out is innocently straightforward. It's avoiding probing deeper into the previous admission of sadness. Her grin-and-bear-it practicality is set to distract from the heaviness of her feelings.

"Rose garden, this rose garden

is well kept, so they grow fast

Rose garden, my rose garden

I use good fertilizer, so they look lovely"

She says if others care for it, it will grow each year, and it will continue to hold meaning. It feels almost as if she's asking that it be remembered moreso than expecting it to be. If just one person cares, then it will all still matter. The mundane is a memory of the divine.

"If one person cared to see

Just for her

It would bloom, my endearing rose

The one who cares for it and nurtures it

Is

You living all over this wide wide world"

The chorus returns, this time with the hope that the brief beauty of this life will be remembered. She will work hard to preserve it herself, and will hope others will do the same. Now she's not quite so alone feeling anymore.

"Rose garden, this rose garden

is well kept, so they grow fast

Rose garden, my rose garden

I use good fertilizer, so they look lovely"

To me, the use of the rose is the transient nature of life and love. This is the importance of cherishing seemingly simple everyday affection when it's in front of you. It cannot last eternally and she knows this. She knows that lingering sadness will always hang over her, but she keeps working and smiling through it, holding to the memory and the beauty. What's precious will always be nurtured by her and we're left with a hope that others will tend to their own gardens.

In my mind's eye, I see the cherry blossom, the clematis, and the rose tied together with lacy ribbon in that previously mentioned nosegay I never made. Cherry blossom is pink. Clematis is blue. What color is the rose? Is it red? Is it pink? White? No shade is described in the song. My grandmother and mother had planted delicate velvety magenta roses, so that's how I imagine they look. A pop of purple-tinted red ringed by a spray of fragile blushing blooms and buds and around them another ring of powder blue and a few leaves from its vines. Is the message as the Victorians would see it? Passionate love, a good education, a spiritual beauty, a beautiful mind? A message that says, "I love how beautiful you are on the inside?" I could take it that way if I wanted.

Yet these women take the flowers to mean layer on layer, fallen petal after fallen petal, of emotional outcomes. To Jun, cherries are lust unfulfilled, a desire that bursts forth in a haze of blush, and a childish fantasy of adult validation. To Sheena, clematis are a teardrop in the dirt, a hope that grows from the blues and vines, and a reach towards a distant heaven. To Akiko, roses are the beautiful and effemeral, a life sadly cleaned away casually but can be conserved in the kindness of hearts full of love. Perhaps this is the cycle of my own feelings. The want is a seed, the tragedy is the bloom, and the love lasts when petals don't. Desire, despair, and death like flowers can only last for a while, before fulfillment, joy, and life begins again. Now I blast these songs in my headphones and see the floriography of the songs in my heart. The nosegay is complete.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

I have long held a fascination with unearthly utterances and glosslaila, and very little attachment to my own language. What does language matter? In a song, I want to feel, and while I enjoy lyrics in English, words can get in the way sometimes. I believe there's something nigh spiritual or transcendent about the "heavenly voice". In practice, it touches on operatic yet feels ancient. My love for abstract vocalizations likely started in hearing Bollywood music as a child, as the Indian classical vocal style often is in dramatic soprano range, high, mysterious, dreamy. I never understood a word but I felt, and that was what mattered.

In the goth-adjacent genre ethereal wave, swirling, dizzy, hazy, abstractions are key to the visual worlds in the album covers and music videos just as much as the songs: Black backdrops dark as the night. A soft, mesh filter. Glowing backlight that turns the singer gold. Overlapped images of falling leaves, water, and flowers. Pianos with dried blooms tucked in. Draped white fabrics as curtains or flooring. Cathedrals, bubbles, tiny mirrors, Victorian boxes, and sparkles. Mysterious women standing or running in the forests. The stars, the moon, the sun, the sea. It's dreamlike, timeless, and eternal, but seeped in the gothic.

As a teenager disinterested in coherent language, naturally my two greatest musical passions were non-English art pop (typically Japanese) and ethereal wave, and these remain my obsessions even as an adult. One is surrealistic bubblegum pop gone wrong. The other is a gloomy, hazy, gothic otherness. As an Alice In Wonderland kind of girl from a young age (what else are you going to become if you spent most of your life in the spooky backwoods?), I feel this makes sense for me. Sadly, to this day neither subgenre is particularly popular, though the related English-speaking art pop and dream pop are. I'd assume this is because there's a lack of music videos or aesthetic imagery available, and in our social media age, image has become a god.

What little pictorial proof available of ethereal wave that exists has been torn apart and patched back together by TikTok and AestheticsWiki to create "new" aesthetics. It's devoured and mirrored by made-up fashion styles (not subgenres in subcultures) like "Whimsigoth" or "Morute", so the correlation with 80s and 90s goth is lost to a new generation of baby bats. Once upon a time, the closest we got to naming the aesthetic related to ethereal wave (and the closesly related neoclassical darkwave) was Romantic Goth, which was a generalized style that existed no matter what subgenre of goth was being listened to. Those long skirts, flowers in the hair, and poet blouses were our little tether to a tiny pocket-sized facet of goth culture.

Ethereal wave ripples out in influence, as the stone dropped in the water, but the waves are seen and the stones aren't remembered. It reverberates in dream pop and shoegaze. Naturally, the OG dream pop label 4AD is known as the root of the genre. Firstly, for having signed Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, then secondly for Ivo Watts-Russel's legendary super group project This Mortal Coil. Thanks to 4AD, from the cold empty darkness of goth rock, suddenly there burst forth glittering stars and galaxies. From the abyss, a billion microscopic bioluminescent creatures. Baroque violins and cellos played by ghosts in the distance sliding in over club-ready heavy basslines and tinny drumbeats. And, of course, the mournful cries of those heavenly voices.

Cocteau Twins' Treasure epitomized the early sound that would define the ethereal wave boom of the 90s. Every which way you turned, there was another strange girl warbling glorious nonsense into the twlight. The industrial-rock nightmares of Cranes. The psychedelic softness of All About Eve. The Medieval acapella-trained Miranda Sex Garden. The dream pop adjacent Autumn's Grey Solace, Dark Orange, and Rose Chronicles. The operatic stylings of Bel Canto, This Ascension, and Mors Syphillitica. The ambient void of Jack or Jill (a Japanese band). The twinkling music box realms of Kuroyuri Shimai, Yoko Ueno, and Sonoko (more Japanese). Even Americans known for industrial and deathrock, like Jarboe and Eva O, flirted with the genre in the duos of Skin and Shadow Project, and darkwave groups like Switchblade Symphony and Diva Destruction held to the fey and magical. These were compiled in part in the (aptly named) Heavenly Voices CDs by Hyperium Records.

While this lasted briefly, the sheer amount of bands and solo artists that embraced the romantic side of goth goes to show it was a movement. One with art in the form of Holly Warburton's layered-photo album covers (which she made for Danielle Dax, All About Eve, and Kuroyuri Shimai), or 4AD's very own Nigel Grierson and Vaughn Oliver known together as 23 Envelope. I'd watch music videos that looked beamed in straight from heaven and angels ("Carolyn's Fingers" by Cocteau Twins and "In the Clouds" by All About Eve immediately spring to mind), or blackened voids where stood figures glowing in a golden haze (as in Skin's "One Thousand Years" and This Mortal Coil's "Kangaroo"). Voices from another world, a fairy land, a place I longed for but never existed, soared out through these dreamscapes.

Ethereal wave led me down a path to loving non-English music as much as a childhood of Bollywood, mariachi, French chanson, and indigenous chanting did. If I can listen to a woman sing no words, nothing tangible, nothing to mean, nothing to grab onto, what were limits then? Yes, I like lyrics sometimes, and I will read them, but music is like the dance I've grown to love so much. It's not something that can be framed. It happens suddenly. In a few moments, a whole world of sound, a whole world of movement, and when it ends so does the world. The best you have is to hope you recorded it and to play it again. As I've said in previous articles, humanity is most universal in art that is effemeral. I don't need to know anything in order to understand what it makes me feel.

I've never needed language, just sound and feeling. Elizabeth Fraser and Lisa Gerrard sing nothing coherent and I don't need them to give me words. I can simply feel it in my body, my heart, my mind. I can move within it. As much as I can the Japanese of Akiko Yano, the German of Nina Hagen, the Tuvan of Sainkho Namtchylak, the Spanish of Yma Sumac, any language beyond my limited English framework. Their heart is in each note falling out of their mouths like the jewels from the fairy tales, and I collect what falls. No matter the language sung to me, real or unreal, I can trace the utterances of the divine with my mind's eye. I can see the glittering stars and chandeliers and wilted roses I imagined. The secrets of the universe are found in not knowing everything. Not needing to. Letting art simply live and breathe.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

I've planned on making this for quite some time, but perhaps a reason it took me a while is because Akiko, while she's becoming fairly popular in English-speaking countries recently, doesn't seem to inspire anyone to actually read about her output. I don't know if it's because she's lowkey in an "aesthetic" sense (which dissuades younger readers), or maybe it's because melancholy is a very popular mood which she often avoids. Yet I decided since I love her work so much, I'm going to go ahead and make a discography over-view regardless.

Akiko has made so many albums (30 to be precise, with several major collaborations) and made so many creative moves that it's truly difficult to chronicle all of them. It's been done before and in greater detail by the blog Simulacreage (check them out sometime), but I thought Akiko deserves even more people reviewing her full discography in the West. Here she may be overlooked, but in Japan she's considered a living legend and one of the greatest music artists of all time, for very good reason, and I want to show her English-speaking listeners exactly why.

YouTube has uploaded all of her 70s and 80s albums (excluding Japanese Girl, which is still compiled in playlists on the site), so if you actually want to go for it and listen to each album to follow along with what I'm writing about, even a little, you can. At least listening to the songs I labeled "favorites" will give you an idea of her multi-faceted artistry. My most loved moments in her songs tend to be her experimental out-put, so expect that side of her to be brought to the forefront.

This is her classic era. So we'll be going through her groundbreaking 70s albums that made a fusion of piano pop, Japanese traditional instrumentation, and synth pioneering (specifically with the Moog), her legendary early 80s run that created the art pop sound as we know it today, and her late 80s shift towards City Pop, neoclassical, and unusual jazz pop.

Japanese Girl

Before art pop was even a concept in the West, here it was in Japan. A piano prodigy and long-time session musician who went pro at age 13, Akiko recorded her 1976 debut with jazz rock legends Little Feat in the US (the first half of the album, called "The American Side") and with a pre-YMO Haruomi Hosono in Japan (the second half of the album, naturally, "The Japanese Side"). The American Side is psychedelic proto-City Pop. "Kuma" stands out as haunted and bizarre proto-art pop (about a dog dying in the snow) in a way she never quite explored again. "Tsaguru Tour" and "Telephone Line" are regulars on City Pop playlists. The Japanese Side is a dreamy blend of baroque pop, neoclassical, and Japanese traditional ("Hekoriputaa" and "Fuuta") that feels incredibly fresh. Both sides are tied together by strange jazz interludes. It's no wonder the Japanese music scene was blown-away and she became an overnight super star.

Favorite Song: "Kuma"

Irohanikonpeitu

Akiko was still very young and many of these songs had been written while she was still a teenager, though recorded in adulthood for this 1977 album. It's arguably one of her most popular because, for some odd reason, it gets lumped in with City Pop, despite in fact being her further step into creating the early art pop sound. Here is when she starts to explore the Moog further, allowing it to fuse with her piano-playing to create an unmistakable synthpop energy right before it blew up (it opens up with the instumental synth of "Kawaji" after all). "Kinou Wa Mou" and "Potsun" are fairylike art pop divaism, "Horo" "Machikutabirete" are funk and soul steeped in whimsy, and the title track is her jazzy-piano wildness (complete with lyrics that seem to be about the white rabbit from Alice In Wonderland). It's even more art pop than Japanese Girl, and really feels like the roots of the "genre".

Favorite Song: "Kinou Wa Mou"

Tokimeki

This seems to be one of her most polarizing albums amongst fans. I've seen this 1978 release both described as too saccarine by some reviewers and as too gloomy by others. I don't think a lot of people get it because it's so unusual to her discography. I personally consider it one of her best albums, a no-skip masterpiece that I only love more and more each listen. It's her most mysteriously dreamy album. A creation of melancholic whimsy bordering on the gothic that feels like a fairy tale. One where darkness nips at the edges of the light. Some songs are glittering, pixie-dust-touched baroque pop ethereality like "Yorokobi" and "Komodotachi". Others are eerie, haunted, heartbreaking mystical gloom like "Ookina Ishi" and "Andante Cantibille". Others are simply delightfully artsy jazz pop like "Katarun Kataran" and the oft-covered "Two On the Stage". It feels like fantasy and personal sadness stirring in the shimmery synth and piano to produce a sound that pierces my heart.

Favorite Song: "Yorokobi"

Gohan Ga Dekitayo

While Tokimeki was an abstract melancholic fairy tale, this 1980 release (another very popular one among fans) is an epic double-album synthy-art pop ode to joy, the everyday, and the Everywoman. There are a few moments dedicated to fantasy (the phenomenonal song-suite "Genkotsuyama No Onigurisama" and the classic "Zaikungtong Shonen") and even a flash of her rarely seen ambient gloom in "Coloured Water", but the concept remains simple living, as a woman, as a mother, and finding joy in the little moments. The ethereal "Dogs Awaiting" about the undying affection of pets, the soaring piano of "High Time" reaching towards hope for new love, or the title track about waiting to share dinner with loved ones. Notably, it's sonically amplified by her touring partners YMO as her backing band, who take her synth experiments to cloud-touching highs. Each track tells her story, both dreamlike and domestic, in another no-skip diamond of her discography.

Favorite Song: "Genkotsuyama No Onigurisama"

Tadaima

This is widely considered to be her ultimate masterpiece, is a fan favorite, and is favored especially by Akiko herself. There's a reason for that. It's the epitome of art pop (once again, no skips here). It's a conceptual Wonderland about girlhood daydreams and how real life never quite adds up to those fantasies. According to her, her distributor (not label, she had already created her own production company at this point) was asking for a pop record. Out of a sudden burst of rebellion, she gave them half-way what they wanted and made the rest as weird, quirky, and whimsical as she possibly could back in 1981. With YMO as her backing band again, going wild with the Moog and percussion, and Masami Tsuchiya of Ippu-Do unleashing his guitar, she embraces feral synthpunk and synthfunk for the first and only time. It's exquisite, bubbly, over-the-top orchestratral 80s synthpop in songs like "Ashkenazy Who?", "Harusaki Kobeni", and "Itsuka Ojisamaga", contrasted by the bizarre, iconic, one-of-a-kind "Rose Garden" and "Vet" or the ambient strangeness of "Iranaimon" and "Taiyo No Onara". It brilliantly single-handedly foreshadows every art pop experiment in Japan and the West to follow from 1982 onwards.

Favorite Song: "Rose Garden"

Ai Ga Nakuchane

This is another one of her more polarizing 80s era releases (1982 to be exact) among fans. A reason for this is that it seems thematically less cohesive, though I would argue the underlying theme was marital bliss (specifically with Ryuichi Sakamoto). Another reason for complaint is that it feels less like Akiko's usual sound, which is simply because it's less of her synthpop-jazz and more artsy rock in the vein of her first release but updated. While YMO was her backing band in her last three masterpieces, this time they also brought in Japan the Band. "What's Got In Your Eyes", "Sleep On My Baby", and "Onnatachiyo Otokotachiyo" feel Japan coded, but done in her own way, and she duets with David Sylvian on the gorgeous, melancholic "Good Night". Meanwhile, "Kanashikute Yarikirenai", "Oishi Seukatsu", and "Michi de Battari" are whimsical minimal ambience, and the fabulous "Aisuru Hitoyo" shows up to remind everyone she's with YMO. It's definitely not one to miss in her discography.

Favorite Song: "Onnatachiyo Otokotachiyo"

Oh Hisse Oh Hisse

Despite the doll-like album cover, make no mistake, in 1984 she was still embracing her experimental side albiet slowly easing further into the pop-centric songcraft that would define her in the later point of the 80s. While the thematic driving force is a childlike sense of wonder (the delightful "Omocho Cha Cha" is about toys, as is the playful baroque pop "Assembly"), there's flashes of adult sadness in everyday life and the heavy synth-rock presence of YMO that give the album weight. There's a divine ethereality to the deeply melancholy ambient synth ballads "Kyo No Watakushi" and "Sugao" (which suddenly ends with probably one of the most beautiful song closures I've ever heard) that mark them as the stand-out moments. The fun, weird, playful funk-baroque of "Ramen Tabetai" feels very much like Gohan Ga Dekitayo, and it's understandable why that song, as well as "Highland", and "Greenfields" are classics. I do wish she had steered more into her melancholic side, but regardless it's a bubblegum pop gem.

Favorite Song: "Kyo No Watakushi"

Toge No Wagya

Of all her albums, this 1986 one is easily the most City Pop adjacent (which is likely why it's very popular with the fandom). I mean, it's got horn sections, after all, as well as the glossiest 80s production humanly possible. I get a sense from it that this was the first time she stepped back from innovation, since she'd admittedly already pioneered every possible art pop trope by this time. Yet even though it feels relaxed, this pop has a lot more rock influence than any of her previous releases, and there's still her distinctive eccentricity even if she's toned it down a bit. To me personally, the highest points are when she brings in her spacey, dreamy, otherworldly jazz vibe, such as in "Ippunkan" and "Soko No Iron Ni Tsugu" or her more artsy, less radio-friendly songs like "Drop Me A Line (Otecho)" that remind me of what she is capable of unleashing when given half a chance. Still, "David" and "The Girl of Integrity" are very popular with good reason, as they're pitch-perfect jpop.

Favorite Song: "Drop Me A Line (Otecho)"

Brooch

This album, which came out the same year as Toge No Wagya, tends to be one of her most unpopular with the fanbase for only one reason: A lot of them don't like classical music. Because, yes, this is a purely neoclassical album where Akiko sings Romantic era European and Japanese poetry over classical piano arrangements. Yet I, someone who loves neoclassical and poetry with a firey passion (I used to listen to a radio show with that theme on the regular), have always loved this crossover of interests. It's especially favored by me because it's one of the finest showcases of Akiko's dramatic soprano, which is transcendant magic at the heights it reaches here. "Pastorale-Pastoral" and "Voici Que Le Printemps-Here Is Spring" are particularly fairylike displays of vocal agility, as she epitomizes the joy and light of springtime with ease. Quieter moments like "Komado Kara" and "Beau Soir-Beautiful Evening" are timeless as lullabies. A lovely interlude, as far as I'm concerned.

Favorite Song: "Voici Que Le Printemps-Here Is Spring"

Granola

This 1987 release is her most relaxed and jpop-adjacent, even in comparison to Toge No Wagya. It feels like a blend of the pop rock City Pop aspects of Toge No Wagya, but with the neoclassical romance of Brooch, which is fitting. It's also kind of ballad-centric, which is usually not her style at all, but since this is her immersed in late 80s production and an adult contemporary adjacent radio-friendly sound, it makes sense. Of all of her works, it's one of her least eccentric, yet it's still quite popular. The hazy, dreamy, swirling baroque "Kaze Wo Atsumete" is probably my favorite. "Mufu Jotai" and "Röselin Auf der Heiden" are soulful piano interludes. "Jitensha de Oide" is a firelight twinkling duet (with whom, I'm not entirely certain) that makes me feel unbearably nostalgic. The quirkiest moments in "Yagate Hitori" and end ballad "Oki Ai" give me that fluttering feeling that only she can. It has a warm golden sheen that makes it quite soothing and peaceful.

Favorite Song: "Kaze Wo Atsumete"

Welcome Back

This is somewhat of a return to form. It's very jazz-centric, and brings on board multiple jazz legends like Pat Menthy and Charlie Haden, but instead of being devoured by that genre, she fuses it with her art pop divaism in one final hurrah to close out the decade in 1989 and hints at what she was going to do in the 90s. This elegant complexity moves her away from her prog-pop pioneering and towards the improvisational techniques she knows best. YMO may not be around, but Ryuichi Sakamoto is still in the mix, sprinkling a little avant-garde over the proceedings. At times, particularly with the opening Song "It's For You" and the ending "Little Girl, Big Heart", she touches on the euphoric, that starlit ecstasy of voice and keys that defines the soul of her music. "Autumn Song" and "How Beautiful" show her gift for melancholy abstract storytelling that builds a snowglobe universe out of little more than a piano and a dream.

Favorite Song: "It's For You"

Closing Thoughts: Her late 70s and early 80s releases will always define her most, and understandably so. She created and pioneered so much. It's impossible to deny her her status as mother of art pop. She's whimsical charm in piano pop form.

My Favorite Albums: Japanese Girl, Irohanikonpeitu, Tokimeki, Gohan Ga Dekitayo, Tadaima

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

Jessica's music is the embodiment of living out-of-time. Each song feels like it's a late 60s/early 70s baroque-folk ending theme song for a sad coming-of-age movie where heroines wear flowers in their hair and walk down dark city streets in the rain. Yet her divine, addictive-to-listen-to voice (one of the best in the modern indie scene) with its 50s rockabilly-crooning-tinged tonality harkening to teenage innocence lost, blurs the decades further. It's summer-time melancholy and aching, slightly surreal lyrics. Ig's as lonely as the night, as warm as the first touch of sun. A hauntingly beautiful album that will withstand generations.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “World On A String”

♡ “Get Your Head Out”

♡ “Glances”

♡ “Better Hate”

♡ “Nowhere It Was”

Welcome to whimsical world of cult legend Happy Rhodes. Her first few albums were songs she mainly wrote as a sci-fi, horror, and fantasy obsessed teen, recorded on folksy guitar and dungeon-esque synths, and this is the last album in that quartet. Her lyrics tell of fairies, monsters, vampires, and aliens with relational warmth. Yet it's her four octave vocal range that makes her lullabies otherworldly, as she can be both dramatic soprano and low contralto, often sounding like two different singers. Her underground fandom of "Ectophiles" were and still are advocates for "weird girl" music, and I am proud to have joined in their number.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “I Am A Legend”

♡ “Perfect Irony”

♡ “Be Careful What You Say”

♡ “Because I Learn”

♡ “I Have A Heart”

The voice can be used to expand beyond culture, creed, and language. Outside of all we as humans think we know. Painted across the aural canvas in broad strokes, cut from material as ephemeral as air. This is what Meredith does with her singing. She laughs, she squeaks, she sighs, she sobs, and it all becomes song and joy. She once said she danced singing and sung dancing, and this is abundantly true. The mental image of her turning in a precise circle with her white dress and braids while wailing high notes remains a constant vision in my mind, and a key image in her artistry. This is the avant-garde for these with child's hearts who have known the sad bliss of living.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “The Tale”

♡ “Gotham Lullaby”

♡ “Biography”

Everyday I open social media apps and see this kind of thing (and sadly, it's usually middle-class women making this content): "Punks and goths CHOSE diy and thrifting as a political stance against consumerism!" "Olivia Rodrigo is riot grrl and kinderwhore!" Or post photos of trailer parks saying they'd like to live there. And it's in that moment I immediately see the gap between us, and it's a gap they unwittingly keep widening. I realize they really don't know. They can't even imagine. Living in an echo chamber of fellow middle-class college-educated teens and 20 year olds (who actually believe they're in poverty themselves because they think it can't get worse- oh, it can) how could they know or imagine? Most generationally impoverished people aren't on social media often enough to tell them otherwise. But I was there. I know.

There's a growing gap between these progressive generations of subcultures, and to understand it, we need to start at the beginning:

First came rock music, born out of black church music and rhythm and blues. Created by poor black men and women and kids (mainly by a woman named Rosetta Tharpe). Then adopted by white hillbillies and Hispanics, people who understood poverty, before spreading to the gentrified white middle-class. Those white preppy teenagers in their clean-looking suburban neighborhoods rarely knew the true weight behind rock n' roll. After the 50s, the 60s brought the Beat Generation and hippies. These were typically white middle-class college kids, but at least for the hippies, there was a desire to understand. To have knowledge and wisdom of those who had less than them, and even to offer genuine support and help.

Out of that grew the glam rock scene, which was also college kids, though often times not quite so well-off as the hippies, and the off-shoot of metal. And it's from glam rock and metal, rock n' roll and hippies, that the off-shoots of punk, goth, and New Romantic were born. Punks from the New York, UK, and hardcore US scenes were typically lower class if not from abject poverty. Same difference with UK goths (the Batcave was full of coal miners kids) and LA deathrockers. There were a few middle-class kids who joined in the festivities (usually fitting in due to their own suffering- both Siouxsie Sioux and Nina Hagen were assaulted during their pre-teens and their upscale families did nothing to help them- they escaped into punk), but they knew. They understood.

As generations went by and we reached the 90s, the middle-class seeped in more to these scenes. Yet there still was an understanding. Some kind of education that financial suffering exists, perhaps because the likes of grunge or “kinderwhore” for example were still fringe movements and styles that attracted intelligent and empathetic individuals. But fast-forward to the early 2000s and there's a cultural shift. A generation of privileged young people without the knowledge of poverty were drawn-in by the capitalistic commoditfication of subcultural imagery. Hot Topic represented a gateway to aesthetic without depth. At first it payed homage to the real scenes, but soon that gave way to treating subculture as fandom.

This is where the disconnect began. Thankfully, a lot of punks and goths serious about the scene began to distance themselves from these acts of shallowness. The "goth kids" from South Park are true to what goth was like in the early 2010s. It wasn't cool. It was considered ugly, nerdy, weird, and wrong. We were bullied or ignored. There were obviously issues and arguments, mainly people insisting these subcultures were purely fashion and had nothing to do with music (despite literally being music-based subcultures) but the lack of popularity meant this could be handled well. Subcultures were underground again, and that made it easier to hold it close to the vest and to be honest in our discussions.

It was post-Covid when the perception of subcultures went off the rails. It began with boredom among the middle-class and wealthy young people (usually young women, much to my disappointment) who were unable to attend school and instead had to create something else. In another life, many of them would've become "normies" at best, bullies at worst (their fixation on online witchhunting and extreme classist ignorance reflects that). Typically, that something else was falling into aesthetic rabbit holes. AestheticsWiki, Tumblr, Pinterest, and TikTok was where subculture began to be gentrified once more. It was the HotTopic era all over again, and they were called out at first, until they began to overtake the conversation in online spaces.

Suddenly, there was a massive influx, mainly of college age women, repeating ad nauseum "goth is political" (never "goth, like most subcultures, was built by leftists"). They repeated this line attempting to sound as if they "get" the subculture without actually saying anything real so often that it's virtually a meme by now, one even repeated by OnlyFans women larping as goths. Heaven forbid they talk about the music, which is what makes it a music-based subculture and not simply sudo-leftism wearing black lipstick. This influx of "baby bats" attempting to pass themselves as serious goths and punks and forcing others to bend to their misinformation, reflects the attitudes of the financially privileged. They couldn't take the ugliness, poverty, or problematic aspects, so they try to distact from their interest in it mainly as a fashion trend with shallow discourse and call themselves equally vague things like "alt".

There's a similar issue present in the romanticization and aesthetic-ification of Southern poverty, something which began with Nichole Dollenganger and the rise of "morute" in 2010 and has culminated with Ethel Cain and the popularization of "Southern gothic" in 2020. The way middle-class fans responded said it all to me. These people are unable to perceive their own wealth, so they have no qualms cosplaying poverty. They're that deeply detached from it. These artists were creating characters, but rarely wrote from real experience (I can tell you for a fact, preacher's kids in rural areas are the ones with the money) and never really professed to it being autobiography, but in the mind of a middle-class listener with low reading comprehension, it's "real" because it fits what they imagine poverty must be like from their warped view of themselves. Once again, poverty treated as an aesthetic, a trend, a game.

It's difficult for me not to find the treatment of abject poverty in wealthy and middle-class dominated online circles, especially people who claim to be in subcultures, either as an aesthetic or a political choice to be horrifically tone-deaf and ignorant because of what I went through. I am one of the few people who has survived to tell the tale. I know what it's like to be impoverished in a rural area. I know what it was like being one of the only goth kids living near a small town 15 years ago. Showers were a rare treat. I washed my hair with a broken hose in the dead of winter. The toliet broke for a month (guess how that went). The sinks filled with filthy brown water. Grubs and centipedes fell from the ceilings. I was driving in cars without air conditioners in all black clothes. My clothes were stained and torn. Broken vehicles and junk were in the woods… It was an UGLY life.

This is the kind of living many early punks and goths experienced (evidenced by documentaries like The Decline of Western Civilization). As stated before, many didn't have wealth to fall back on like hippies did. They lived in closets and warehouses and slept in coffins, sofas, and floors (been there). Rips and spray paint and safety pins were cheap decoration. “Thrifting” meant nightmarish warehouses full of unwashed clothes and shoes (oh, I've been there too). The "aesthetics" were born of survival. My room full of broken dolls and wilted flowers wasn't for "aesthetics". I genuinely couldn't afford anything nicer. I romanticized what I had to survive mentally. But no one seems to talk about this because they don't listen to elders who lived it or to the few of us who escaped hellish living conditions. They live in their houses with functional pipes, with insulation, with centralized heating, and act as if the poor who created beauty out of struggle and necessity don't exist while having the gall to believe they aren't extraordinarily privileged.

I'm exhausted with the classism I see constantly. I'm sick of pretending it doesn't exist. I'm tired of this influx of people in music subculture who glaze over the ugliness of our lives or pretend it doesn't actually exist just because they can't stomach it. Who take horror movies and conceptual albums as their guide to the experiences of those who have less than them instead of just asking the people who have been there. As I saw recently when Riley, a witchhunting YouTuber hiding behind the "alt" label, was so quick to attack the goth-long-before-TikTok Black Friday, there's a divide coming between this influx of "alts" and alternative subcultures, and the root is classicism. Privilege begets a superiority complex, and this becomes clearer everyday.

For the rich and middle-class baby bats and "alts" there's two options: Put up (actually listen to scene elders, accept not knowing everything about everything, and quit speaking as if experts on subjects they barely grasp at all) or shut up (leave those of us who actually know what we're talking about alone). I hope there can be a change in the dialog with education on the subject of generational poverty in Western countries, but it really does take putting down the ego for a moment. Thankfully, I truly believe that for every “mean girl” there are many compassionate young women who are willing to listen. They just don't know there's anyone to listen to. I hope that an understanding like that will come to subcultures and social media spaces soon.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

A first peek into The Compendium, which will be featured at the back of my book. This is the 1st through the 50th albums, though the book's listing will include 1500 to 2000 albums or more (I've already completed 1000+ and have more to go). I plan to organize them by genre and give a key song as an entry so people can know if the album will be to their liking or not more readily. The list includes the personal favorite 150 albums that are being reviewed, which makes up the bulk of the book's content.

I thought it might be fun to start publishing The Compendium the way I've been publishing my "Weird Girl" Reviews, so I can better keep track of how far I've gotten in creating this. These first 50 were the first I started to list to keep track of my listening habits, but blossomed into the idea of including all of them in a book form in order to better share with others. Almost all of the music can be found on YouTube or Musify, as some have not been uploaded to Spotify, Apple Music, or other music streaming services. I'll keep posting these until the album list is capped (at my own discretion).

I hope that if you spot any genres that make you curious to take a quick listen, this will make things easy for you readers. The first 100 or so feature a lot of underrated art pop and fusion worldwide, so expect to see that a lot under the genre description. And, final reminder, the albums I choose to feature are purely here because I like them. I hope this will inspire some new listening adventures. ♡

1. Treasure - Cocteau Twins

Key Song: "Ivo"

Genres: ethereal wave, goth rock, dream pop

♡

2. The Walking - Jane Siberry

Key Song: "Lena Is A White Table"

Genres: art pop, ambient pop, New Wave

♡

3. Tadaima - Akiko Yano

Key Song: "Rose Garden"

Genres: art pop, techno-kayo, jazz pop

♡

4. Hyaena - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Key Song: "Swimming Horses"

Genres: goth rock, psychedelic rock

♡

5. Tamahime Sama - Jun Togawa

Key Song: "Konchugun"

Genres: art pop, techno-kayo, synthpop

♡

6. Nunsexmonkrock - Nina Hagen

Key Song: "Dread Love"

Genres: art rock, art punk, experimental rock

♡

7. Odyshape - The Raincoats

Key Song: "Shouting Out Loud"

Genres: post-punk, art rock, experimental rock

♡

8. Emotion - Malaria!

Key Song: "Geld-Money"

Genres: industrial, experimental rock

♡

9. Heartbeat - Chris and Cosey

Key Song: "Manic Melody (Hairy Beary)"

Genres: darkwave, industrial

♡

10. Spleen and ldeal - Dead Can Dance

Key Song: "Avatar"

Genres: neoclassical darkwave, ethereal wave, goth rock

♡

11. La Debutanté - Sonoko

Key Song: "Wedding With God (A Nijisky)"

Genres: ambient pop, baroque pop, ethereal wave

♡

12. Music For Other Occasions - Lindsay Cooper

Key Song: "Speed of Light"

Genres: avant-prog, experimental rock, jazz rock

♡

13. Atlas Plainices - Gabriela

Key Song: "Llevame A Ver La Luna"

Genres: avant-folk, ambient pop

♡

14. Inca Taqui - Yma Sumac

Key Song: "Chuncho"

Genres: exotica, avant-folk, opera

♡

15. Dolmen Music - Meredith Monk

Key Song: "The Tale"

Genres: avant-garde, neoclassical, acapella

♡

16. Rearmament - Happy Rhodes

Key Song: "I Am A Legend"

Genres: art pop, ambient pop, folk

♡

17. The Marble Index - Nico

Key Song: "Frozen Warnings"

Genres: avant-garde, baroque pop

♡

18. Approximately Infinite Universe - Yoko Ono

Key Song: "Death of Samantha"

Genres: art rock, psychedelic rock, funk

♡

19. Echolocation - Pamela Z

Key Song: "Echolocation"

Genres: avant-garde, art pop

♡

20. Below the Waves - Heidi Berry

Key Song: "Northshore Train"

Genres: baroque pop, folk

♡

21. Fluorochrome - Sara Ayers

Key Song: "To Love Is To Live”

Genres: ambient pop, art pop, synthpop

♡

22. Cathy Claret (self-titled)

Key Song: "Loli-Lolita"

Genres: flamenco, bossa nova, synthpop

♡

23. The Story of Valerie - Carola Baer

Key Song: "Golden Boy"

Genres: ethereal wave, neoclassical darkwave, hypnogogic pop

♡

24. Illuminations - Buffy Sainte-Marie

Key Song: "The Vampire"

Genres: avant-folk, psychedelic rock

♡

25. Just Another Diamond Day - Vashti Bunyan

Key Song: "Love Song"

Genres: folk, baroque pop

♡

26. I'm the One - Annette Peacock

Key Song: "I'm the One"

Genres: art rock, jazz, experimental rock

♡

27. Joan Armatrading (self-titled)

Key Song: "Save Me"

Genres: folk, soul, blues

♡

28. Maison Rose - Emmanuelle Parrenin

Key Song: "Voyage Migrateur"

Genres: avant-folk, chanson

♡

29. Brigitte Fontaine Est...? - Brigitte Fontaine

Key Song: "Il Se Passe Des Choses"

Genres: avant-folk, chanson

♡

30. Mister Heartbreak - Laurie Anderson

Key Song: "Sharkey's Day"

Genres: avant-garde, art pop

♡

31. Kaizou Eno Yakudou - Guernica

Key Song: "Cafe De Saiko"

Genres: art pop, synthpop, cabaret

♡

32. Sheep Farming in Barnett - Toyah

Key Song: "Danced"

Genres: art rock, New Wave, synthpop

♡

33. Inky Bloaters - Danielle Dax

Key Song: "Fizzing Human Bomb"

Genres: experimental rock, art pop, goth rock

♡

34. O Que Vier Eu Traco - Baby Do Brasil

Key Song: "Eu Sou Baby Conseulo"

Genres: funk, tropicalia, MBP

♡

35. May 19, 1996 - Ingrid Chavez

Key Song: "Hippy Blood"

Genres: trip-hop, New Jack swing

♡

36. Sindarella Suite - Teresa de Sio

Key Song: "La Storia Vera De Lupita Mendera"

Genres: art pop, pop rock, neoclassical

♡

37. Tsuki Hime - Mioko Yamaguchi

Key Song: "Satemo Appare Yume-Zakura"

Genres: techno-kayo, synthpop, art pop

♡

38. Hope In A Darkened Heart - Virginia Astley

Key Song: "Love's A Lonely Place To Be"

Genres: baroque pop, ambient pop

♡

39. Parallelisme - Miharu Koshi

Key Song: "Le Soiree De La Rose Ou Precepte Du Miel Doux"

Genres: techno-kayo, art pop, synthpop

♡

40. Dream Home Heartache - Gitane Demone and Rozz Williams

Key Song: "These Vulnerable Eyes"

Genres: dark cabaret, deathrock

♡

41. All About Eve (self-titled)

Key Song: "In the Clouds"

Genres: goth rock, neofolk, ethereal wave

♡

42. Via Subterranea - Trance To the Sun

Key Song: "Max Mystic"

Genres: dream pop, goth rock, progressive rock

♡

43. Feast - The Creatures

Key Song: "Miss the Girl"

Genres: exotica, art pop, experimental rock

♡

44. Paradise of Replica - After Dinner

Key Song: "A Walnut"

Genres: art pop, neoclassical

♡

45. Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde

Key Song: "Caroline"

Genres: grunge, goth rock, dark country

♡

46. Grandmother's Tea Leaves - Emily Bezar

Key Song: "Grandmother's Tea Leaves"

Genres: ambient pop, neoclassical, baroque pop

♡

47. Taxidermy - QueenAdreena

Key Song: "X'Ing Off the Days"

Genres: grunge, alternative rock

♡

48. Bozo - Lida Husik

Key Song: "Halloween"

Genres: psychedelic rock, dream pop

♡

49. Through the Gash - Hannah Fury

Key Song: "Girls That Glitter Love the Dark"

Genres: ethereal wave, ambient pop, baroque pop

♡

50. Find Out What I'm Dreaming - Li Garattoni

Key Song: "Find Out What I'm Dreaming"

Genres: ambient pop, art pop, jazz pop

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

Buy Me A Tea 🍵

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

This masterful album, one of the best of the 90s, is real life fairy music, but it's the kind that's heard blasting in a glass-window-skyscraper city in Spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom and they fill the air in a blinding haze of pink. It feels like Faye heard Cocteau Twins once and told herself, "I can do that", and that's somewhat true. She did so with graceful ease, melancholic lyrical brilliance, expanding the range of dream pop as a genre, and being the only woman vocalist to collaborate with and fully match Elizabeth Fraser in ethereality. This Chinese pop legend is truly an earth angel of enormous talent that deserves to be beloved worldwide. For the manic pixie dream girls wearing rose colored glasses on a rainy grey day.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “Anxiety”

♡ “Doomsday”

♡ “Impermanence”

♡ “Divided”

♡ “Disappointed”

Emilie took on the industrial-baroque coined by fellow classically-trained pixies Switchblade Symphony, and ran with it. One of the most influential artists of the early 2000s, at the musical forefront of the Amy Brown elfpunk revival, a direct or indirect inspiration to games like Alice the Madness Returns, and a representative of dark cabaret's last hurrah. Her Grimm's fairy tale blood-and-glitter lyrics about feminism, madness, and rage towards male abuses, her sweeping voice ranging from delicate soprano to contralto growls, and her prodigy violin work are legendary. For the freakish fairy girls who put on their sequined wings and fushia glitter and rock out.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “Shallot”

♡ “Marry Me”

♡ “Mad Girl”

♡ “The Art of Suicide”

♡ “Misery Loves Company”

Hands down, the most emotionally devastating album I've ever heard. A punch to the gut that leaves me breathless. This concept album revolves around the life of the nameless "Geek", a misfit girl who experiences the pains, tribulations, and unvarnished nightmare of growing into a woman. With stripped-down baroque instrumentation and raw soprano, it captures the alien nature of being born woman in man's world: Not fitting in, the horror of men, the desire for men, the agony of victim blaming, at the edge of madness, fears of the world, and desperate for love. Be warned, this is a brutal listen. There are no happy endings here. Only wishes that we live by to survive.

Favorite Songs:

♡ “Cry Wolf”

♡ “…Of Love and Colors”

♡ “Geek the Girl”

♡ “My Secret Reason”

♡ “Cancer of Everything”

This is the third entry in a regular series I've been doing lately where I take custom requests to review albums. If the requests dry up, I guess so will the posts, but if anyone likes this and wants to see more reviews or this inspires you to make your own request, let me know in the comments, chat, or DM!

The review system I've created for myself is as follows:

♡ The Good- Where I describe what I liked about the album or EP in question.

♡ The Bad- Where I describe what I disliked about the album or EP in question.

♡ The Weird- A thought or memory or anything else I think of that the album or EP brought to mind.

♡

Poèmes Pulvérisés by Léonie Pernet

The Good:

A moody, cinematic art pop deconstruction of European disco synth-and-strings that takes influence from French chanson (with her strong contralto coo), African rhythm sections (that are danceable and delightful), downtempo borderline trip-hop, and a hint of a borderline early 2000s indie in the production. This deconstruction is taking place through electronica and spoken word passages, which are woven throughout, glitching and twitching, underlying each recording like a pulsating heart beat. It feels kind of like a modernized Anne Pigalle at times, but, of course, is still very much original.

The Bad:

In my personal perception, the production feels a bit hollow and like it's missing something. I think it needed a little more depth in the musical atmosphere. I can't quite put my finger on what is not there because I'm not a producer, but perhaps one day I'll figure out what that missing puzzle piece is. That and the song structures tend to ramble a bit, neither coming up with a strong hook or a fully entrancing beat. For me this album simmers with excitement but never fully pays off what it promises, which threw me off a bit. I still like it, but more as mood music, than a fully realized vision.

The Weird:

I find the album cover to be quite striking. The glitter-coated starlight blue skin and her afro are very evocative and lovely, so it's stuck with me in a way the album's music didn't quite achieve in the same way. It makes me think about all the blue-skinned characters in fiction I've ever loved (granted, it's predominantly X-Men characters). Just one of those evocative kind of images, I think.

Favorite Song: "Paris-Brazzaville"

♡

Chaos County Line by Skating Polly

The Good:

I really think they hit their stride with this one. In The Make It All Show, the album before this one, they came very close to embracing 80s LA inspired cowpunk, but now they fully have, fusing it with deranged grunge-punk a' la Queenadrena and Le Butcherettes, alongside slightly softer indie pop-rock in the Veruca Salt vein. It would be a lie to claim singer Kelli isn't a scene-stealer with her feral vocal stylings, but Peyton balances her with softer energy. This is also the first time I can hear genuine rural Oklahoma trauma coming through (as someone who suffered it myself). It's good to hear crazy rock again.

The Bad:

It's simply a personal preference, but I strongly prefer their punk, country-ish, and blues rock songs. It isn't that their more indie pop sounding songs aren't any good (they are), it's simply that I don't go for that sound as often. To me, there's a bit of a lull or dragging quality to music like that that takes me out of the atmosphere I like to experience. I'm an intense person and I often like music that either makes me feel as if I'm standing on the edge of a knife or spinning really fast in a circle until I'm dizzy or just kind of floating away. I like strong feelings. So the "chaos" aspect of this album is really my jam.

The Weird:

The hick vocals on that first song "Baby On My Birthday" hit so real for me. One of the few times I got to hear someone discussing the horrors of living among rural poverty white trash who actually gets it and has seen and experienced it. It's been frustrating seeing the classist romanticizing of rural poverty or at the very least using it as an aesthetic among so many middle-class people online, and how many artists from middle-class backgrounds have encouraged that (Lana Del Rey and Ethel Cain come to mind). So it felt good to hear something real, raw, and anti-aesthetic for once.

Favorite Song: "Send A Priest"

♡

Keep Me Fed by The Warning

The Good:

I appreciate that they're shamelessly a power metal band, borderline hard rock, with strong hook-y pop sensibilities in a time when everyone is trying so hard to be the edgiest of them all. They're somewhere inbetween Evanescence and The Pretty Reckless in being an approachable rock band that isn't too scary for the average listener, but sonically they actually sound more like a cross between Lita Ford (vocally and vibes) and Band Maid (musically). In comparison to their peers Die Spitz and Faetooth, they feel a bit reserved, but I think their strength is their genuine enjoyment of old school rock n' roll and hair metal fun.

The Bad:

I tend to prefer macabre, gloomy, and downbeat or crazed, intense, avant-garde sounding metal, so their power pop angle doesn't appeal to me as much as it has to so many others. I'm an experimental or atmospheric kind of gal at heart, but that's just not what they are. Their second album Queen of the Murder Scene feels the most like the kind of metal and neofolk that I like, so it's still probably the album I like best in their discography, yet even then it's still not really what I'm into nor what I listen to on average. This is one of those bands I wished I liked more, but alas.

The Weird:

When I learned they're all Latina, Mexican, AND also sisters, that was very exciting for me. I love the idea of my fellow Mexican Latinas being behind one of the biggest all-woman bands in the world, regardless of whether or not their music is my cup of tea. So they fall into being one of those bands I strongly support despite not listening to them. I really hope they keep getting bigger and better out there.

Favorite Song: "Sharks"

♡

Epistolares by Akriila

The Good:

I've been enjoying the recent neoperreo/reggaeton, hyperpop, trap/cloud rap vibes, and indie electronica I've been seeing in Latin pop lately. Naturally, this album is a fusion between some of the biggest scenes in the Latin American underground, pushing traditionally-fused sounds up against the trendiest dance music (even if that dance music has technically been around since the 2000s). Akriila seems to be able to ebb and flow between these two worlds in a way vaguely reminiscent of La Favi's latest releases (though, of course, La Favi is more of a vocalist), but perhaps with a more underground-online mindset.

The Bad:

It's definitely not my favorite neoperreo album, and I wish I liked it more. Despite having a lot of elements I enjoy, it also has two of my biggest pet peeves: Pitchy production and nasal monotone vocals. Which is a shame because I enjoy a lot of the beats being brought to the table and I love the vibe and energy. I honestly think she's still feeling out her sound and finding herself, because the vision isn't fully formed. I think with either a cleaner or more lofi production and a little work on vocal variance, she's very close to breaking out the way Isabella Lovestory did.

The Weird:

As previously stayed, I've recently been falling headfirst into a neoperreo rabbit hole. I like it a bit more than reggaeton because it's much more female-centric, even though I've found the Grimes cover-esque, early 2000s Devianart, bikini monster, post-futurism, hyper-sexualized AI-looking imagery that is so prevalent in the recent scene to be off-putting and ugly. Thankfully, if I just don't watch the MVs I'm usually fine. I think Akriila's aesthetic bucks against that, as it's more cool, alt-ish, and street style, kind of bringing back those old school early Tomasa Del Real vibes, so I hope to see more of what she'll do.

Favorite Song: "Popper!"

♡

Love Is In the Shit by Otay: Onii

The Good:

There's no doubt Otay is a remarkable vocalist, drawing heavily from her Chinese traditional classical background, metal's sustained growling and screams, and improvisational techniques. Vocally she's vaguely reminiscent of the great Sainkho Namtchylak, but with more atonal screeching and less ethereality. This album feels like Sheena Ringo or Yaya Kim gone industrial-metal with how heavy the jazzy, cabaret, and big band influences weigh. It's an experiment with a morbid but oddly playful horror-otherworld energy that often pays off in its broad scope.

The Bad:

I feel it lacks structure and vision compared to her earlier releases like the dramatic industrial-neoclassical Dream Hacker or the nearly Meredith Monk-esque avant-garde piano pop True Faith Ain't Blind. I like the cabaret-circus kind of vibe she had going on (including with the delightfully creepy cinematic "I Have No Talent" MV) and wish she would've expressed that more. Yet instead it tends to meander and wanders towards avant-metal-industrial or acapella moments that feel more like her previous albums and quite out of place in her freak circus universe.

The Weird:

I've known her for years now, and am a big fan of her solo work, though not necessarily her extremist performance art affiliations (which border and often cross into being more edgelord than provocative- a thin line, too easy to cross, and honestly gets on my nerves because of how hard it tries to shock). One of those few artists who I'm in a love-hate relationship with listening to due to disliking certain collaborative efforts. I think I like her work best when it's her own imagination, dancing through her own nightmares.

Favorite Song: "Have You Ever"

♡

Bonus:

You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love by Olivia Rodrigo

The Good:

I truly appreciate how much she points to artists she admires, acting as a gateway into alternative music for those who normally prefer pop. While I can't say I have any particular personal resonance with the songs, I can understand their best-of-both-worlds quality is appealing to a generation slowly warming up to post-punk and New Wave influences. To my surprise, Robert Smith's cameo is the particular stand-out given how fresh his voice sounds, as if he was magically beamed in from the early 80s after playing a set with The Banshees. Easily her most cohesive and thoughtful work as of today.

The Bad:

If there's one thing that bothers me about Olivia's music in particular and makes it difficult for me to listen to her, including in this album, it's vocals. While when she sings cleanly her voice is strong, she relies so heavily on cursive signing that it often sounds strained. It seems to be unnatural for her but done for emotional effect (not too dissimilar from Britney Spears augmenting her voice) to suit her angst-driven music since her natural voice is kinda theater kid. Perhaps she or her PR believe those two styles might clash, but honestly, I think it would be creative to unleash her inner Disney princess more often than not.

The Ugly:

It seems social media has gone wild over this album in a way I'm unable to. My failing to see the appeal is proof of how subjective taste actually is... Yet if I have one thing to say, it's about her listeners. I find critics and fans apparent inability to offer any constructive criticism to her work or aesthetic choices worrying. Even the baby doll dress debate got way too anti-intellectual (often trad-adjacent "war on femininity" garbage) in the name of defending her. I get if they love it, but criticism should include some kind of critique, and I don't want to read the same ten gushing reviews with no new takes.

Favorite Song: "What's Wrong With Me?"

♡

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

This was a carousel on Pinterest, and only just rediscovered it while trying to clear out old photos and files. I created this little info graphic when I was trying to make sense of the listening patterns I was noting amongst the young women who dominate the app (it remains one of the few social media apps that is female dominated, typically teenage girls from my experience). I found it fascinating how many of us from about the ages of 13 to 25 followed the same trajectory in terms of our development of taste in music by fellow women. Though I made this several years ago, I believe it still rings true (even if the key influential bands and solo artist line-ups become a little different each year).

Phase 1: The Pop Girl Obsession

Yes, I'm counting indie artists that have borderline become household names in this and experimental pop artists who were signed to big labels pretty much immediately. These are the big-time musical women that even casual music listeners know. They're the kind that cults of personality are built around with over-the-top devotion. I think all of us go through being madly in love with the discography of at least one of these women. The closest I got was a very intense and self-destructive fixation on Kate Bush, several years before everyone on American social media decided they liked her because of RYM and Stranger Things. For personal reasons, I can't really listen to her music anymore and I think from that point on, I became wary of music artists with intense fanbases. In contrast to me (and my less-pleasant memories), most women stay devoted to at least one of these pop divas they adored in their teens because their nostalgia is usually a positive association.

Phase 2: Women Can Rock!

Honestly, I was obsessed with Joan Jett, Debbie Harry, and Stevie Nicks as a pre-teen before I found Kate in my teens. So I kind of was one step forward, one step back. I think there are definitely some women who started here instead of with the pop divas, but it really depends on the type of household they grew up in (pop mother or rock father?). In my case, my dad played a lot of older rock or punk or 80s synthpop, much of which my mom was into as well (they literally first bonded over a shared love of Dead Or Alive when they first met in the late 80s). Pretty much only Stevie has retained a presence in my taste, though not as much as others evidently. I feel like this phase tends to be heavily influenced by parents and what they listened to, which is what gives such a strong nostalgic attachment. For my generation, it depends on whether they have older parents (teens in the 80s) or slightly younger parents (teens in the 90s or early 2000s) that decide whether or not any kid is obsessed with David Bowie or Nirvana or My Chemical Romance. It's also often the entry-point to subculture, a least on a surface level.

Phase 3: Indie Rock Girl

These are pretty much any popular yet not necessesarily household name artists from the RYM and YouTube sphere, or who didn't quite break out of Tumblr to become hugely popular, or who fell from grace so dramatically that they ended up back in the under-the-radar sphere (looking at you Grimes). Since I was a goth kid who got into Siouxsie and Cocteau Twins through cassette tapes and movies quite a long time before they gained popularity among American teens on social media, it didn't really hit me the same way it's been hitting younger Gen Z women. I think for them there's kind of a checklist of artists that have followings and usually whatever pop diva they were into most is often where they're tastes pull them. For example, if they were deeply into an pop diva with a folksy album chances are they're into seni-indie-adjacent music with folk vibes. Like a lot of young Swifties during the Covid Folklore era grow into being fans of Florence Welch and Hozier from the past or Adrienne Leckner and Pheobe Brigers in the now. I consider this to be the definitive moment where young listeners decide if they'll keep evolving or not. Many don't, but some do.

Phase 4: The Riot Grrl Era

I think for one group of women, this phase happened because they discovered Poly Styrene or Joan Jett on YouTube or social media or through a cool parent or other relative, but for most of those in the younger Gen Z demographic, this phase was triggered by Olivia Rodrigo. Her advocacy of Bikini Kill had a big effect on a lot of teens, where her fans listened to it and spread it to girls who weren't even Olivia fans at all. Say what you will about her own music, but there's no denying her impact in that regard. Discovering punk and, more importantly, that women can make punk, is moving a step beyond rock. Rock can be somewhat contained, but punk isn't no matter the attempts to make it tepid. Nor is metal, which is a further evolution of this phase (hence the recent popularity of Faetooth, Die Spitz, and The Warming with young women who have reached this point). Usually there's still a naivety present here as many who came to this from Olivia are usually middle-class teenagers and 20-year-olds and they parrot what other people say, but this represents a time of slowly learning about community, and moving into singular individuality of self.

Phase 5: The Twee Girl Era

I feel like this is the taste most Pinterest girls (and some sides of Instagram) end up in for quite a while. It's definitely far past RYM and Pitchfork taste (both of which tend to low-ball albums like this in ratings or even if they do rate them well, still pretty much ignore them), but there's still approachability in the pop structures, as well as elements of aesthetically pleasing mental imagery. Honestly, this is a good place to be, as when a young woman reaches this point it usually means she genuinely enjoys listening to a wider range of music regardless of genre or language and is transcending nostalgia, trends, and habit to make a move towards personal individuality. Most of the posts I've made on social media cater to this demographic of young women. I really appreciate their open-minded-ness and excitement over increasingly niche music, so I really enjoy making posts for these kinds of girlies and have been lucky to encounter a few in real life (since I've seen Kitty Craft and Poison Girl Friend live).

Phases 6: Bandcamp Girl Supporter

This is another group of young ladies I encounter online quite often who are very quick to recommend their favorite independent women in their age range. It's typically solo bedroom pop artists who release their work through Bandcamp and have developed social media popularity through TikTok (which I'll never be on for as long as I live) and Insta (which I'm on for business purposes). I think a major reason these soloists are able to succeed in these spheres is they're able to individually create distinctive aesthetics without needing a whole PR team. For example, two particularly popular artists with cult followings, Solya and Saint Avangeline, are instantly recognizable. The first is the big-eyed moody Texas girl in a white dress and a cross, the second is the somber ethereal fantasy Greek goddess with long red hair. To me, this is proof women are fully capable of creating and selling a self-created image and sound, and big labels are moving towards becoming obsolete the more this kind of grassroots fame comes in.

Phase 7: Women Without Borders

After years of working on Pinterest, there's now a lot of young women on the app who know these artists. When I see this kind of taste on that site, I usually had something to do with it, directly or indirectly. Either that, or it's older people or people who grew up in the demographic that these artists are most heavily involved in (like Faye Wong is hugely famous in Hong Kong and China or Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans remembering Cibo Matto). Regardless, several years ago, before I started posting, I pretty much never saw these artists and bands mentioned anywhere at all. So I peddled and pushed their music very aggressively with my pink posts and volia! A spike in popularity with young people! I think what happened is my posts had a trickle-down effect: People would recommend what they saw on Pinterest on TikTok and pass it off as their own discovery, then it trickled-down eventually to trend with normie listeners who like “weird” aesthetics but mock Nina Hagen for being weird or think Akiko Yano is too cutesy. I think anyone who genuinely likes this music (not as a trend) are usually very open-minded.

Phase 8: Rarities Oddities Girl Albums

Even to this day, I only know a handful of ladies and girls on Pinterest who enjoy this kind of music. Once again, this is usually stuff that only gained a tiny bit of popularity from my constantly pushing it with my pink posts, but this is the rare and less popular stuff. A lot has to do with the fact that one-of-a-kind albums don't have much shared community built-in, which is something that tends to detract a lot of female listeners (who are very much community active). I've also recognized that certain linguistic demographics are more popular than others. For example, European languages and Korean language tend to be very popular, Japanese music is heavily stereotyped but still gets some listens in certain circles (usually jfashion or in certain Pinterest corners) but usually it's only Latinas who listen to Latina music or African women who listen to African women's music, and so forth. As for this group of listeners, they tend to be loners who don't have linguistic limitations, and I get along really well with them as a similar person.

Phase 9: Woman of the Avant-Garde

This is a difficult point to reach, but when any woman listener gets here, this is really the pinnacle of musical existence. A transcendent nirvana that when experienced cannot be erased from ones self. It's not a phase, it's full-grown listener's maturity, and I find it helps make pop, rock, and indie more enjoyable, not less. Usually it starts with being an industrial or classical music fangirl, from my experience, and then suddenly after years of listening, it just happens. One day you just realize quite suddenly that you're find ten minutes of screaming or droning noise cathartic and meaningful. This is the same effect as watching an art house film, but I think it's much more difficult to enjoy because sound and noise has such deep ties to memory and nostalgic responses. To go so far outside of that comforting space aurally is a hard thing for most listening demographics. I think when you finally become the kind of girl who you know would like literal alien music, you know you've hit this point. Being limitless is not easy to get to, but it is fun when you're there.

This was just a silly post I'd made, but I can see why it was popular on Pinterest for a time. The girls and women there found it relatable (though a few misunderstood and thought this was about TYPES of girls and not a general assessment of the patterns of taste evolution when it comes to girls listening to music made by women). Learning about women's music has definitely not been a simple or straightforward journey for me since so few people want to actually put in effort to research and usually only pay attention to those with a set amount of popularity. If my posts made that learning easier on those like myself who have that curiosity and drive, then I'm very proud of and pleased with what I achieved.

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)

First, I must define what the Kate Bush sound most typically entails, which we'll be using as a framework of reference: It's a blend of baroque, jazz, and glam inspired piano rock and progressive-ambient synth in a highly theatrical yet typically melancholy, almost musical-esque, song suite format. The lyrics revolve around storytelling inspired by gothic films, esoteric spiritualism, and warm sexuality, usually hiding her personal life in ambiguity despite hints always being present as to her truth.

Now, of course, it's impossible to find a true musical dead-ringer to any artist due to individuality, but we can still find albums that have a similar energy or sound to the various phases artists have been through. In this case, I'm going to attempt to find artists who were creating at the time of her career peak, even a little bit beforehand, and before or during certain musical phases she had (meaning they were very likely influences/inspirations). The focus will mainly be on what I consider to be two of her more unique albums, Never Forever and The Dreaming, but a few Hounds of Love recommendations nevertheless.

As someone deeply versed with Kate's back catalog (LONG before her boom in popularity in America due to Stranger Things and the sudden explosion of hype on RYM), making this list was quite easy for me, and I hope it'll inspire you readers to try something knew and recognize female art pop genius was all over the place in the 70s and 80s. In fact, trimming this list down to just ten was extremely difficult, but I think I wittled it down to which albums I think fit best with the comparison or with fans of Kate's work looking to try out something new...

1. Tokimeki by Akiko Yano

I could easily choose several albums from Akiko's discography, like 1980's Everywoman prog-pop epic Gohan Ga Dekitayo (her equivalent to Hounds of Love) or 1981's bizarre girlhood fantasy synthpunk Tadaima (her equivalent to The Dreaming), but instead I've decided to choose the one that was released the same year as Kate's debut in 1978 and two years after Akiko's own debut in 1976. Shockingly, it often sounds uncannily like Never Forever (even the covers share a similar concept- a fairytale illustration of the singer surrounded by animals) and foreshadows a lot of the growth in the art pop sound. The experimental piano pop and jazz rock, layering her wildly expressive dramatic soprano as her own "backup singer" choir, and her dreamy synths (though it's a Moog instead of a Fairlight) all should sound very familiar. It's somehow Akiko's most mysteriously melancholy atmosphere and yet her most whimsical creation, a stunning showcase of her singer-songwriter piano-prodigy fire as much as her ethereality and range as a composer. About as Kate as you can get without it even being inspired by Kate at all.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Yorokobi", "Ookina Ishi", "Kodomo Tachi"

Album It's Most Similar To: Never Forever

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ScvmxQBAYqQ&si=KJd5uWZNz-0T3Yig

2. Nunsexmonkrock by Nina Hagen

I find it hard to believe that Kate wasn't heavily influenced by cabaret Brechtian-Weilldian trained German vocalists such as Dagmar Krause (of Slapp Happy and Art Bears) and, of course, Nina Hagen, as much as the aforementioned Akiko. By Kate's debut, Nina was already known in the UK punk world as a theatrical vocalist with a massive range, capable of creating characters both monstrous and angelic with her throat, even in earlier albums like the punk-opera-cabaret of Nina Hagen Band (1978) and the progressively kookier arch-art rock of Ubehagen (1980). Nunsexmonkrock was released the same year as The Dreaming, with Nina diving headfirst into operatic esoteric alien-nightmares (and some of the most phenomenal vocal performances ever recorded) while Kate attempted to fuse that cabaret experimental rock influence with the Japanese-inspired pop stylings and British prog-glam she had been known for. This album is a tour de force for Nina's voice alone, which reaches past Kate's highs and down into goblin-ish lows. Unmatched weird girl music.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Antiworld", "Dread Love", "Tatschi-Tarot"

Album It's Most Similar To: The Dreaming

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sTtUJSp2i1Y&si=CFnHzVLsY91mGfMS

3. The Walking by Jane Siberry

Several years before Hounds of Love, Jane was already dipping into emotionally-charged theatrical baroque New Wave song suites on No Borders Here, which only became stronger in The Speckless Sky (released the same year as Hounds). Songs like "Dancing Class", "You Don't Need", "The Taxi Ride", and "Vladimir Vladimir" (which is, of all things, a seven minute epic about a plane crash, mirroring the boat sinking of The 9th Wave) showed that she was already living in the same ethereal prog-synth world-building Kate was evolving into, both before and after Kate's sound switched from whimsy camp to moody seriousness. While Kate became progressively more contemporary adult leaning in The Sensual World, Jane answered to Sensual World and Hounds with her own masterpiece, The Walking, a culmination of soul-crushing grief over her recent breakup. Each puzzling dreamlike tale she tells seems to chip away at her pain, but is more intimate and detached than Kate, as she unfolds her sadness with origami intricacy.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Goodbye", "Lena Is A White Table", "The Bird On the Gravel"

Album It's Most Similar To: Hounds of Love

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDjOvb7GVE&si=F3RVHBMcDc5h0o01

4. Hope In A Darkened Heart by Virginia Astley

Before Hounds of Love dropped in 1985, Virginia was already known for her synth-infused neoclassical baroque pop. 1982's fully ambient From Gardens Where We Feel Secure is pure pastoral atmosphere of days gone by, of summer and spring, of flowers blossoming on a hilltop in Austen's vision of England. Yet it's this Ryuichi Sakamoto produced jewel that most strongly showcases her art pop sensibilities. Her Catholic choir-girl sounding soprano is so clean and childlike that the way it contrasts the gloomy aura of the shimmering synths, chamber instrumentation, and heart-shattered lyrics (like Jane, about a breakup, but in this case, with the father of Virginia's child, hence the title of one of her songs) becomes haunting. It's kind of like if "Cloudbursting" was an entire album in itself, but if it was a lot more personal, and had a duet with David Sylvian (just as Akiko had "Good Night", Virginia had "One Small Hope").

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Love Is A Lonely Place To Be", "A Father", "Darkness Has Reached It's End"

Album It's Most Similar To: Hounds of Love

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=d1wkgsFjAZ0&si=Ap1x8s5PVH-gpPHV

5. Paradise of Replica by After Dinner

During virtually the entirety of the 80s, After Dinner's Haco was creating demented music box soundscapes for her performance art work, dressed in proto-Lolita ruffled doll dresses and bonnets. Formally trained in recording technology, her relationship with the RIO avant-garde label gave her an in with international fans of the Henry Cow/Slapp Happy extended universe (an enclave of UK artists I believe had to have been very influential to Kate- yes, Dagmar Krause was a member). Her live performance art music was collected into two tapes, Glass Tube (1984) and Souvenir Cassette (1988), both of which were a fusion of deconstructed classical sensibilities with warped synth. Yet the group and her own musical adventurism peaked on this release from 1989, which maintains more of an art pop conceptualism. It's romantic and waltzing at time, delicate haze of the synths, and even moments of deranged broken-down no-wave and New Wave, reminiscent of Kate's more whimsical experiments.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "A Walnut", "Ironclad Mermaid", "Paradise of Replica"

Album It's Most Similar To: The Dreaming

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CZsQI9uI-2U&si=GCDzcECdZO82y0F-

6. Pássaros Na Garganta by Tête Espíndola

A Brazilian icon with a vocal range that's far higher than most dramatic sopranos, her voice is a shrill, bird-like, borderline operatic untamed creature that reaches closer to Nina Hagen (and Diamanda Galas- whose head voice can sound uncannily like Kate, by the way) in its inhuman extremities. Her music is a psychedelic one-of-a-kind blend of bossa nova and MPB, avant-garde folk and jazz, and art pop (with a touch of New Wave sensibility, depending on the album). Here her music is at its most minimalistic in order to really showcase her voice’s enormous, boundless presence,. It chirps, sighs, screeches, and swoons, like a bird and creates the atmosphere of the jade green jungle she describes in her environmentally focused lyricism. The gentle guitars, twinkling pianos, and little fairylike dings of bells rise around her vocals like mist and will o' wisp. When that instumental minimalism and vocal maximalism contrast flow together, it's transformed into an avant-garde sound that is difficult to find compare with, even in 1982 when it was released. As magical and mythical as any early Kate release.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Amor e Guavira", "Longos Prazeres De Amor Celito", "Cunhataiporã"

Album It's Most Similar To: Never Forever

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=SjZF9j89KB4&si=vTopmbBLSQqrdHGw

7. Find Out What I'm Dreaming by Li Garattoni

A singular German album created by a photographer moonlighting as mysterious jazz-synth artist/producer who vanished after the release of the remarkable namesake single in 1978 and the full album itself in 1982. Reportedly, she was involved in the local jazz and krautrock scenes and the album itself was in dedication to her husband and daughter, but very little information otherwise exists. All we have really is knowing this music exists, and that's enough. The enigmatic nature of the recording gives it a certain mystique that the songs often live up to, as they're mystical ambient-jazzy mood music outside of time and space, singing about dreamy and sweet subject matter that veers into the mythic with ease. Het voice can move from weightless to low and sexy with ease, while the music follows suit from day to night. It's difficult to tell if she was influenced by Kate or came into this world fully formed in all her shimmering strangeness. It's one of those albums that makes me sad it's the only one she brought into this world, because her sparkling imagination brings a cloud-floating romance to 80s art pop.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Find Out What I'm Dreaming", "For You", "Child of Venus/Orbital Star"

Album It's Most Similar To: Never Forever

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=AGmVvYtUU5s&si=qCu5dr7HzeGxJZn7

8. Inky Bloaters by Danielle Dax

Though definitely much more overtly experimental, avant-garde, industrial, gothic, and, yes, even more bizarre than Kate, Danielle still runs in that same art pop sonic landscape. Like Nina, they're in a similar sphere of bizarre theatrical artistry and esoteric lyrical intrigue although not as compatible as others on this list. Here she is at her most pop adjacent (after spending the early 80s in the avant-garde), tearing apart and reconstructing psychedelic goth rock (she was THE goddess of the Batcave scene, her paintings and performance art was featured there, and she had a role as a wolf woman in Angela Carter's film The Company of Wolves- just thought I'd drop all of her impressive resumé here), allowing it to culminate with Americana country and British folk influences. It's too experimental rock for pop and too pop for experimental rock, existing in its own macabre limbo. I think the best way to describe this is: Imagine if after The Dreaming, Kate had abandoned pop completely and embraced the underground alternative scene, then maybe, you might think up something like this.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Sleep Has No Property", "Fizzing Human Bomb", "Born To Be Bad"

Album It's Most Similar To: The Dreaming

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ciKwCic4Evo&si=3mMDSyv843RwotuK

9. Tamahime Sama by Jun Togawa

Jun stands alongside Nina, Danielle, and Tête as a singularly one-of-a-kind voice in the art pop realm who struggles to fit into the boxes that this genre-less genre has formed over the years. This album is semi-conceptual, as most of the lyrics refer to female menstruation and hormonal states as represented by Kafka-esque insect metamorphosis and telepathic control of bug armies (similar to the Argento film, Phenomenon). Her music is for transforming real life body horror into a fantasy of power and nightmares with her disturbing gothic lyricism that is said to have influenced Japan's ero-guro (erotic and grotesque) niche in vkei, Lolita, and other fashions and aesthetics. Regardless, the gory, gothic storytelling is hidden under the guise of her twee vocal stylings that at times crack and give way to operatic acrobatics and bizarre shrieking goblin sounds in the vein of Nina (who apparently played one of Jun's songs when she was DJ for a day at some big LA radio jockeys show- which I'm sure came as a shock to any listeners no matter how punk). Her horror-centric world-building's cinematic scope should attract Kate's weirder fans as much as Nina and Danielle.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "Mori No Hitobito", "Tonari No Indojin", "Tamahime Sama"

Album It's Most Similar To: The Dreaming

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=_-sGAPwiY0U&si=p-5imX-L54iSudIc

10. 1st: The Pharmacist's Daughter by Nachiko

Another artist I could've chosen several albums from due to how similar she sounds to Kate, including the piano-prog-funk of 1980's 2nd: The Flower Field Is Flooded (her equivalent to Never Forever) and the conceptual surreal New Wave of 1981's 3rd: A Paintbrush Mandala (her equivalent to The Dreaming), yet I've decided to go with her debut. Released in 1980, several years after Akiko exploded into the Japanese pop scene and Kate had just started getting the ball rolling, Nachiko released this album. It's somewhere betwixt and beyond the glam piano rock of The Kick Inside and the synth-y folkish-ness of Never Forever of the same year. It feels caught between the 70s and the future of the 80s and yet, like Akiko's Irohanikonpeitu (released in 1977, before Kate debuted), it has an off-kilter jazziness that feels timeless. It's not City Pop. It's art pop, with a Japanese folk twist. Yet, since she was a peer not a follow-up to Akiko and Kate, her striking fey dramatic soprano and blend of experimental psych-jazz rock with long-winding prog-pop feels very much in its own dimension.

Most Kate-ish Songs: "My Soul Went On A Journey", "Wish You Were Here", "Don't Eat the Footprints"

Album It's Most Similar To: Never Forever

YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yxO-h3AQFQQ&si=do7HyWMAmfBwDUTW

If you end up listening to all these albums (and the few others I mentioned sprinkled throughout this article) or couldn't find ones for your favorites but are still looking for more, here's a list of honorable mentions that should do the trick:

♡ Parallelisme by Miharu Koshi (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Waterbearer by Sally Oldfield (For: The Kick Inside)

♡ Rearmament by Happy Rhodes (For: Never Forever)

♡ Tsuki-Hime by Mioko Yamaguchi (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In the Mouth by Operating Theatre (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Mávastellíd by Grýlurnar (For: The Dreaming)

♡ Soil by Syoko (For: The Dreaming)

♡ Ryukou Tsushinbo by Kidorikko (For: The Dreaming)

♡ Immigrants by Sandii and The Sunsetz (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Brasileira by Maria Rita Stumf (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Strange Angels by Laurie Anderson (For: The Sensual World)

♡ Birds of Passage by Bel Canto (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Mambo Nassau by Lizzy Mercier Descloux (For: The Dreaming)

♡ The Law of Green by Seiko Suzuki (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Helleborine by Shelleyan Orphan (For: Never Forever)

♡ Winter Songs by Art Bears (For: The Dreaming)

♡ Retinae by A Dip In the Pool (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ La Debutante by Sonoko (For: Hounds of

♡ The Story of Valerie by Carola Baer (For: The Dreaming)

♡ Blue Hotel by Fox (For: The Kick Inside)

♡ Flurochrome by Sara Ayers (For: Hounds of Love)

♡ Voices by Yoko Ueno (For: The Dreaming)

♡ The Lion and The Cobra by Sinead O Connor (For: The Sensual World)

♡ Mangekyo by Yoshiko Sai (For: The Kick Inside)

♡ Good-Bye by Morita Doji (For: The Kick Inside)

♡ Elva kvinnor i ett hus by Agnatha Faltskog (For: The Kick Inside)

♡ Toledo de Regina by Teresa De Sio (For: The Sensual World)

♡ South by Shona Laing (For: The Sensual World)

♡ Park Hotel by Alice (For: The Sensual World)

DeathrockFairy's Music Review is a reader supported publication run by one woman who writes about and for weird women making music and listening to music. If you enjoyed this article, consider buying me a tea (I'm not much for coffee), or updating your subscription. Thank you for reading and supporting! ♡

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By DeathrockFairy (alias of one Tabatha E.)