Once again, just by luck, I discovered The Rolling Stone Women in Rock Collection. I was browsing the Internet and it just popped up in one of my searches. The box set was released in 1998. I’ve never seen it or heard of it until just a few weeks ago.
As you can see, this collection takes a chronological approach to women in rock. And, as you’ll notice as you examine the track list, some of these women singers are represented by some strange songs. I’m not sure Madonna’s signature song is “Express Yourself.” But, aside from that quibble, I think this 3-CD set provides plenty of listening pleasure.
Are your favorite women in rock represented here? GRADE: A-
Tracklist:
| Disc 1: 1953-1971 | |||
| 1-01 | Big Mama Thornton– | Hound Dog | |
| 1-02 | Etta James– | Tell Mama | |
| 1-03 | Patsy Cline– | Crazy | |
| 1-04 | The Shangri-Las– | Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand) | |
| 1-05 | Martha & The Vandellas*– | Dancing In The Street | |
| 1-06 | Diana Ross & The Supremes*– | Stop! In The Name Of Love | |
| 1-07 | Dionne Warwick– | Walk On By | |
| 1-08 | The Velvet Underground & Nico (3)– | I’ll Be Your Mirror | |
| 1-09 | Jefferson Airplane– | Somebody To Love | |
| 1-10 | Janis Joplin– | Me And Bobby McGee | |
| 1-11 | Aretha Franklin– | Chain Of Fools | |
| 1-12 | Dusty Springfield– | Son Of A Preacher Man | |
| 1-13 | Joan Baez– | I Shall Be Released | |
| 1-14 | Laura Nyro– | Eli’s Coming | |
| 1-15 | Carole King– | It’s Too Late | |
| Disc 2: 1972-1986 | |||
| 2-01 | Carly Simon– | You’re So Vain | |
| 2-02 | Gladys Knight & The Pips*– | Midnight Train To Georgia | |
| 2-03 | Linda Ronstadt– | You’re No Good | |
| 2-04 | Labelle– | Lady Marmalade | |
| 2-05 | Janis Ian– | At Seventeen | |
| 2-06 | Emmylou Harris– | Luxury Liner | |
| 2-07 | X-Ray Spex– | Oh Bondage, Up Yours! | |
| 2-08 | Donna Summer– | Hot Stuff | |
| 2-09 | Pretenders*– | Brass In Pocket | |
| 2-10 | Pat Benatar– | Hit Me With Your Best Shot | |
| 2-11 | Joan Jett– | Bad Reputation | |
| 2-12 | Go-Go’s– | We Got The Beat | |
| 2-13 | Tina Turner– | What’s Love Got To Do With It? | |
| 2-14 | Chaka Khan– | I Feel For You | |
| 2-15 | Eurythmics– | Would I Lie To You? | |
| 2-16 | Kate Bush– | Running Up That Hill | |
| 2-17 | Bangles– | Manic Monday | |
| Disc 3: 1987-1997 | |||
| 3-01 | Suzanne Vega– | Luka | |
| 3-02 | Lucinda Williams– | Side Of The Road | |
| 3-03 | Madonna– | Express Yourself | |
| 3-04 | Queen Latifah / Monie Love– | Ladies First | |
| 3-05 | Sonic Youth– | Tunic (Song For Karen) | |
| 3-06 | Tori Amos– | Silent All These Years | |
| 3-07 | En Vogue– | Free Your Mind | |
| 3-08 | Belly– | Feed The Tree | |
| 3-09 | Salt-N-Pepa*– | Shoop | |
| 3-10 | Sarah McLachlan– | Possession | |
| 3-11 | PJ Harvey– | Down By The Water | |
| 3-12 | Joan Osborne– | One Of Us | |
| 3-13 | Melissa Etheridge– | Your Little Secret | |
| 3-14 | Jewel– | Who Will Save Your Soul | |
| 3-15 | Sheryl Crow– | If It Makes You Happy | |
| 3-16 | Shawn Colvin– | Sunny Came Home |
This is a nice collection, though I have much of it. I would disagree with you about song choices, though, even “Express Yourself.” These all look like major songs from these artists.
Jeff, my favorite Madonna song is “Live to Tell.” “Material Girl” is a close second.
“Vogue” for me.
I don’t remember “Live to Tell” but the only Ciccone song I tend to think of as decent is “Like a Prayer”. “Express Yourself” seems a reasonably representative song.
Todd, I have several Madonna CDs I haven’t listened to…yet.
Not a bad collection but I would have included Patti Smith, Blondie, Fanny, The Runaways, The Breeders, Goldie and the Gingerbreads (The first all-female rock band), Genya Raven, and Suzi Quatro. And left out Salt N’ Pepa, En Vogue and Jewel. Also, can’t stand Pat Benatar. A- seems about right.
Steve, you’re right about the absence of Suzi Quatro, Patti Smith, and Blondie. Another CD added to this box set could have produced a more inclusive collection.
Goldie and the Gingerbreads were the first all-women rock band (vs. chorus) to sign to a major label. Though Fanny was the first all-women band in rock to put out a full album on a major label.
The Breeders and L7 would’ve fit both the sales profile and the ostensible desire of this set to gather influential women bands and performers. But never underestimate the ability of ROLLING STONErs to be clueless. Quite aside from the incursion of major women new punk bands in the ’90s, such as Spitboy and Bikini Kill and, indeed, Estrojet. Tsunami. One can go on. Klymaxx with “Meeting in the Ladies Room” was both a hit and has at least as much reason to be here as a number of choices made.
BTW, “Goldie” later recoded as a solo and with a new band or so as Genya Ravan:
https://youtu.be/HWKLl0FEUoU (2005 concert recordings)
Goldie and the Gingerbreads, “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat?” on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s tv series NOT ONLY BUT ALSO back in ’65 or so.
https://youtu.be/lsoXZMuoUp4
Looks like a nice selection except a few of them aren’t rockers, more country-like! How about Connie Francis and Leslie Gore? Are they here? Cilla Black? Lulu? The Chordettes?
Bob, I agree. After a nod to women singers in the 1950s, there’s a big jump to the 1970s and 1980s.
Connie Francis never sang rock and roll, and Lesley Gore was just plain awful.
Disagree about Gore. Francis was indeed a pop singer, might do a vaguely rockish recording, not quite a correspondent to Pat Boone but close, with, of course, a lot more Italian flavor to her work.
“Lipstick on Your Collar” was r n’ r. We can disagree on Gore but she had one or two decent songs. None of them mentioned Judy.
Actually, I disagree about Gore with Steve. “You Don’t Own Me” was a fine close-enough-to-rock ballad, and I’m still fond of some of her other recordings.
A good collection of music by some of our best female singer/songwriter, although I’d like to have seen Joni Mitchell included—and who the hell is/are X-Ray Specs? (I expect Todd, with his encyclopedic knowledge & recall of music, will bring me up to speed.) Lots of great songs here, but if I could choose only one to take to a deserted island, it would be Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” one of my all-time favorite songs (there’s currently a very good EDM cover of it titled “Running” by Anyma & Meg Myers).
Deb, I’m glad Katie Bush made the cut with “Running Up That Hill.” Like you, I have no idea who X-Ray Specs are…but Todd will enlighten us.
According to Wikipedia, X-Ray Specs was (is?) a British punk band that formed in 1976.
Jeff, I confess I’ve never heard of X-Ray Specs or their song.
X-Ray Spex were among the most influential of the early UK punk bands, not least for lead singer “Poly Styrene” and (as the WIKI article also notes properly) the relative novelty in punk of having a saxophone as a prominent instrument. (I think the Womyn of Destruction/Estrojet, a few years later in Baltimore, were the first to have an accordion as a major instrument in punk rock…they can be seen and heard briefly in an episode of HOMICDE: LIFE IN THE STREET.) They were good.
Todd, we were all waiting for you to weigh in on X-Ray Spex. Now I want to hunt down one of their CDs!
The first saxophonist with the band went by Lara Logic, and she left to form a band with one of the best non-shocking punk band names, Essential Logic.
Todd, it won’t surprise you to learn I’ve never heard of ESSENTIAL LOGIC…but I want to listen to their work now! Thanks for you encyclopedic knowledge!
Seems like a pretty great collection to me.
Patti, I consider THE ROLLING STONE WOMEN IN ROCK COLLECTION to be very good. Yet, until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea it existed. I stumbled upon it online by chance. You would think when it was released back in the 1990s, I would have seen a review or an advertisement for it. But…no.
Being an old poop. the first CD is the one I can most relate to, although I might add a few more of the early examples (Bessie Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharp, for example — both more blues but their influence in rock was strong). The second CD has some decent stuff, but by the third I am completely lost. I would have been happy if all three CDs contained only songs by Darlene Love.
I tend to pay more attention to what’s on a set than what’s left off, because no set can contain everything that “should” belong. I like it when less obvious material is included — that will bump a set up in my estimation — but so long as what’s included is good, I can be happy with it.
I think Rolling Stone’s definition of rock is “anything we cover in,our magazine.”
Anything Jann Wenner got some ad dollars (or others) for is the way to bet it, to be sure.
Much better than your usual collections, I must say. But I’d question the “Women in Rock” designation for Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris (though she is closer) and Patsy Cline (a country icon). I’ve been listening to a lot of Joan Osborne lately. I dislike 99% of Madonna’s output, but that’s just me. Of course, I don’t know a number of the ones on CD 3.
But if they’re including groups (as they are), you can’t leave out the first girl group, “Maybe” by Arlene Smith & The Chantels.
Another MIA-Wanda Jackson, Queen of Rockabilly.
Steve, maybe the folks behind THE ROLLING STONE WOMEN IN ROCK COLLECTION planed a Country & Western box set.
No, Steve is right. Without the Female Elvis, the box is already tipping toward ridiculous.
George, I’m not surprised you didn’t notice this set when it was released. I was managing a record store at this time and the amount of discs the record companies were releasing was insanely overwhelming. An awful lot of stuff got lost in the avalanche. I vaguely remember this collection. We would have ordered one copy and buried it in our enormous compilation section at the tail end of our Rock where no one was likely to find it. The compilations we were selling at this time were the “Just Say-” and “No Alternative” sets along with the countless tribute albums that were all the rage then and whatever clever new theme collection Rhino released that month.
Happy to see Kate Bush has a track which is a little ironic as the Rolling Stone Record Guide (remember that?) was unfairly dismissive of her at the time. Rolling Stone critics were notoriously “rockist” back then.
Byron, thanks for the explanation of why I never heard or saw THE ROLLING STONE WOMEN IN ROCK COLLECTION when it first came out. Kate Bush is underrated. I love her work!
Pretty darn good. Throw it on a thumb drive and send it my way.
The first CD brings back fond memories of my growing up with Rock, though there might have been more of the Girl Groups produced by Phil Spector.
The second too but from the third I just enjoyed Luka – wonderful!
Wolf, a lot of my memories fired up when I listened the first CD of this set, too!
We in the Headphones Facebook group had a Long discussion of this album’s pluses and minuses about ten years after it was released, in tandem with some other attempt to sum up Women in Rock happening at the time. It’s way too wedded to Biggest Hits Eva (“Manic Monday” is not the Bangles song to pull out of even that album, much less their career) and missing Joan Armatrading, and indeed Blondie, while making an effort to include En Vogue or Pat Benatar, is more than a bit sad. Hell, where’s Fanny?
Todd, you’re right about the curious choices on these CDs.
Thanks, Jeff, for reminding me of Joan Osborne. He live recording of “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” is one of the best events ever, IMHO.
I’ve seen Osborne a couple times. Once she asked for requests, and someone asked for “What Became of the Broken Hearted.” She said, “Um, it’s just me and a guitar up here.” I imagine she could do it, but it would need time to work out the arrangement.