Cmt Power Picks

Lady Gaga, Adele, Rihanna: Only girls allowed

Achieving this, Gaga has displaced our own Adele, bumped off top spot on both sides of the Atlantic, although Adele has little cause for complaint. Defiantly unglamorous, unfashionably authentic, her album 21 has been the word-of-mouth sensation of 2011, number one in the UK for 16 out of 18 weeks it has been on release. And she has the number one single in the US, Rolling In The Deep.

On the surface, these two young stars could hardly be more different. Gaga is provocative and outrageous, mistress of her own hype, using every showbusiness tool to stir up controversy, as proudly artificial as Adele is soulfully authentic. Adele looks as if her preparations for going on stage amount to slipping into a nice dress and slapping on a bit of lipstick. She doesn’t use autotune, doesn’t do choreography, doesn’t court controversy, doesn’t show off her flesh in salacious magazine shoots.

In 2009, there was an emerging consensus in the music business that the future of pop was female. Now it seems there is no denying it. According to Soundscan, an information and sales tracking system in the US, six of the top 10 selling albums this year have been by female artists (Adele, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Britney Spears and Katy Perry) and seven of the top 10 singles. Similarly, last year, six of the top 10 albums were female fronted (Taylor Swift, Susan Boyle, Lady Gaga, Sade, Ke$ha and Lady Antebellum). Go back to the turn of the century, and only two of the top 10 selling artists in 2000 were female (Britney Spears and Destiny’s Child). Go back even further, and it’s impossible to find a year when women outnumbered men in the charts. So how has pop gone from a boy’s club to ladies first?

Underlying social trends have been relentlessly moving towards the empowerment of young women and increasing gender equality, and that may be helped by an increase in women working in the music business. Lady Gaga makes feminist spirit a point of pride. “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams,” she has quipped. “If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”

In her mix of sexuality and strength, she’s a pop icon for both sexes, which may be the crucial issue. Rock, which has been a very male bastion, is in terminal commercial decline, to the point that it barely impacts on sales charts. Hip hop has an underlying aggressive male attitude that relies for shock value on a sense of violence and power, which, while appealing to young men, actively turns many women off, thereby halving its potential audience. A female artist can court controversy with sexuality, frankness and outrageous behaviour without putting her audience off, possibly because she is still essentially considered unthreatening, although Lady Gaga might have something to say about that. “A girl’s got to use what she’s given and I’m not going to make a guy drool the way a Britney video does,” admits Gaga. “So I take it to extremes. It’s meant to make guys think: 'I don’t know if this is sexy or just weird.

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