So I was then trying to remember which female-led bands and/or all female bands KROQ is currently playing. And the list is pretty small: Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Cranberries, No Doubt, Tracy Bonham, Cowboy Junkies, Lush, and Ruby, and *very occasionally* Tori Amos, Joan Osborne, and Jewel.
Checking out KROQ's Web page I noticed that KROQ only has 2 female DJ's (Tammi Heide and Sherri Donovan)... 3 if you consider Lisa May a DJ. But they must have like twenty male DJ's, and I'd be willing to wager that almost everyone who makes playlist decisions is a hetero white male. I wonder if that impacts the number of female-led, homosexual-led, or noncaucasian-led bands. But I digress...
I also noticed that of the Top 106.7 songs of 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997, only like a fifth of them are by female-led bands. Strange.
In 1994 and 1995, KROQ was playing Hole, Bjork, Jill Sobule, Heather Nova, Sheryl Crow, Babes in Toyland, Letters to Cleo, Natalie Merchant, Liz Phair, Portishead, P.J. Harvey, Elastica, Velocity Girl, Magnapop, Suzanne Vega, Sarah McLachlan, Mazzy Star, Jesus and Mary Chain, Veruca Salt, and Lisa Loeb, but I see no evidence that they plan on supporting these artists in their future endeavors; in fact, KROQ refused to play new stuff by Letters to Cleo, Velocity Girl, and Lisa Loeb when I called with requests. Nor will they play recent stuff by Eve's Plum, Babes in Toyland, L7, Juliana Hatfield, or Sioxsie and the Banshees. And it's not that the new stuff is bad, either: some of the newer albums from those bands are their best works to date. Now that I think about it, KROQ quietly dropped acts like the Go Gos, Belly, Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, and the Breeders off their playlist as well. Yet I still hear lots of old Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Silverchair and Bush. Hmmm.
Concrete Blonde broke up, and TWO cool female bands formed from its ashes (Pretty and Twisted, and Vowel Movement), neither of whom KROQ will play. Also fitting the format and getting no airplay (from my estimate) are such great acts as Shonen Knife, Seven Year Bitch, Bikini Kill, the Amps, Mavis Piggott, Sleeper, Tilt, Shampoo, Pee Shy, Marry Me Jane, Angelfish, Dance Hall Crashers, that dog., Bel Canto, 4 Non Blondes, the Goops, Everything But the Girl, Fleming and John, and Aimee Mann. And that's just sitting here, naming off the top of my head.
Maybe it's not a KROQ bias against women. Maybe they're just biased against ALL groups that aren't in the set of artists with pictures on the 1996 KROQ calendar (a calendar that only includes pictures of 4 women: Alanis, Tori, Cranberries, and Hole). I've talked with other people about this, and they agree that there seems to be at least SOME bias against women at KROQ. Hmmm.
Go Lilith Fair!!!