.Editorial - The Chick Factor in Metal
Metal Reviews

Release year: 2004
Reviewed by Ben

So what exactly are women’s place in metal? No I’m not gonna take a Manowar stance and claim that women should only be big breasted harlots whose only use for the metal scene is by way of groupie action. I remember when there was a time that there were very few women in the metal scene as performers. The biggest amount of estrogen on an album would be a few lines here and there by a guest vocalist. While there were some small bands that were indie and underground such as The Gathering it hasn’t been until the last three or four years where female fronted metal bands have had a breakthrough. Lacuna Coil, Doro, Arch Enemy, Sinergy, Nightwish, and Sinister are a few of the chick led bands that have had some moderate success recently. Nightwish is even getting number one albums in their homeland Finland, and while Arch Enemy and Lacuna Coil aren’t exactly Billboard dominators, their latest albums have been selling briskly. In Arch Enemy’s case some might point out that one reason why they are “big” sellers now is because of musical changes, but that is another topic for another time. Gothic bands have been employing the use of the whole “Beauty and the Beast” shtick for some time now and lately it seems that I can’t turn my head and find one guy doing harsh black vocals and then some sweet lilting female vocals either accentuating the harsh guy or to offset the “brutality”. Groups such as Tristania and Battlelore come to mind.

If you have a chick fronting your band then most people would say that she needs to be “hot” or “desirable” to attract attention. I agree that the bar is set much higher for women to look good for the audience but then again I think that other bands, male led bands, have the same problem. I don’t really want to see an Edguy show and have Tobias Sammet rolled out like a beached whale and have him excrete greasy porkish sweat on me throughout the concert. I also don’t want a band to come out onstage wearing some dirty old rag for a shirt and a pair of holy jeans and then stand there and go, “Hey. Let me see some hands. C’mon guys (yawns) let’s go. Wooo.” Let’s face it, while some people find Angela Gossow attractive (not my personal cup of tea however, she looks like one of my friends’ mom) she looks like a wild hellbeast when she starts to sing. I’m betting that there aren’t too many guys in the audience that will go, “Oh man, all I came to the show for was to drool over Gossow but now that she looks like she’s gonna tear my balls off I’m gonna leave!” Another thing that irks me is when people complain that the woman gets all the attention in the band. Of course that is going to happen! If you’re target audience is 90% men then yea, the majority of promo or publicity shots will be centered on the female. Just remember though that while she sometimes might be the center of attention, there is another group of people there, one of which is the composer of every hit song the band has had (*cough*Tuomas Holopainen *cough*).

Why get a female to front your band in the first place? I know some people that think that having female vocals kills the band completely. I think that to disregard a band because of the fact there’s a woman singing is incredibly ignorant and retarded. Two major things come to my attention on why it’s helpful to get a woman to front your band. One, if she has a great range then she can bring a whole other side to explore musically and can take the band to levels never reached before. Two, like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, more attention will be given to the band through her as opposed to another bunch of guys in denim and leather (although there’s nothing wrong with that!). I think that this is really what pushed Evanescence into the limelight. They have a good looking singer that has a large range and the band plays really bad nu-metal so bam, there you go. You have more attention due to Amy Lee and you have the nu-metal structure and then the cd’s fly off the shelves. On a side note, the first person to tell me that Nightwish is an Evanescence rip off will be assaulted verbally until they cry.

Now that we’ve discussed women in metal bands, what about the female factor in the audience portion of the scene. I’ve noticed that there has been a slight, very slight, increase in metal with chicks. In Europe there seems to be a moderate number of girls that show up to Power Metal concerts, I just wish I was there too ha! For the longest time metal seemed to be shunned by “normal” females and all we metalheads seemed to have gotten were chicks with massive amounts of eye shadow, fishnet stockings, black lipstick, a morbid fascination with death and the forest, and they’d do something inane and stupid like cut themselves and write in their diaries about the pain, oh the pain. Granted, some sub-sects of metal probably still have those same girls as their fans but finally there are normal, non death obsessed girls that don’t seem to like to cut themselves buying metal albums and going to shows on their own accord instead of being dragged there by their boyfriends. I don’t think that there will be the big explosion there was in the 80’s, (and I hope that doesn’t happen either) but now it seems that it isn’t that terribly difficult to go see say, Dream Evil live and find an ok looking chick there into the music like you are.

Finally it seems that women and metal are mixing in a non abrasive manner. For the open minded we have some great bands that bring us extraordinary music and if you are in Europe you also have the opportunity to talk to a chick about Edguy or Blind Guardian without them going, “huh? What? Eminem?” I’m still waiting for the latter to happen to me though.

Killing Songs :
Ben quoted
Other albums by .Editorial that we have reviewed:
.Editorial - Horny For Harpsichord reviewed by Ben and quoted
.Editorial - Why I need to take a break from writing for MetalReviews reviewed by Alex and quoted
.Editorial - USA / Germany Thrash Match: Big Four Style reviewed by Ben and quoted
.Editorial - Re: Reissues and Remasters reviewed by Ben and quoted
.Editorial - A Brief Run Through Power Metal (in 3 1/2 stages) reviewed by Ben and quoted
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