Teary-eyed delegates. Two feet lodged on a sticky floor. Purple-pink haze on stage. Singer in a black and white polka-dot puffy dress. A red Nord keyboard. I am amongst a crowd of fans, creatives, and industry giants at Eclipse in Fortitude Valley for Heleina Zara’s last BIGSOUND show, trying to name 5 things directly in my view (a grounding technique that my therapist, Michelle, once taught me). Heleina is singing Wait, detailing the isolation she experienced after the end of a long-distance relationship. It took me back to a few Septembers ago, where I spent most of that month staring at my “Find My iPhone” app for hours on end – watching my ex-lover glide through streets I had never even set foot in after our relationship ended in flames. As much as I want to run at this moment, it feels too much of a hassle to muster up squeaks of “Excuse Me” to three different people with tears streaming down my face. All that’s left to do is to stay and let the last remnants of hurt linger in my body for a while.
My growth as a woman can be distinctly catalogued in pop albums or concerts that have mirrored my reality back to me and thus morphed into cathartic experiences after which I feel my wounds scabbed, my sadness dampened, and my loneliness lessened. Despite feeling my heart throb out of my chest and onto the floor when this catharsis is facilitated, I know this continuous process of trust only plays out one way: my favourite women in pop have always cushioned my landing with their words and melodies, my heart still beating in their hands, and just like that I know I’m still alive. I was okay then, I am okay now, and I will be okay tomorrow.
It comes to no one’s surprise that I felt this niggling feeling of frustration throughout BIGSOUND, watching incredible women in pop – whose music could inspire and heal legions of young girls and women – perform to audiences of less than twenty people on makeshift stages in medium-sized pubs. My fury is tripled when I spend my evenings back at my hotel opening the Pandora’s box that is Reddit, trying to find answers for why our local music charts are fronted by international pop acts (who are also incredibly deserving of success, needless to say) but not our own. “Why does Australia suck at pop music in the current era?” a Redditor asks. “I’m not talking about bands or electronic acts. I’m talking about pop stars who can compete internationally.” The answers range from the usual “pop music is trash” to “Sucking at pop music is like sucking at catching herpes”. Witnessing the emerging Aussie and Kiwi women in BIGSOUND’s pop scene confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for a while now: Australia isn’t short of gifted homegrown pop talent, we’re just not paying attention.
A large group of people persistently scorn pop music, whether subconsciously or not, believing that the genre merely consists of a commercial sound that reflects whatever’s popular in culture while having no greater depth. Yet, we have a microcosm of Aussie female pop artists who could easily spit in the face of this stereotype if critics notice the deep authenticity that prevails through their music, despite existing in an industry that attempts to squeeze them into cookie-cutter moulds of femininity. Thelma Plum is one of them. I vividly remember hearing her perform songs off her debut album, Better in Blak, at my university after my first year of moving to Australia. Sitting on wet grass, I tried stifling my tears as she sang: “I’ll be my own homecoming queen / as long as it feels good to me”, referencing the specific blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty standard upheld by most of mainstream Australian society. Despite Thelma’s experience as an Indigenous Australian being wildly different from mine, for the first time I felt that someone had accurately and poignantly described the feelings of alienation and insecurity I had experienced in this country – which were difficult to explain to my loved ones in Malaysia or even my white friends here who hadn’t gone through the same experience.
“Australia doesn’t really understand pop music and dance music…or music that’s enjoyed by, or made by young women, queer people and Black people,” said Mallrat in a tweet, responding to the lack of diversity amongst those nominated for the ARIA Awards in 2022. At the time, only 3 of 10 ARIA nominees in the best solo artist category were women while one non-male band member was represented in the best group and album of the year categories. Fast forward a year later in 2023, we still dealt with the same numbers and this year leaves little hope left. CEO of ARIA and PPCA, Annabelle Heard, responded to Mallrat’s call-out in a statement: “It’s our mission to create opportunities for Australian music to be heard by all who create it, if we are not getting enough success for female artists or non-binary artists, we need to tackle that at source.” Frankly, I find this response disappointing. If every major player in the industry focused on enacting changes relevant to them (which I will get into in the latter part of this article), recognising their important role in changing how music is created, distributed, and evaluated, rather than spending all their time pointing fingers at each other – perhaps I wouldn’t have had to add my voice to a never-ending collective chant demanding for Aussie women in pop to be seen, heard, and valued.
This struggle to be recognised is intensified for women of colour, queer people, and specifically First Nations Artists pursuing music, who face a unique set of intersectional barriers altogether. A few years ago, Thelma Plum, for example, experienced cruel backlash at the hands of racist online trolls after she spoke up about copping racial violence and sexist abuse from a well-known indie-rock band. Though she remained tireless in advocating to protect and celebrate other First Nations and diverse artists in pop and beyond, on top of releasing a gloriously beautiful album after the fact, at that, I struggle with the idea that women and people of colour are simply expected to crawl through mud alone – accept these struggles as obstacles inherently embedded in the process of pursuing music – and rise above it all. In addition to the mental roadblocks that diverse pop artists comply with, they also have to fight to receive the same remuneration as their counterparts. In tandem with Macquarie University, the Australia Council for the Arts 2022 report found that women across all artistic occupations in Australia were paid 29% less on average if their first language was not English compared to women for whom it was.
When women do break into the pop industry and become mainstream, they face a distinct set of challenges altogether, where the challenge is not only to survive but to thrive. When Aussie pop princess Peach PRC (pictured at Splendour 2023) appeared in the Triple J studio with her signature white moon boots and pink hair, blessing us with a near-flawless cover of Cascada’s Everytime We Touch last year, she was immediately barraged with a string of sexist comments such as “another stripper who thinks she can sing” after the video was circulated on social media. “I think a lot of it does come from misogyny,” Peach PRC says in an interview with Harpers Bazaar. “I think it’s just anything that predominantly women enjoy, men seem to be angry about.” Women seem to have to climb a ladder that only gets steeper when they get closer to the top, and when they do get there, there’s a ticking time bomb for how long they can savour the view.
Kylie Minogue, for instance, still falls victim to uninteresting and sexist questions such as “What age do you think it is still OK to be in pop music or to be sexy in pop?” despite boasting three decades worth of accolades and experiences that a pop music enthusiast like me would do anything to pick her brain about. Stocker, otherwise known as Bria Harper, is also no stranger to the music industry’s standards for women concerning their image or appearance. Sitting next to her balcony, she tells me over Zoom that her biggest frustration as a woman in pop music lies in having to think about how to market herself. “My weight change has never really affected me but it really hit me hard because of BIGSOUND,” she says. “It’s not BIGSOUND itself – but the industry as a whole and how they view women – I was like, ‘I’m not in my peak shape.’ Am I going to miss out on opportunities because I look bigger on stage than I usually do? That’s something that upsets and frustrates me.”
Though the music industry is often portrayed as this honourable and progressive bubble that separates itself from society, or even, a vehicle for social change, we know that the beauty and reality of art are that it’s never created in a vacuum. The music industry reflects and, as we’ve seen, propagates broader societal values and issues – misogyny and sexual abuse exist in the music industry because our society, as a whole, is rife with gender-based violence. The Raising Their Voices 2022 report, which surveyed 1600 people who worked in music, found that 78% of respondents confessed to experiencing a variation of “everyday sexism” all through their careers. The report found 74% of perpetrators of sexual harassment to be men, concluding that women, as well as young adults and people of diverse backgrounds, find it tougher to thrive in the Australian music scene to the same extent as men. It also revealed that only 3% of participants have formally reported their experience(s) with sexual harassment despite a staggering 55% having experienced some form of it within their workplaces. How can women feel safe enough to report their experiences with sexual abuse if the industry is mostly crowded with men?
With 65% of all heads of businesses, 62% of executives, and 60% of key management personnel in the Australian music industry being men, we have to hold every organisation within the music industry accountable, ensuring that they are effectively increasing the number of women in executive positions. Without women in “gatekeeping” roles within the industry (agents, promoters, and programmers), how can we ensure that the interests of women in and outside of pop are represented otherwise? Award shows and festival organisers need to stop evading their responsibilities and understand that they, too, have a part to play in this. As outlined in the ‘Recommendations’ section of the Raising Their Voices 2022 report, the industry must ensure that a quota is in place that prevents women (in pop) and other diverse groups from missing out on nominations and other opportunities. Commercial radio stations should strive to celebrate our own local up-and-coming women in pop in the same way that community radio stations have (at present, the music on rotation is mostly from internationally stratospheric pop artists).
While there is progress underway with shows such as Abbie Chatfield’s on NOVA.FM – who spotlights local musicians in a segment of her program – it’s not a nearly adequate effort. As a collective, we need to understand that women have discussed, analysed and tried to overcome sexism enough, but everyone else also has the responsibility to pick up the baton and join us (even beyond the music industry). If you are a straight white man who frequents the Australian music scene, what are you doing to keep women punters, creatives, workers, and artists safe outside of International Women’s Day? What do you say about pop music around your mates even if it may not be your first choice of music? As listeners, we must champion our local pop acts the way we do international artists. What’s most disappointing is that Australian artists, specifically women, often have to consider moving overseas to break into global markets if they want to pursue success. While Mallrat’s gorgeous pop record, Butterfly Blue wasn’t appreciated by the ARIAs and arguably, local audiences, international acts like the Chainsmokers and Azealia Banks definitely took notice.
In a world that seems to misunderstand women deliberately, I am grateful to have had women in pop music as my constellations – Taylor Swift, Thelma Plum, Mallrat, Lorde, and Vera Blue, to name a few. What makes pop music good is precisely what makes every other genre of music good — when done right, it’s a resistance against the unforgiving hardships and grievances of life and it’s a reminder that despite all the losses, failures, heartbreaks, and bad decisions we endure, what us humans do best is this: we create worlds that are equally as beautiful to live in as they are complicated.
This piece was created as part of The Music Writer’s Lab 2024 Commissioning Fund
Peach PRC photos by Bruce Baker. Pic of Mallrat by Kerrie Geier.
