"I said, even though you know what you know..."
I’m excited to announce a new column here at Concert Hopper, we’re calling it “She Said, She Said”. We’re launching it today to coincide with Women’s History Month. I’m going to take this opportunity to explain what it is exactly, what our vision is for it, and of course, why that specific title.
What this is going to be is a space for female music fans to have their voices and opinions heard. It’s 2019 and yes, there are many wonderful female music writers out there, but let’s be honest, the conversation is still dominated by men. This is not a hit or attack on men, so no need for anyone to get sensitive here, but this is hopefully going to be a column that helps normalize the role that women hold, and have always held, in music fandom.
Look around you at any concert or music store, and like everywhere else in society, you’re going to see a lot of women. We’re literally half the population. Fangirls, much like fanboys, are not a homogeneous group. There’s as much a diversity of thought and opinion amongst us women as there is amongst men when it comes to our favorite albums, guitarists, singers, etc.
I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I just want to uplift and shine a light on all the amazing, silly, insightful, contentious, revolutionary, and differing thoughts and opinions on music from the other half of the population. After all, why should only the boys have any fun?
So this will be a column written exclusively by women. Not necessarily only about women in music, but always written by a woman about music. If that includes talking more about female artists on the stage, in the studio, or behind the scenes, than cool. If it’s just us gushing about how sexy Hozier is, not a problem. It doesn’t matter what the specific subject is from article to article, as long as it’s about something to do with music and is from a woman’s perspective, that’s all we’re aiming for here.
My hope to have a steady rotation of female writers every week, as we launch we’re starting small, it’s literally me and some like minded friends, but if you’re a fellow female fan who is interested in joining us (or know of one), than head on up to the top of the page, and under the “About” tab, click “contribute your talent” and let us know! We want as many diverse voices as possible and would love to have you on contribute! Just as an example, I barely know anything in depth about the Metal genre or Country or what it’s like to be a female fan of either of those scenes, so it’d be great to get more experienced voices out there to tell us all about it!
We’re calling it “She Said, She Said” for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not a reference to The Office (that’s what she said [Editor’s Note: "That's what she said" actually came from Wayne's World. :p –Taryn]), but a reference to The Beatles song “She Said She Said” off of their seventh studio album Revolver. Taryn and I thought the additional comma was more grammatically correct and visually looked better (sorry Beatles, LOL). Secondly, I’m a huge Beatles fan, but honestly it just works as a title because this column is literally intended to be women talking about music. So it works as a simple descriptive of what you should expect here: nothing more, nothing less.
I plan on giving a bit more of a background account of what exactly inspired this venture in an upcoming piece, but for now, I want to just focus on introducing the column and giving any of you who are reading this, an idea of what to expect and what we’re hoping to do here. Again, this isn’t some new fangled concept and I’m glad that there are so many more women out there getting their music related thoughts and opinions published than ever before, but we still have a long way to go. I hope you join us for the ride!