It has been 15 years since Sarah McLachlan launched Lilith Fair as a chance for female musicians to take center stage. The festival lasted three summers (and one revival in 2010) and raised more than US$ 10 million for women's charities.
Mclachlan initially conducted an informal study in the 1990s and found that a "progressive" Seattle radio station only played two women artists' songs in row once in the span of 186 hours. When there was no response to her complaints, she founded Lilith Fair.
Mclachlan's decision was overdue, given the major impact women audiences had made on popular (not just womens' music) in the previous decade. However, popular music reflects the same skewed picture: women are abundant and amazing in this history, but their role is that of a spectacle, or at least that of a 'potential' spectacle.
Looking back at the 3 year period (1997-1999), Lilith Fair was not really promoting feminism as much as an effective venue to launch the careers of budding singers such as Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Lisa Loeb, Sinead O’Connor, Paula Cole, Indigo Girls, Natalie Merchant, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera and Erykah Badu. It was really a good business sense at that time because the industry's sexism was an anachronism; in the context of the 1990s, a business flaw.
Also, the success of men's music (the Beatles, etc.) had always depended as much, or more, on women consumers as men; but until Lilith Fair, ironically few had attempted to define women as a market category.
Overall, Lilith Fair was not really a triumph for women, but a triumph for "narrowcasting": guaranteeing business success by pitching aggressively and exclusively to one group.
Promoters who turned away from Mclachlan during the planning stages realize that they committed a big blunder when the event made 150 percent profit per year compared to the post-punk festivals that preceded it like "Lollapalooza" (some say it hastened the demise of Lollapalooza's increasingly corporate image.)
Mclachlan initially conducted an informal study in the 1990s and found that a "progressive" Seattle radio station only played two women artists' songs in row once in the span of 186 hours. When there was no response to her complaints, she founded Lilith Fair.
Mclachlan's decision was overdue, given the major impact women audiences had made on popular (not just womens' music) in the previous decade. However, popular music reflects the same skewed picture: women are abundant and amazing in this history, but their role is that of a spectacle, or at least that of a 'potential' spectacle.
Also, the success of men's music (the Beatles, etc.) had always depended as much, or more, on women consumers as men; but until Lilith Fair, ironically few had attempted to define women as a market category.
Overall, Lilith Fair was not really a triumph for women, but a triumph for "narrowcasting": guaranteeing business success by pitching aggressively and exclusively to one group.
Promoters who turned away from Mclachlan during the planning stages realize that they committed a big blunder when the event made 150 percent profit per year compared to the post-punk festivals that preceded it like "Lollapalooza" (some say it hastened the demise of Lollapalooza's increasingly corporate image.)
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