Your Take: Male Artists Vs. Female Artists

Personally, I don’t have a preference when I’m listening; a good song is a good song no matter the gender of the artist.

That said, I do like when artists cover “opposite” (to borrow from Miss California’s lexicon) songs. I think my favorite example of this is The White Stripes’ cover of “Jolene.” Jack White didn’t worry about the lyrics “please don’t take my man,” but recognized it for what it was–a freakin’ awesome song.

Lyle Lovett’s cover of “Stand By Your Man” is a good one too; but his delivery didn’t affect my appreciation/understanding of the song as much as hearing it on The Crying Game soundtrack, which adds another facet entirely.

I used to be more easily drawn to male voices, but I’ve gained a great appreciation for female artists in the last year. Now, I think I may even gravitate toward them more without realizing it, sometimes. Really though, I probably like them pretty equally now, while that wasn’t the case before.

As much as I love Dolly and the original “Jolene”, Jack White leaves her version in the dust.:) Now, when I hear Dolly’s, I’m like “Sound like you mean it, Girl!”

I’ve always been drawn to female songs. For example, I think the vulnerability in Reba’s voice can convey heartache better than anyone else. (She’s good at empowerment anthems too.) Alternatively, my mom seems to enjoy the music of men more than I do (Toby Keith, etc.).

My music collection is dominated by men, so I’d say that I gravitate towards songs sung from the male perspective.

I’d a lot rather hear Sara and Maybelle sing “I Am A Stern Old Bachelor” than Jack White sing “Jolene.” Or Carter Stanley sing “Single Girl, Married Girl,” or Ralph sing “Little Willie” (”When I was in my sixteenth year/little Willie courted me”). But that’s just me. The point is, Ms. Tucker, Ms. Loveless et.al. notwithstanding, this isn’t in any way a modern phenomenon; that kind of “opposite” singing has been around since the dawn of country music.

I generally prefer the guys and the old school girls. I get the feeling from many contemporary female artists that (overall) they have no personal, unifying element that ties the subject matter back to the artists’ themselves in the diverse subjects they try to cover. Like the have multiple personalities rather than complex personalities. Tammy, Reba, Dolly have great songs about a lot of different things, but their songs were always “theirs”.

Modern ladies (not all) also seem to have a major problem discerning “tough girl” from “total bitch”…

I agree with Juli; a good song is a good song, regardless of the gender of the artist. I listen to pretty much an even split of male and female artists.

Barbara Mandrell once said that she was given some advice early in her career, before she had accumulated enough hits do an entire show of original material, to never cover another female artist’s songs because the audience will always compare you — and usually unfavorably — to the original artist (i.e., “Who does she think she is, singing Loretta’s/Tammy’s/Dolly’s song?”). That type of judgment is less likely to be made when a female is covering a male artist’s songs.

That being said, some songs just don’t work well when sung from the opposite sex’s point of view. A song like “Jolene” should never be sung by a man, IMO.

I lean heavily towards male artists. Like Brady and Dan mentioned–I can relate. I do enjoy stuff by female singers like Miranda Lambert, Trisha Yearwood, Lee Ann Womack, and the classics, of course.

Classics aside, very little music is catered towards men anymore.

Of the top 25 songs on the charts, which ones are strictly catered to males? None. And I’d say about half of them are unisex.

That being said, a lot of the stuff coming out of Texas (and elsewhere) I seem to enjoy because they do a better job of relating to my male-ness.

While I was married, it was mostly guy songs. Once I got divorced, it’s now female songs especially the angst ones against men

“That said, I think that while Jon is right that men and women have always sung songs written from the point of view of the other sex, he’s missing the fact (which Tucker sort of gets at in that interview) that men and women have historically been given different (though overlapping) emotions and viewpoints to express in songs written “for” them…”

I didn’t miss it, I chose not to comment on it ;-). It’s no surprise that, as in every other vernacular artistic genre, content tends to reflect the prevailing attitudes in the audiences at which they’re directed.

I lean heavily towards male artists, but that doesnt mean that that is all I listen to either. More than anything, I am attracted to a well written song, so I also listen to a lot of Lee Ann Womack, Miranda Lambert, Yearwood and Sunny Sweeney.

I usually prefer to listen a female vocal on a song – even if the song has been recorded by a man too. I was drawn to country music by singers like Reba, Wynonna, and Trisha Yearwood, so that may be a factor in who my favorites still are. But to me, the females have always solicited more emotion in their vocals as well as their lyrics.

Heartbreak songs tend to be my favorite, and the women in country music seem to have a better grasp on heartache. I still enjoy a good aching male vocal just the same: Ronnie Dunn can nail you the wall with a song like ‘She Used To Be Mine’ just as well as Reba sings ‘For My Broken Heart’. So it really depends on the singer and the song.

Unless its Emmylou Harris, I prefer men artists, in part because I find today’s women artists, except for Leeanne Womack to be too sappy. (and even then you can see in her early career the producers trying to make her sappy with dreck like “I hope you Dance.”) I have always found that Willie, Merle and Waylon can reach me far more female singers.

In my opinion, best female cover of a song originally done by a male voice is the cover of Luna Halo’s “Untouchable” by Taylor Swift. I know most on the 9513 don’t like her for whatever reasons, but thats the good thing about music and the many choices we all have in who we listen to. For me, the way she completely adapts the song and sings it makes it her best performance vocally and interpretively. And before anyone immediately responds with “She can’t sing” and all the other tired statements, if you havn’t heard her sing it, listen with open ears; and if you have heard it or you are going to hate it no matter what because you already have a preconcieved dislike of everything she does, then please refrain from making those aforementioned tired one-line declamations.

I’m more drawn to the type of music rather than the gender of the singer. I like story songs, I like the troubador tradition. I love Patsy Cline, Linda Rondstadt and Trisha Yearwood, but I also love Jim Reeves, Glen Campbell and Garth Brooks.

Garth’s song ‘Rodeo’ was originally called ‘Miss Rodeo’ and he was trying to get Trisha to cut it. She was the one who suggested a couple lyric changes and that he cut it. I’ve heard both versions, and the male viewpoint version is a much stronger lyric.