10 essential songs for International Women’s Day

‘The Feminine Urge’ – The Last Dinner Party

As current rising artists with no signs of slowing down, The Last Dinner Party know a thing or two about the struggles of starting out in the music industry. Even at this year’s Brit Awards, they used their platform to air their displeasures with artist support and funding, with lead singer Abigail Morris calling for action to save the country’s grassroots venues.

Throughout Prelude to Ecstasy, this passion shines through. Despite the unwavering spotlight on ‘Nothing Matters’, songs like ‘The Feminine Urge’ highlight their commitment to never backing down, no matter the challenges that may present themselves along the way. It’s an anthem for all the rage that lurks inside us, delivered with a smile, the kind that promises to wreak havoc when the time is just right. Or even better, when the timing is wrong.

‘I Do This All The Time’ – Self Esteem

Like many of us, Self Esteem is tired. As a woman, and especially a woman in music, there are always signifiers of success being barked left, right, and centre, like the most important thing you can do is give a damn. In ‘I Do This All The Time’, Self Esteem acknowledges these pressures with resigned exhaustion, challenging the notion that women should exist to satisfy perfect strangers.

“Don’t be intimidated by all the babies they have / Don’t be embarrassed that all you’ve had is fun / Prioritise pleasure,” sings one of the song’s most defining lines, hoping to address the many women who have ever felt quashed or disregarded by society’s strange desire to uphold unrealistic or dated expectations. It’s a call for others to challenge their thinking, but more importantly, it’s a flag hoisted for women to remember there’s nothing wrong with their own path.

‘Salad’ – Blondshell

Despite the commonality of such messages and occurrences, songs that address sexual assault are too often viewed as radicalised musings of women out for blood. On the contrary, Blondshell mastered the craft of blending suffering with hard-hitting anthems, using grounding guitar riffs and a commanding vocal to drive the point home.

‘Salad’ isn’t for the weak-hearted. It immediately grabs you with its immediacy before pulling you into her rage-filled world, scorned by the wrongdoings of someone she longs to hurt back: “I would take a gun out / Put some poison in his salad / And it wouldn’t be so bad / it wouldn’t hurt the world,” she sings, capturing the devastation of a broken soul.

‘Boys Will Be Boys’ – Stella Donnelly

“Boys will be boys” has been a long-accepted validator of below-the-belt schoolboy behaviour since, well, always. In this tragically heartfelt track by Stella Donnelly, she centralises everything unjust about such casual expressions by spotlighting her own experiences and how, often, so-called “bad behaviour” falls on the shoulders of women.

With delicate finger-picking and a voice on the cusp of a broken whisper, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is a heartwrenching affair, sobering enough to cloud your vision with unshed tears on Donnelly’s behalf as frustration begins to underscore the broader need for belated justice. At least, if for nothing else, she anchors the promise of a subtle threat: “I will never let you rest.”

‘I’m A Man’ – Kim Gordon

Last year, Kim Gordon proved her fight for justice is far from over with the charged anthem ‘I’m A Man’. However, instead of addressing issues in a more straightforward and distinctive manner, Gordon used US Senator Josh Hawley as inspiration for capturing the questionable demeanour such figures always adopt in framing themselves as victims.

While this position may come across as confusing as Gordon shouts a series of seemingly removed questions and remarks from the perspectives of such figures, like “So what if I like the big truck?” and “Don’t call me toxic / Just ’cause I like your butt,” this actually achieves the opposite. After all, toxic masculinity has always been a contradictory performance, so why not poke fun at it?

‘King’ – Florence and the Machine

No one seems more fitting in today’s intensely convoluted political climate than Florence Welch. Although she has never really been that forthcoming when it comes to such issues, her music feels like a vast and overwhelming embrace of everything the music industry should be, akin to a grand, oceanic wave washing all your troubles away.

There are countless examples of Welch’s talent and how she captures such visceral experiences, but her most direct when it comes to addressing inequality is the soaring anthem, ‘King’. The song tackles her own feelings towards sacrifice as a woman in the industry and how bearing the crown of a “king” comes with shedding yourself of other desires, like getting married or having children. This isn’t a desire for every woman in music, but here she presents the nuances of adapting in an industry where it’s often one or the other, no questions asked.

‘6 in the Morning’ – Nuha Ruby Ra

Almost every woman in music has some strangely off-kilter story about an egotistical man whose propensity for proving their worth got in the way of a good night. For Nuha Ruby Ra, this came in the form of an early-hours after-party when a man did the one thing most would deem the ultimate manifestation of narcissism: turned the spotlight on himself.

In a somewhat Nadine Shah-esque fashion, Ra captures this off-putting display of toxic masculinity in ‘6 in the Morning’, capturing the feeling of a good time suddenly turning unsettling by the actions of one irritating individual. Commenting on the track, she also captures the haze of processing all of these strange moments even at the height of enjoyment: “A few surprises walk through the door as always. Not always good. The music’s great. 98% of everyone I see I love. I must avoid being punished in a corner.”

’50ft Queenie’ – PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey never really needed to announce herself as a feminist because she already embodied its politics—whether she intended to or not. After releasing her first album, 1992’s Dry, Harvey appeared as a fierce, towering figure ready to quash anyone in her path, especially the more irritatingly bravado types that said men were the only ones equipped to revolutionise the punk rock scene.

Harvey herself might not care much for the feminist label, but ’50ft Queenie’ unintentionally became a punk rock feminist anthem by nature with her yells to put entitled and domineering men in their place and threats of quashing all those who came in her way. “I’ll tell you my name / F-U-C-K,” she sings, “Fifty foot queenie / Force ten hurricane / Biggest woman.” The broken flow adds to its aggression, appearing more like a vehement chant than a song with any real sense of narrative structure.

‘Rebel Girl’ – Bikini Kill

There’s a reason why Bikini Kill became synonymous with the Riot Grrrl movement, and most of them point towards Kathleen Hanna’s immense resilience amid times of struggle. After all, Hanna has experienced everything wrong with the industry first-hand, beginning with her attempts to expose its insidiousness and the subsequent controversy that followed.

‘Rebel Girl’ always lapped the blood-tinged winds of a generation who had grown sick of their own oppression. The anthem, which quickly exploded into every corner of punk before it even had an official release, became a battle cry, pushing against the tides of apathy with the feverish intent of pure, unfiltered rage.

‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ – Amyl and the Sniffers

Usually, when discussing modern issues, it’s difficult for artists to get the balance right between sound and intention. For Amyl and the Sniffers, this is never an issue, as any live performance always ensures you leave the floor with the same aggression they fire with words alone. With Comfort To Me, they made sure everybody knew they weren’t messing around.

Relatively self-explanatory, ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ pokes fun at attitudes that harass women for their choices, specifically regarding appearance or clothing items. It picks apart the endless culture of making women feel bad or self-conscious for simply existing in rock spaces and holds up a mirror to all those old dudes who ever felt the need to comment. As Amy Taylor put it: “It’s also in a way poking fun at the shock that people still feel at a little bit of skimpy clothing, and the bitchy high school way that the music community still is.”

Adding: “Yes, I’m talking to you random 40 year old metalheads sitting around a table doing lines and bitching about a 28 year old chick in a band for wearing shorts and ‘selling out’. But it mainly makes me laugh. It’s unconscious and meant nothing at the time of writing it but now I think it’s a comedic way of rubbing the dog’s nose in its own dog piss after it wee’d on your favorite rug or something.”