Original subtitles

Previously on Women Who Rock...

The Wilson Sisters of Heart--

they were women who

carved the way for a lot of us.

At the time, there weren't very many

bands with girls in.

Joni Mitchell was my queen.

Her voice soared through.

Women had started

asserting their power through music.

I wanted to be a musician who happened to be a girl,

not girl musician.

There was suddenly, like, an underground punk scene,

and it was Blondie, and Patti.

We thought Patti was the punk priestess,

and Debbie, she was the punk princess.

I got more power during my solo career

'cause it was just me.

MTV was a massive culture shift.

It changed everything.

[amplifier feedback]

[electric guitar strum]

Growing up, when I discovered

these incredible women making rock music,

I mean, that's, like-- that's the dream.

People would be like, "Whoa,

look at that little gal with that big guitar,"

like a novelty.

[Benatar] I wanted to break the boys' club.

I wanted to break down that bullshit.

[Khan] I said, "Let me tell you something.

I'm going to be a star with or without you."

[Jett] Growing up, I thought,

"There's gotta be other girls

that wanna play rock 'n' roll.

I can't be the only one."

[Twain] There's something very liberating

about being able to take on a rock 'n' roll attitude

and not have to abandon your femininity at the same time.

[Crow] There were lots of obstacles along the way for me,

but I knew the only person that could drive my ship

that I felt I could trust was me.

[Staples] I'm not a diva.

I love people. I'm a people person.

I'm just Mavis.

Just Mavis.

Yep.

♪♪♪

Mm-hmm. I still have those curtains.

Well, I really like her.

She had a lot of sass, so I really like her.

[chuckles]

[Pat Benetar's "Heartbreaker" plays]

♪♪♪

Love me some Pat.

["Heartbreaker" continues]

♪ Your love is like a tidal wave ♪

♪ Spinning over my head

I know every word to that song, yeah.

Badass. [laughs]

♪ You're the right kind of sinner ♪

♪ To release my inner fantasy

I love the tone of voices.

There's a clarity there,

but at the same time, she's got that rasp.

[Benatar holding note]

-[lip syncs] - ♪ You're a heartbreaker

♪ Dream maker

♪ Love taker

♪ Don't you mess around with me ♪

♪ You're a heartbreaker

♪ Dream maker

♪ Love taker Don't you mess around ♪

♪ No, no, no

[Benatar] People say, "Which ones

will you never get tired of playing?"

That's definitely number one.

Never tired of it.

Pat Benatar could really put it across.

She sang rockin' songs, and yet she was

this petite, cool-looking,

take-no-prisoners kind of artist.

Those songs, still, when you hear them,

they are as fresh and as real as they were then.

They transcend.

From '80 to '84, I was in a cover band.

I was the keyboard player,

and then our front singer quit,

and I got catapulted to the leader of the band,

and it took me a while to get adjusted

to being the front person,

and at that time,

the music that was out was Pat Benatar,

and that was what I cut my teeth on

as far as performing for audiences.

And you stepped into the rock chick persona

when you sang those songs.

To sing Pat Benatar, you had to own it.

You know, you had to step into it.

She was a standout,

and, you know, she's had quite a story.

[Benatar] It just used to irritate me

that so early in life,

you had already been given

a little, like, thing that you had to be

because you were small,

or a girl, or whatever, that kind of thing.

So I'm sure that had a lot to do with it.

So how did you react?

Um, usually punching. [laughs]

[Benatar] My family were working-class people.

We were just kind of scraping by all the time.

My mother had to work as well,

and I saw women wallpapering,

mowing the lawn,

fixing the plumbing,

you know, doing every single thing.

My mother's paycheck counted in our house.

The biggest shock of all

was when I got out in the real world

and somebody was telling me I couldn't do something

because I was a girl,

and I was like, "What are you talking about?"

You know what I mean?

Like, what are we talking about here?

That's not my experience.

In the '70s,

I left New York

and I was working in a bank.

I was planning on going to school,

but I joined a band. I just joined a band,

and, you know, it was, like, a lounge band.

We were, you know, singing at the Holiday Inn

at the airport in Richmond, Virginia.

You know, I just thought that, "This isn't enough."

Like, if you're going to do this,

you need to really go back to New York.

And I just decided one day to go back to New York

and try singing professionally, so I went, um...

I went to this place called Catch a Rising Star.

It's a comedy club in New York,

and I went for an audition,

and I just started singing there,

and then, I don't know,

it just started to happen after that.

I sang "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody,"

and I was so scared that when I finished,

I sang the last notes, you know, with my eyes closed like that,

and people were screaming, and I was like,

you know, one eye, like,

"What's happening here?" you know.

And the guy who owned the club,

he, like, swung the door open,

and he said, "Come here," then he said,

"How come I don't know who you are?"

I go, "'Cause I just got here,"

and that was the beginning of everything.

The minute that I met Neil,

it was just insanity. [laughs]

The minute he played one note, I knew that was it.

I knew that was exactly what I was hearing in my head.

And we just went to work, you know.

We were players first,

before we were ever together as lovers,

and, uh, 40 years married now.

It was Halloween, and I dressed up

from this ridiculous movie called Cat-Women of the Moon.

So I put, like, on this leotard and these tights

and these little short boots, so we went,

"Let's all go back up to Catch and perform in our costumes."

I'm like, "Okay."

I did the same songs that I had been doing

for, you know, six, seven months.

Something changed.

People went nuts. Like, crazy nuts.

♪♪♪

It did something for them,

but it also did something for me.

I was playing a part--

this other alter ego.

It felt like armor.

It made me feel like,

you know, that.

My way, my terms.

I'm showing you my body because I want to.

And it worked for a really long time,

until they wanted it like that,

and then when they wanted it like that,

I was like, "Mm-mm.

My thing, not yours."

That was it. Done. No more.

I threw many record company executives

out of our house--

literally out the door-- for being assholes.

I knew that I had something they wanted really badly,

and if they were going to get it,

they were going to have to do it--

at least halfway my way.

I wanted to break the boys' club.

I did.

I wanted to break down that bullshit.

♪♪♪

We had no idea what was about to happen

because of MTV.

It was a tremendous culture shift.

Up until that point,

people could see you in concert,

and they could see you on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert,

and Midnight Special.

That was it.

I was from a really small town,

and I would go to Blightmore Drugs,

and all of us kids, on Saturdays,

would sit there by this big magazine rack,

and look at all these magazines,

like Rolling Stoneand Creem

and Teen Beatand 16,

and what we thought of as rock 'n' roll

were in those pictures.

We didn't have MTV.

We didn't have cable.

We didn't have tabloids.

There was none of that,

so it was very imagined

by these incredible portrayals of who they were in magazines.

♪♪♪

[Benatar] We became the second video

ever played on MTV.

I'm the first female to ever be on MTV,

and Neil was the first guitar player

to ever play on MTV.

The first day that it was on, we all sat glued to the TV.

We're sitting on the, you know, horrible bedspread

that's in that crappy motel that we're in,

you know what I mean?

Watching the TV, because they had cable,

And after 10 days

of MTV being open and on the air,

couldn't go anywhere.

We were in Virginia Beach,

and the record was just flying up the charts

and going crazy.

We were pulling up to a club,

and I'm looking out the window,

and I see cops everywhere, barricades up.

People are running all over, screaming, yelling.

I'm thinking, "Oh, my God,

there must have been a terrible accident.

What happened?"

Well, they oversold the club by a thousand people,

and they were throwing things through the windows of the club,

and people were going crazy

because they wouldn't let them go in.

It was insane.

MTV changed everything.

It was nonstop.

The American living room, all day, all night.

I learned how to play the guitar from MTV.

I used to watch the guitar players.

I used to watch where they put their fingers,

and I was obsessed with MTV.

I used to run home from school

and just sit there for hours and watch these videos.

In the big MTV era,

when you had people like Cyndi Lauper and Madonna,

they came out of this punk tradition

that was very New York-centric,

that was very loud and brash.

[interviewer] How do you feel about being chosen

as one of Ms.magazine's Women of the Year?

Um, I'm flattered. I really am.

Um, I thought it was a slumber party,

so I wore some pajamas.

♪ All the men come in these places ♪

♪ And the men are all the same

♪ You don't look at their faces ♪

♪ And you don't ask their name

♪ I'm your private dancer

♪ A dancer for money

♪ I'll do what you want me to do ♪

♪ I'm your private dancer

♪ A dancer for money

♪ And any old music will do

♪ I'm your private dancer

♪ Dancer for money...

Tina Turner becomes a full-on rock star,

and she does it by creating a new sound,

but also through this look that she adopts,

which is the archetypal look of the mid-'80s

for women in rock.

So she has the wig

that is just her reclaiming everything

that all those '60s rock dudes took from her.

It's more Rod Stewart than Rod Stewart ever could be.

This is a chic designer look.

She's wearing leather,

but it's classy leather, you know?

It's like North Beach leather.

The spiked heels.

This is, like, high fashion.

We look at it now,

and it just looks excessive to us,

but at the time, this was money.

This was power.

This was everything rock could buy.

They were women really asserting themselves

in big ways.

Really distinct personas,

and distinct fashion,

and signature outfits,

and hairdos,

and, you know, crucifixes.

♪♪♪

Madonna was a video star as much as a music star.

She was creating fantasies.

She was projecting an eroticism that worked on a screen,

and that's what people needed in the '80s.

[interviewer] Now, with the single "Like a Virgin,"

how did this song come about and why?

Well, I was laying in my bed one night, and...

Well, I mean, it takes one to know one, doesn't it?

- Um... - [laughs]

[laughs] Probably.

People started talking about her,

and writing about her,

and the word "empowered" arrives.

She's making herself into a sexual object,

so that's okay.

It was kind of an interesting moment,

and it definitely changed things from there on.

Everybody knew in the business

that Madonna was calling the shots.

She was in control of her career.

Madonna projected just absolute self-possession.

She was ultra-feminine.

She had that alpha attitude associated with men,

and she was not going to be anybody's good girl

or anybody's victim.

Nobody was quite as bold

in the way that Madonna was bold.

Berklee had a summer session that anyone could go to.

At that point, it was a jazz school.

There were, like, three people who were into punk and new wave,

so we basically formed a band.

And so that was the first band that I was ever in.

It was called The Young Snakes.

The songs we wrote were just,

you know, atonal, angular, kind of ridiculous.

I was feeling kind of hemmed in by, like,

having to keep it angular and weird all the time,

so the idea of starting a band that was more song-based

became really appealing,

and that was 'Til Tuesday.

At that point, you know,

the holy grail was, like, to get signed.

We had a really arresting '80s new wave look,

and the record company was like,

"We're getting on this new wave train!"

But they didn't understand it.

You know, they were sort of used to a sexy '70s look.

So I would get, like, a lot of,

I'm not going to say "advice"--

"criticism" is more the word--

and then we'd be subjected to

doofuses coming down to the studio

and making comments.

They don't know what they're talking about.

I just could not understand

other people putting their two cents in

who were not either musicians,

or producers, or...

music fans, even,

And to have that, like,

"the madmen are running the asylum" feeling

all the time,

or just that, like,

you're being told "no"

by people who don't know what they're fucking doing,

and who were trying to act

like their jobs are some mystical secret,

was just very frustrating.

I got a lot of pushback.

You know, they just did not expect me to say "no"

to anything.

That thing of, like,

not wanting to be seen as difficult to work with,

is really, you know, like, really powerful.

So much of our lives, we don't really get listened to

and acknowledged for our thoughts and our feelings,

and here were all these people,

and they want to hear you get real with them,

and the business itself gets between you and the fans.

The music business and the marketing people

come in the way and say, "Oh, wait, stop.

We can't have her out there representing our label,"

or whatever. "That won't sell."

♪♪♪

When MTV started,

I felt almost like there were bands

that were playing to MTV.

They were playing up, like, more of the visuals.

And it wasn't just about, like, the live performance.

Back in the day,

you know, the idea of videos was they're movies.

They're three-minute movies.

So you tell a story.

You have a narrative story.

♪ Hush, hush

♪ Keep it down now

♪ Voices carry

♪♪♪

♪ Hush, hush

♪ Keep it down now

♪ Voices carry

♪ Ah, ah

I would not have cast that guy.

Like, when they came up with that guy,

I was like, "What?

Are you out of your mind?"

Like, he was very beefy.

What happened?

Practice run late?

You know, this little hobby of yours

has gone too far.

Why can't you for once do something for me?

Like what?

♪ Oh!

♪ He wants me

♪ But only part of the time

You know, that video's kind of a perfect example

of stuff I did not have control over.

♪ He wants me

Classic standard things, like,

if you're a band that's fronted by a woman,

the record cover is a picture of the woman.

There's no interesting art piece painting.

It's kind of understood, like, well,

the whole point of having a woman in the band

is, like, you know, that you can look at her.

When we got signed, you're in a room.

There are a lot of men in suits

looking at you,

sort of sizing you up in a way,

and it was just this feeling of,

"Is there something expected

that we have to be glamorous,

or look a certain way?

Or is there an expectation

that any sexuality is something that we'll be selling?"

You're talking about a time in the music industry,

and this is still kind of how it is--

it's basically run by men.

You know, the heads of the record labels are men.

The radio programmers are men.

The marketing heads are men.

The agents are men.

The promoters are men.

So when I was coming up,

I was constantly working

against what people

that were making the decisions for my career

perceived me to be,

and how they could make that lucrative.

When you first sign, they try everything, literally,

because they know they can.

It never stopped.

It was just a continual thing.

It was like, "Can't you wear this?"

Or, "You know, I'd like it if you put this makeup on."

Why are you talking to me about this?

You're not talking to him about this.

Like, why don't you mind your business?

There was a lot of sexualization of women

in the '80s, and sort of sexploitation.

It seemed like women were expected to, you know,

pump up the volume, pump up the breasts,

pump up the lips, you know, pump up the hair.

It was fun, but I noticed

that we started out being not really sexualized,

and then as the '80s crept on, and MTV,

we started wearing much more sexy outfits.

It was, like, such a turnaround

from where we'd started,

because, suddenly,

everything that mattered was about the image,

and if somebody was overweight,

or had imperfect skin,

or you didn't have enough hair,

that all had to be fixed, you know.

So for Heart, me and Ann,

we'd always felt like

we could be accepted for exactly who we are,

and how we look, and how we feel,

but MTV took that away from us in a lot of ways.

But it's really what they don't tell you

that comes back to bite you later.

Record companies and MTV,

they couldn't come up with content fast enough,

so it became super spendy.

The record companies make the bands responsible

for a really large portion of their promotion budget.

You were just digging a hole for yourself

that was $400,000 deeper than the day before.

And these video shoots would take one day,

cost $400,000 to $800,000,

which was sometimes more than you'd spend on your album,

and then you'd find out that you were responsible.

It was recoupable against your royalties.

That's one of the ways that MTV really just

put the screws to the artists,

But then, you know, if your video did get played,

then it was great promotion.

To be on MTV was everything.

It was everything, and it meant, again,

that you made it if you were able to get on MTV.

When I first started playing,

my dad was in Santana,

and so I knew all the songs.

My dad played every single day in the home,

practicing the vinyl,

and we hardly turned on the television at all,

And then he would have jam sessions

with other percussionists.

He would have his band rehearse in the living room.

I never took a drum lesson.

I never practiced a day in my life, ever.

My practicing was watching him play,

and he noticed that I loved playing percussion.

My parents never said because you're a young girl,

or you're a young lady,

that you're not supposed to play percussion.

That was never mentioned in my home.

I loved playing with different people.

I loved being a part of a team,

a part of a group as a percussionist,

whether it be Marvin Gaye,

Diana Ross,

or Lionel Richie,

you know, all the different people I've performed with.

At one point,

I was playing with Lionel Richie,

and Prince was coming out to see the shows,

and he just said, "Aren't you tired of,

you know, playing behind other artists?"

Prince would take on these women protégés.

They all had great beauty, great style,

but they were also incredible musicians,

incredible songwriters.

Someone like Susanna Hoffs,

who had a vocal tone that no one else could imitate.

The week that I heard "When Doves Cry"

was the same week

that I got word

that Prince had a song for The Bangles,

and would I go to Sunset Sound, the studio, and pick it up?

I still have the very cassette that I got.

We all hovered around a cassette player

to play the song.

It was "Manic Monday".

You know, it felt like I slipped my foot

into the glass slipper.

["Manic Monday" plays]

♪ I was kissing Valentino

♪ By a crystal-blue Italian stream ♪

♪♪♪

♪ But I can't be late

♪ So then I guess I just won't get paid ♪

He wrote so beautifully for women.

You know, I mean, he just got it.

♪ These are the days...

And he loved to give these songs away.

He loved doing this.

It was a generous act.

♪ It's just another manic Monday ♪

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ I wish it were Sunday

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ That's my fun day

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ My I-don't-have-to-run day

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ It's just another manic Monday ♪

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ I wish it were Sunday

♪ Oh, whoa

♪ Because that's my fun day

♪ It's just another manic Monday ♪

Prince was able to realize

that these women deserved to be taken seriously.

Who is a better percussionist than Sheila E?

I mean, there really isn't one.

I always wanted to be a solo artist,

so he said, "Well, let's just make it happen."

I was like, "Okay."

Well, the next thing I know, I had a record deal.

He's like, "Let's just go in the studio

and record the record."

And it was done in a week.

"Glamorous Life,"

I knew it was a hit the first time

I heard the song on the radio.

["Glamorous Life" plays]

I was driving down Sunset Boulevard in a Mercedes

'cause I'm living "the glamorous life".

The top was down.

-Bam! -[screeching wheels, collision]

A car comes dashing down, and he hits me.

I get out of the car, and I'm shaking.

I'm like, "Oh, my God."

I mean, he really smashed the whole front end of the car.

Cars are stopped,

and no one knows what's happening,

and I was like, "Are you okay?"

He's like, "Yeah. Are you okay?"

and I was like, "Yeah,"

and then I realized for one second,

I could hear "Glamorous Life" playing on the radio.

I'm like, "Do you know this is my song?

This is it! Oh, my God!

This is me, my first time ever hearing my song,

'Glamorous Life,' ah!"

I'm like, "Okay, now I've made it.

I get to hear my song on the radio."

♪ She wants to lead a glamorous life ♪

♪ She don't need a man's touch

♪ She wants to lead a glamorous life ♪

♪ Without love, it ain't much

And I was like,

"You have to show me as who I am first."

That is important.

I am a percussion player

who happens to sing a little bit,

and can dance, and loves what I do,

but if I just come out as a singer,

then I'm like everyone else,

and that's not who I am.

And that was important to share with the people,

but really, to make sure

that the record company understood.

♪ Without love, it ain't much

♪♪♪

My thing was

I'm going to have a strong vision

of what I want to do as a solo artist,

I don't want to go in to any label,

like, not knowing who I am,

I know who I am,

and I want that to be known from the get-go.

This is what I want to look like,

these are the songs I'm going to be writing,

this is who I'm going to be working with.

Being a Black artist,

it's, like, there are certain boxes

that immediately, you know, people want to put you in.

I love rock music. Like I say,

I love jazz music.

I love punk music,

and so I wanted to just bring all of it in.

I didn't want to be like anyone else,

and I was very specific about that

with the label when I signed.

♪ Friends will let you down

♪ Friends won't be around

♪ When you need them most

♪ Where are your friends?

- ♪ Yeah, yeah - When I did "Friends,"

I thought it would be great to have Rakim do the verse.

He's one of my favorite lyricists, rappers,

just one of the best to ever do it.

I pitched the concept to MCA.

At first, they didn't get it.

There were no collaborations, really.

There were a couple,

but they hadn't really done well.

They didn't see how it would work

because he's Rakim. "That's hip hop.

Like, how is it going to work?

You're an R&B, pop singer.

Like, we don't get it."

♪ Friends are hard to find

♪ Friends, yours and mine

♪ I'm talking about your friends ♪

♪ You used to kiss me Tell me you missed me ♪

♪ But now you try to glaze me ♪

♪ Play me, and dis me

♪ I'm wide awake

♪ Ready to break so we'd argue ♪

♪ What happened to the kisses

♪ And "Ra, how are you?"

It really set the tone

for what we still hear in music today

with rap song collaborations.

It was a top 10 on multiple charts.

That really kind of opened the door

for other artists and labels

to know that this, it works.

Jody Watley, as a writer, I always thought was amazing,

you know what I mean? Like, it was soul

in a whole different way.

From disco, like, Donna Summer, and, like, it was--

it was, like, a very smooth transition,

and to me, it was because it all--

it all came from this one source, you know what I mean?

It was all this one thing. It was all so Black.

I loved it.

In the late '80s,

Black music was just coming into its own,

and hip-hop was just becoming what it was going to be.

That scene doesn't get the credit that it deserves

for changing pop culture forever.

MC Lyte,

Monie Love,

Salt-N-Pepa,

Queen Latifah,

they were really pioneering,

and they busted their way through.

You have Sha-Rock.

You have Roxanne Shante.

You have a lot of 14-year-olds

in, like, the late '70s in the Bronx,

like, innovating, like Sha-Rock, just spitting rhymes.

You began to see

the impact that women were starting to make

on the world of rap,

and the world of pop.

You realize, "Oh, my God.

M.C. Lyte's playing Carnegie Hall."

You started to see these kind of,

like, different characters,

and these different personalities,

and it wasn't, you know, they weren't all ladylike.

♪♪♪

♪ Push it

♪ Push it good

♪ Push it

♪ Push it real good

Salt-N-Pepa, when they came out with "Push It,"

they basically pushed hip-hop to pop radio.

And they had the dance moves,

and they were cute,

and the videos looked cool.

Salt-N-Pepa, it was so in-your-face,

and they looked like girls

that I saw every day in my neighborhood.

You felt them.

Visually, they were so fly.

They had amazing haircuts, and they were colorful,

and they were wearing men's jackets.

It was women talking about

stuff you didn't hear women talking about.

"Oh, push it!" We were like, "Push what?"

We're like, "Are they saying this? This is amazing."

♪ Can't you hear the music pumping hard ♪

♪ Like I wish you would

♪ Now push it

♪♪♪

♪ Push it good

Ha, ha, ha, yeah!

♪ Push it real good!

There's a little bit of them still in me,

in all-- in all parts of my life.

I think there was something very empowering

about their approach to music and to lyricism.

Their approach is, "We're ladies.

We're out to get it,"

and I was like,

"I want to take this much friggin' control

over my general sexual being."

That's what I got from them,

a sense of command.

So it was this, like,

wonderful mesh of, like,

obviously really creative and really good,

but then really empowering,

and interesting,

and fresh, and new.

Music was really evolving at that time,

especially for women.

You felt something changing.

You felt something moving.

It wasn't only crooning and crying,

and sadness and romance.

♪♪♪

In the mid-to-late '80s,

hip-hop is bubbling under and taking over,

redefining music,

but outside of that crucial movement,

we really have these new archetypes,

who emanate authenticity

and a real sense of independence.

I always had a lot of admiration

for Annie Lennox.

She was style.

She was just this voice

that could do anything, sing anything.

She's a strong representative of a very liberated thinker,

a very creative, bold artist.

♪♪♪

♪ It seems years since you held the baby... ♪

Sinead O'Connor

is an incredibly ruthlessly truthful artist

in revealing her innermost emotional world

and laying it all out on the line.

She rocked my world when she first came out.

♪ Maybe I was mean

♪ But I really don't think so

♪ You asked if I'm scared

♪ And I...

♪ Said so

As young women,

still trying to figure out what our identity was,

Sinead O'Connor was, like, profound to us.

She just sort of seemed

completely unlike any other woman.

These are the young women

who are the spiritual and the real children

of second-wave feminists,

and this is the first generation

that really grows up with feminism from childhood on.

A lot of us were taking women's studies classes,

or, you know, reading

feminist literature and stuff like that,

or, for me, seeing my mom be, I guess, a second-wave feminist,

but it didn't always speak to our personal lives,

or to our daily lives.

The '90s were just, like, I don't know.

If you were at all feminist,

or had learned about feminism and knew anything about it,

you were just kind of adrift, is what I felt like.

Like, there was nothing going on.

I mean, Timemagazine declared feminism dead.

It was very lonely.

This is the era of Anita Hill, let's not forget.

I was very uncomfortable, and told him so.

However,

to my regret,

in the following few weeks,

he continued to ask me out on several occasions.

This is the era

of watching a woman tell her truth

and be shot down

on the biggest stage of our governmental system,

and there's a direct connection between this moment

where young women are saying,

"I have to fight for and demand my own authority,

and I'm going to start with my own story."

This leads us to artists

who can express themselves so deeply in their music--

artists like the bands of Riot Grrrl.

♪♪♪

Riot Grrrl was like

a loose-knit feminist punk movement.

It was really about a moment in the '90s

where girls were trying to support each other,

and support each other's work.

One night, I was walking around downtown,

and I heard this woman singing and yelling,

so I walked up and peeked in the door,

and it was Kathleen Hanna.

She was just screaming these lyrics.

I was totally afraid of her.

She had this big vein sticking out of her neck.

I just really saw this person letting it all hang out.

She wasn't trying to sit pretty,

or be behaved, or anything,

and I thought, "Wow, that's so cool."

You can't really get away from the fact that, like,

Kathleen Hanna rules.

The first time I heard Bikini Kill records,

my ears were shredded, and I was blown away.

It was like, "Whoa. You can do this?

You can put all this out here?"

You can be, like, absolutely defiant,

demented, transgressive, confrontational.

The Riot Grrrls were unfollowing the rules, you know.

They were going for the raw energy of rock itself,

and instead of anything pretentious whatsoever.

Kathleen was saying,

"Hey, enough of this love rock stuff.

What about the girls?

What if we don't want to be sensitive?

What if we want to, like, scream about what's happening?"

Bikini Kill, you know,

was saying something important,

like the next level up, for sure,

from The Runaways.

You know, they were taking it in a political direction,

which was, by this time, I think, necessary.

A lot of those kind of cool girl bands

were coming up,

and it was really great to see it,

because that was

the next logical step for women

to be taking in music after the '80s.

It was like, "Hey, it's about time."

You know, the '80s postponed it somehow, you know?

Kathleen Hanna and Allison Wolfe

gave young girls a sense of place,

and a sense that they belonged in punk.

If anybody is fucking with you at this show,

then you need to come up front and sit on the stage.

It was really important when Kathleen

started announcing girls to the front.

It prioritized women

in a scene where we weren't used to being prioritized.

If you're going to mosh,

why don't you just mosh in the back

so that the girls can see people playing instruments

and get inspired?

So I just would invite girls to the front

and say, "Why don't you guys come up to the front

and watch for once

instead of holding your boyfriend's fucking coats

in the back?"

And it worked.

Hit it.

♪♪♪

This ain't no disco.

♪♪♪

It ain't no country club either.

This is L.A.

♪ "All I want to do

♪ Is have a little fun before I die" ♪

♪ Says the man next to me

♪ Out of nowhere

♪♪♪

Sheryl Crow is the shit. So good.

♪ He says his name is William

She's the epitome of, like, a badass.

That is, like, the word that comes to me

when I think of Sheryl Crow.

She is the reason why I do what I do.

Never mind what you feel like.

She's lying to you.

Everything you hear her saying,

you're like, "I believe you."

♪♪♪

♪ They ain't nothing like Billy and me ♪

♪ 'Cause all I want to do is have some fun ♪

♪ Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard ♪

Sheryl Crow had some of

the most classic blues Americana rock songs,

in league with, like, Tom Petty.

She has some Tom Petty-level songs.

Does that sound weird?

That sounds a little fucked up.

She's almost as good--

She's almost as good as man.

Um...

No, Sheryl Crow is unmistakable.

♪♪♪

Growing up and, like, hearing her songs on the radio

was so important to me.

She took poetic license in her verses

to talk about things,

to go into territory that, like, Bob Dylan would.

I needed that.

I needed to see those things.

I look at power as being freedom.

You know, for me, power wasn't dominance.

It was the permission to do what I knew I could do,

and I had to do a lot of things wrong

in order to figure out

how to make that happen for myself.

I toured as a back-up singer with Michael Jackson,

or for other artists.

You know, the woman stood in the back

and did sexy moves

and wore a tight black dress.

You know, that was just never who I was.

Knowing that you have so much talent,

and standing behind someone else is pretty--

That's a strong person, you know,

and being, like, "One day,

you motherfuckers don't even know."

Sorry for my language, but it's the truth.

It's like, "One day."

I wanted to be taken seriously, like the artists

that I had absolutely loved and adored--

women like Emmylou Harris,

and Rickie Lee Jones,

and certainly Bonnie Raitt,

all these incredible women who made music that

paved the way for me to do what I was doing.

Stevie Nicks illustrated

what I felt like I could be someday.

Her songs were very steeped in not just rock 'n' roll,

but, like, Everly Brothers harmonies,

and just great songwriting.

I really saw myself in that.

Cut to, you know, 25 years later,

meeting Stevie Nicks at a Grammys party,

and she said, "We should get together.

I love what you do.

I would love to have you come in and produce me."

It's often been said

that we should never meet our heroes

for fear of disappointment.

I'm proud to say I have met my hero,

and she's more wonderful than I could ever have imagined.

She's an inspiration, a hero, a friend,

an open, beautiful person.

[applause]

You know, all the awards in the world

can't measure up to meeting somebody

that really brought you to where you are.

For them to ask for you to be a part of their story,

one of the greatest artists of all time,

was such a monumental moment in my career,

and it stays with me always.

♪ And the days go by

♪ Whoa

♪ Doing nothing about them

♪ How much time

♪ Whoa

♪ Will I have to spend

Tuesday Night Music Club sessions,

a bunch of guys hanging out in the studio.

We all jammed together.

I was the only girl, very misfit-y,

kind of "us against the world" attitude about making music.

When the record took off,

I had a ton of press that turned sour,

claiming that the men on my record wrote my record.

Sheryl Crow was not given her due in her first record

as the truly crucial force she was and is.

She is just a crucial figure

in the rise of equality

for women in mainstream popular music.

[Crow] There were a lot of things

that I just felt, like, were so unfair,

and that I look at now, and think

it's just the product of sexism.

What do we do with a woman who looks really strong?

"Well, we can't have that."

After selling nine million copies,

the pressure of following that up,

it was daunting, going in and making a second record,

but I knew I could make that record.

I walked into a studio.

My producer, who I was counting on,

left after 24 hours,

and out rolls Trina Shoemaker from underneath the board,

who is a female engineer,

and the next day, we started working.

It felt natural.

It felt right.

It felt badass.

It felt "eff you."

You know, it felt all of those things,

but mostly empowering,

to be able to close the door,

and to dig in to making a record with allies,

and equals, and women.

It feels like a proclamation of,

"I did this,

and you guys didn't believe in a woman producing,

but here it is,

and, you know, do what you will with it."

In a lot of ways, it became my first album.

It became my real...

expression of who I was.

This is a song about a jerk.

I hexed him.

Now he's losing his hair.

♪♪♪

♪ The sky was made of amethyst ♪

♪ And all the stars were just like little fish ♪

In the '90s, it was really easy

to find male bands that we were attached to,

but we had to look a little harder

for women who sounded like those bands,

and what those bands sounded like to us

was angry, and confident,

and I think we were looking

for women who scared people and didn't care.

To us, finding Courtney Love was like finding a universe.

She was our example

of, like, a woman who intimidated people,

and so we wanted to be intimidating,

and we wanted to act like that.

♪ You never want it again

♪ Go on, take everything

♪ Take everything

♪ I want you to

♪ Go on, take everything...

Courtney Love was the first woman

we'd ever seen talk about things like

sexual assault and...

-...abortion. -Abortion.

And she, like, had such a specific level of,

like, middle finger to the air,

"I don't give a fuck about anything."

I remember seeing the "Miss World" video

and kind of being scared of it.

Courtney shows her true mastery of songcraft,

and her ability to write incredible lyrics

about what it feels like

to want so desperately

to fit in

with those ideals

that have oppressed women for so many years,

but at the same time, to want to destroy them.

A lot of what the '90s was about

was this huge question of

how do we live as women

within some kind of idea of the feminine,

but not have it wreck us?

It's such a core problem of the feminine experience.

Few artists have expressed it

with such open eyes as Courtney Love has.

Courtney Love told me one time, just, like, "Just fuck it."

Like, "If something bothers you, just fuck it.

Like, just get up there and just kick ass,"

and I loved that because, first of all,

I wanted to show all the boys in pop rock

that I could whup their asses.

The landscape of the industry,

when I came out,

was girls just being vulnerable,

being honest,

showing true emotion,

and being unapologetic about it,

which I love, so it was perfect timing for me

because I needed to do the same thing.

Women like Courtney Love

and the band Hole.

You had Alanis Morissette,

Fiona Apple,

Tori Amos,

PJ Harvey,

really channeling this righteous feminist rage

of the era.

And then you had Liz Phair speaking truth

in these really funny

but extremely honest confessional songs.

What made their rage so distinctive was

the simultaneous vulnerability of it all.

Women have been given this powerful role

to scream and yell

during times of transition

or grief or pain for communities.

It's not just something that happens

in rituals around the world.

It's something that we see in popular music,

whether it's Janis Joplin,

Yoko Ono screaming,

Nina Simone.

All of these artists

are also playing that role

as a way for us to process how we feel.

Alanis Morissette was an absolute game changer,

who ends up epitomizing

angry women in rock in the mid-'90s

with Jagged Little Pill.

The first time I remember hearing Alanis Morissette

was actually seeing her music video

for "You Oughta Know" on MuchMusic,

and when they debuted it, we flipped out,

like, flipped out.

Her frustration and anger,

poof, just, like, exploded our mind.

She seemed so pissed off,

and it was perfect.

I'd repressed a lot of my anger for a long time.

It wasn't something that women,

or people in general in society,

were encouraged to do.

If something was bothering me, I'd hold it in,

and the only way that I knew how to express it

was through my journal,

and then eventually through music.

So I think because I'd repressed it for so long,

there was this urgency when it first came out.

I was obsessed with her vulnerability

at the same time,

just, like, kicking doors down,

and just being fearless,

and her lyrics were gnarly.

I'd never heard lyrics like that before.

♪ Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity? ♪

♪ I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner ♪

♪ It was a slap in the face

♪ How quickly I was replaced

♪ And are you thinking of me

♪ When you fuck her?

♪ 'Cause the love that you gave... ♪

Alanis Morissette gave us true commitment.

She committed to her music.

You can hear it.

♪ And every time you speak her name ♪

♪ Does she know how you told me ♪

♪ You'd hold me until you died

♪ Until you died

♪ But you're still alive

♪ And I'm here to remind you

♪ Of the mess you left when you went away ♪

♪ It's not fair to deny me

♪ Of the cross I bear that you gave to me ♪

♪ You, you, you oughta know

Women in the '90s

and the music that they were making

finally fully spoke

to the spectrum of women.

Like, they were finally allowed to sort of be seen,

and the '90s was really where

we saw women at the top of the charts,

at the top of sales figures,

getting radio play.

I had never seen a front woman.

Honestly, I think Gwen Stefani

is the first front woman I ever saw.

I didn't know that, like,

girls could be

that level of, like, in your face,

because I just didn't see it a lot growing up.

Like, I remember seeing, like, Nirvana, and being like,

"Oh, you can, like, have your hair in your face,

and, like, headbang, and that's a vibe,"

but I didn't realize that, like,

women could be so, like, tough,

with the ab-baring crop tops.

Like, there was this very, like,

feminine thing about her,

but also this just, like, punk attitude.

I remember she would, like, spit up in the air on stage,

and I was like, "That's so cool. I've never seen..."

Like, I had never seen a girl do that before,

especially at that age. Like, it was like,

"Don't spit. It's not girly."

She was punk, but she was also,

you know, a girly girl.

The first time that I heard Fiona Apple

and that first album that came out,

it was like

she wasn't shying away from the darkness,

and she didn't seem like she had to, like,

put on this, like, happy face.

Like, she could talk about her feelings

in a way that felt really real,

and that I really connected to.

It was just so cathartic.

I just listened to that album on repeat.

I was, like, 14 or 15 when Tidalcame out,

and she was only a few years older.

I, at that point, already knew

that I wanted to make music,

and I was here listening to someone

who's so genius, and so wise beyond her years,

and so, like, absolutely vulnerable and tough,

and seemed to only do things on her own terms,

even as, like. a 19-, 20-year-old,

and I was just like,

"Oh, man.

If she's making this at this age,

like, whoa, I got a lot of work to do."

I was like...

Very few artists can sort of live without skin,

and I feel like Fiona Apple is one of those...

one of those artists.

Fiona and early Tori Amos records,

like Little Earthquakes,

they were dangerous.

They talked about things that were very dark.

They talked about sexual assault.

They talked about very deep, very raw emotions.

My first pro job as a piano player

was at Mr. Henry's, the gay bar,

and I guess as a teenage girl,

I needed the gay waiters to tell me,

"How do you deal with a man

whose hand is kind of slipping down your back?

How do you place a hand somewhere else,

and not lose a customer?"

Because you couldn't lose a customer,

or you would lose your job,

but I said to myself,

"If I don't do something,

I'm going to die in this bar room

at a piano,

smelling of beer,"

and I hate beer.

So, I didn't do the clever thing.

I started trying to become everybody else.

I had sent my songs out since I was 13

to record people,

and they said,

"You can't be serious about this.

This girl and her piano thing is never going to happen."

And after seven years,

I started to believe, "Well, maybe they're right."

They said, "You know, get a band,

do dance music,

do metal music,

do anything but what you're doing,"

and I listened to them.

When I did what everybody's opinion was,

they called me a bimbo.

The music industry in the late '80s

didn't know what they wanted.

They wanted what happened last month.

So I didn't listen to that lesson

that Rickie Lee was trying to tell us all,

that if you're you and you're unique,

there is a place for you.

Rickie Lee blew my mind.

She was saying, "Tori, you can be Tori.

You just have to go find what that is."

Central in making Little Earthquakes

was unzip the skin--

that's what this record's about--

and I sort of made an oath,

a promise to the muses,

to document life as I saw it.

When you suddenly go from playing in a club

to being on a label,

and what is the expectation?

You're an artist,

you're creating something,

and you're trying to honor what that is,

and then there's the selling part of the thing.

"You've made this thing.

How do we sell it?

And how do we sell you?"

When women come together,

women talk, women form ideas,

women form coalitions.

We create change. Women get shit done.

That was innately intimidating to men

and to the old structure,

which they just--

Everything, they wanted things to stay the same,

and...

we wanted things to change.

♪♪♪