WOMEN

January 2019

Okay, actually it is too much honor, but it should be. Anger about nonsense is useless, but sometimes pleasant.

“Women are just less likely to make good music and there are also fewer women in the music industry. Men are by definition more 'senang' in the studio and you just have to take a long time to be successful in music. ”

At the end of 2018, one Ronald Molendijk ('music connoisseur' at RTL Boulevard) explains in detail why there are fewer women than men in the top 2000. It is not entirely clear to me what Molendijk has performed in music. Musician? Studied music? Musician? Maybe wrote some songs yourself? Well, it turns out it's a DJ. That already explains a lot. Because seldom have I heard so much laric cake, summarized in just two sentences.

If you analyze what exactly Ronald says, it is not so bad with those women. He does not say that they make less good music, but just 'less fast'. Women do make good music, but they just take a little longer. I don't know with what facts he substantiates this claim and how he measured it, but even if it were true that doesn't explain why they aren't so often in the top 2000. The good news: if we follow Ronald's statement, we can expect to see a lot more women in the list in ten years or so than now, because they're only then done with that good music problem solved, so.

In his account Ronald apparently also assumes that the top 2000 is only filled with good music, after all: women make good music less quickly and are therefore 'less' in the top 2000. I dare to doubt that. There is a lot of good in the list, but mainly music that lasts a long time with a certain target group. If that equates to 'good', fine, then we understand each other. But we know that the musical taste is shaped in your youth and that it hardly changes afterwards. Doesn't matter at all, Ronald, but you do mix up a few things.

He is right in one thing: I think fewer women work in the music industry than men. I haven't counted it myself, but no doubt Ronald so let's give him the benefit of the doubt for this time. In many industries, fewer women work than men. If he had left it at that, I could have gone a long way with him. Fewer women work in music, which logically translates to the amount of music made by women, which can therefore be chosen by the audience. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that.

Ronald then comes with a very strange statement: men are 'by definition' more 'senang' in the studio. No idea what definition he is referring to here. And why that would lead to better music for all those senange men is not at all clear. Oh yes, and which studios Ronald visited for this research, we are very curious. I personally think that with women in the studio, Ronald just feels a little less anxious. We do not blame him for this either, but it seems as if he has thought about this, and everything points to the contrary.

Finally, something with a long breath. Apparently women have a slightly shorter breath than men and therefore do not last very long. I suppose he means this figuratively, and not literally - because in the latter case they would have a physical disability that hinders them from making good music quickly and I have never heard that before. But wait - if you link that to his first argument, it becomes clear: women need more time to get to good music, and well, they can't keep it up - it just won't work out! They drop out before it can be anything at all. It can be that simple, right?

Perhaps Professor Molendijk is better off sticking to his reading pictures. Anyone can slap dicks about music. But with many DJs you have the advantage that there is music before and after the bullseye, so that you forget what someone comes out in between.

Whatever this “music connoisseur” may have meant, as far as I am concerned it is rather the other way around: proportionally I have a lot of women on my list of favorite music. Then I am talking about the category of rock and pop (and related), that is to say - in the classical department, the proportion of 'creative' women is really sad: I don't know many composers and certainly no one who comes close to the level of Bach and Mozart.

I might even prefer to hear a woman sing than a man. The example I would like to quote is Judee Sill. Almost unknown to the general public, an American singer who died in the late 1970s, after a tragic life full of drug abuse and other misery. In her lyrics and music, many religious undertones can be heard, without becoming preachy - quite essential to me as a presumably atheist. I have attached a music clip on the right.

I'm sure no man could sing it like that. That is one of the reasons why she will never make it into that maligned top 2000.