Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming hits out at the music industry’s treatment of female artists

"Men’s music is still considered music. Women’s music is still considered other music"

Sunflower Bean frontwoman Julia Cumming has spoken out about the treatment of female artists in the music industry.

Along with several other artists, the singer was asked by The Washington Post what it’s like to be a woman in the rock business.

“It’s boring and frustrating to have similar conversations [again and again],” said Cumming. “But at the same time, if there’s still girls that don’t feel comfortable playing, and they still need to see someone out there to do it, then it’s still important to talk about.”

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She added: “Stations say, ‘We like the song, this is a great song. [But] we have too many women in rotation right now’. Stations will have about three women they keep in main rotation, and if you are a woman trying to get into that rotation, that means that they’re going to kick another woman off. Men’s music is still considered music. Women’s music is still considered other music, even though women are being photographed, used on the Spotify banners and written about.”

“As a female musician, you get dumped in your little pink sidecar before you’ve even stepped into your own shoes,” agreed Emily Haines, who fronts Metric and plays in Broken Social Scene.

Earlier this year, Cumming also told NME there’s a lot of music on the radio that “you don’t have control over“.

“We were listening to the radio a lot and there’s a lot of music you don’t have a lot of control over,” she said. “I feel that way about Drake – you don’t have a choice if you like Drake. Drake is like water. Drake is like the government. Drake is like fucking fluoride.”

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