The 5 Best Rock Songs From Female Musicians

It is a sad fact that rock has always been a male-dominated genre, tending to have a far greater gender imbalance than mainstream pop. Indeed, the vast majority of acts throughout rock history have been bands made up entirely of white men — an issue that has remained well into the 21st century, when a 2017 analysis from The Guardian showed that nearly two-thirds of rock acts were all-male line-ups. 

Some have suggested that the rock genre has typically been seen as more masculine, and that, when girls who are inclined to pursue a career in music see only men performing in famous groups, it discourages them from picking up a guitar and trying it for themselves. The musical establishment has arguably helped to reinforce the notion that rock is for men; just a fraction of the rock musicians in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are women, and roundups of those considered the major innovators of early rock are typically lists made up entirely of men.

The truth, though, is that the genre was pretty much invented single-handedly by a woman: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, aka the "godmother of rock 'n' roll, a singular gospel singer whose use of distorted electric guitar in her performances was imitated by the first generation of male rock gods, most notably Chuck Berry and Little Richard, who were both vocal about Tharpe's influence on them. And despite the lack of representation in the genre, since Tharpe there have been a number of notable women rock musicians who continue to inspire today's artists. Here are five tracks from the last six decades that broke new ground for women rockers and have stood the test of time since their release.

Big Brother & The Holding Company was a San Francisco band struggling to find an audience in the mid-1960s, with the group indistinguishable from the many other acts of the day that were plying their trade as purveyors of psychedelic blues rock. That all changed, however, with the arrival of singularly talented vocalist Janis Joplin, whose raw vocal style made her an ideal frontwoman for rock-based reinterpretations of blues and R&B compositions.

"Piece of My Heart," from Big Brother & The Holding Company's chart-topping 1968 album "Cheap Thrills," is among Joplin's finest studio performances, with the singer, who died tragically just two years later at the age of 27, imbuing the masochistic lyrics with blistering emotion. The song builds to a roaring climax unlike anything heard on 1960s rock radio, with Joplin's vocal performance matching the power of the instrumental. The song received ample play and climbed into the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.

The legendary Patti Smith is one of those rare performers whose intense and evocative lyricism, like that of her close friend Bob Dylan, has seen her described as a poet almost as often as a musician. However, during the 1970s Smith also exhibited a performance style that was utterly unique, with her album "Horses" considered a landmark in alternative rock.

The album's opening track, "Gloria: In Excelsis Deo/Gloria," is all it takes to see how Smith works poetry and rock together into something dazzling and provocative. After opening with an intimate passage of Smith's own lyricism that begins with the biting line "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine," the song veers into a cover version of Them's Van Morrison-penned "Gloria." It is typical when songs are covered by artists of a different gender for the singer to change the pronouns to reflect their own sexual identity, but in this case Smith, who describes herself as heterosexual, maintains the original lyrics, turning "Gloria" into a subversive song of queer attraction. Smith's yelping and swagger during the song's rousing climax set a high bar for women rock artists thereafter and created a template for frontwomen in punk, new wave, and other alternative genres.

When you think of 1990s singer-songwriters, Alanis Morissette, who scored a phenomenal worldwide smash with her 1996 album "Jagged Little Pill," deserves to be top of the list. Combining a unique mezzo soprano voice with exceptionally confessional and emotionally raw lyricism, Morissette had a realness to her when it came to discussing themes of love, relationships, and heartbreak that was like little else in the charts during the decade.

"You Oughta Know" is arguably the ultimate Morissette track, the single that changed everything; no artist, male or female, straddled the worlds of rock and pop with such a unique voice and willingness to embrace the bitterness and resentment that had been found in male-orientated blues, garage, and hard rock from the 1960s onward.

Morissette would have other hits during the "Jagged Little Pill" era, most notably her breakthrough single "Ironic," which made No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1996, two spots higher than "You Oughta Know" managed. The whole album, which hit No. 1, is considered by many fans to be flawless. But "You Oughta Know" has aged best out of all of Morissette's work, with her apparently genuine anger on the track still able to raise the hairs on a listener's neck three decades on.

Kim Deal found fame as the bassist for the hugely influential alternative rock band Pixies in the late 1980s, with her sweetly straightforward, unashamedly feminine vocal style contrasting pleasingly with the fierce bark of lead vocalist Black Francis. The band's early releases, such as the albums "Surfer Rosa" and "Doolittle," are considered masterpieces that shaped the dynamics of the grunge movement of the 1990s.

Deal's contribution to the sound of Pixies is generally well regarded by the band's fans, but it is certainly true that she had only a bit part in deciding the band's musical direction, writing only a couple of songs in the group's entire discography. As a result, just as Pixies' star was rising, she was also involved in founding her own band, the Breeders, with Throwing Muses' Tanya Donelly. The new band released its debut album, "Pod," in 1990, following up with "Last Splash" in 1993, the same year Pixies split up.

The highlight of these early Breeders records is "Cannonball," the hit single from the band's sophomore album that showcased the pop-centric songwriting that underpinned its alternative sound. The track was considered one of the defining alternative rock songs of the era, and helped "Last Splash" go platinum.

Cool indie outfits were all over the charts in the early 2000s, with bands like the Strokes reinvigorating audiences hungry for danceable indie rock with an edge. Again, many of the bands of the era were all-male, but there were a number of women musicians who created some of the defining tracks of the decade. One of these was Karen O, the lead singer for the garage rock trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs that enjoyed a smash hit with the single "Maps" in 2003.

"Maps" was something different from Yeah Yeah Yeahs' early work; a more reflective, emotional track that revealed the subtleties of O's songwriting and vocal style. The song was reportedly inspired by O's relationship with Liars frontman Angus Andrew, whose failure to turn up on time at the video shoot contributed to O shedding real tears on camera, which has become an iconic music video moment. The song enjoyed a fresh wave of popularity in 2024, when it went viral on TikTok and found a new audience that wasn't old enough to get on the "Maps" hype the first time around.