5 Female Rockers Who Launched Legendary Solo Careers After Leaving Their Bands

Rock 'n' roll, and the wider music industry in general, can often seem like a boy's club, with meaty male acts (and mighty male egos) dominating charts as well as the conversation. But if women occasionally have to shout louder and rock harder to be heard, it's only developed their voices, attitudes, and artistic sensibilities. And some of the most prominent female rockers have done their best work alone, or at least as an above-the-title frontwoman with a backing band, placing themselves in the position the rock gods created them to occupy: front and center.

We've picked five of our faves, though these are far from the only top-notch double-X-chromosome stars who've lit up the charts on their own. Four are already inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, while the last has received a similar honor from a country closer to home. And all of these women, we assure you, rock.

Joan Jett's first rock concerts (as a spectator) were Black Sabbath and the New York Dolls, and you couldn't ask for a better pedigree for the hard-rocking guitarist who blossomed into one of the toughest and coolest of the tough cool girls of '80s rock. She began as a performer with the all-girl outfit the Runaways, who recorded four albums and notched their most memorable hit with the spiky, sassy "Cherry Bomb." 

Dismissed by many for being young and female, and badly mistreated by their management, the Runaways, who had already been shedding members, broke up in 1979. Jett moved to London and recorded a solo album, "Joan Jett," before signing with a record company and re-releasing the disc as "Bad Reputation." And from there, Joan Jett was airborne. She would soon form a backing band, the Blackhearts ... but they were always Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. She's been rocking ever since, with several chart hits through the '80s, a 2015 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and tours that have continued into 2026.

Diana Ross was always front and center among the three vocalists of the toweringly successful Supremes, with the band even rebranding as Diana Ross and the Supremes before limping on as the Ross-less Supremes after her 1970 defection. Ross may or may not have been the best vocalist or the one with the most star power, but she was the one the president of Motown had the hots for. Combine this with reports of diva behavior, and the end of the Supremes seemed inevitable. 

Ross and the other Supremes, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, famously reported different versions of who did what to whom, whose behavior was worse, and whose fault the whole thing was, but Ross undeniably rocked the charts as a solo artist. She dominated charts in the '70s with songs like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Endless Love," and "I'm Coming Out," fading only in the mid-to-late '80s when tastes changed toward punk, new wave, and metal, but Ross remained a concert favorite. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 ... along with her fellow Supremes.

As a duo, Sonny & Cher only barely counted as a band, but Cher's triumph after their personal and professional breakup ranks among the great victories of human history. The duo divorced in 1974, with Sonny Bono soon walking away from entertainment and Cher finally free to shine.

Sonny Bono had a lackluster political career, winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives twice and using the platform to oppose gay marriage before dying in a skiing accident in 1998. Cher, on the other hand, continued to wear gorgeous Bob Mackie gowns, won an Oscar, continued releasing music, and kept scoring hits. She also got to record a music video on a warship and release a whole album of ABBA covers. Now, her status as one of the world's most celebrated gay icons and a staunch supporter of her queer fans can't explain all her good fortune, but all those good vibes have to contribute at least something to her success. Cher was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.

In a darker timeline even than this one, Patti Smith was only "that woman from Blue Öyster Cult." Never a formal member of the band but the romantic partner of Öysterman Allan Lanier, the woman who would grow into one of the most poetic voices in rock wrote a handful of songs for Blue Öyster Cult — "Baby Ice Dog," Career of Evil," and "Debbie Denise," among others — and came within a whisker of becoming their lead singer. 

Patti turned Blue Öyster Cult's offer down, instead striking out on a solo path. A risk-taker from the beginning, her first single included the B-side "P*ss Factory," followed by her 1975 album "Horses," which featured spoken-word tracks and a cover photo by the controversial but sublimely talented photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith went through various career cycles over the years but continued recording music, as well as writing poetry and memoirs. She was added to the membership of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, two years after the arguably more impressive honor of being named a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. 

Thousands of years of recorded human history and you, dear reader, got to share some of your precious life on this earth with Björk. The allegedly Icelandic, maybe-transdimensional, and completely unclassifiable entity known in our language as Björk notched her first formal musical success as a member of a punk band called the Sugarcubes, which released three albums in the late 1980s and very early 1990s before dissolving.

Free of even the minimal restraints that being part of a band placed on her creativity, Björk, whose name comes pre-equipped with Mötley Crüe-style rock dots, moved to London and began releasing softer yet more experimental music. She detoured into acting, winning accolades for her appearance in a Lars von Trier film, and notched an Oscar nomination for the song "I've Seen It All," affording her to wear the famous swan dress to the ceremony. Her costuming and musicianship have only grown more deliciously idiosyncratic since then. No Rock & Roll Hall of Fame yet, but the Royal Swedish Academy of Music honored her with the Polar Music Prize for lifetime achievement in 2010, and she certainly doesn't seem to be done yet.