Yes, Courtney's post was cryptic and quite difficult to decipher in some parts; however, her general point came across quite well and struck up an argument that has stuck in the minds of women across the music industry ever since.
Love claims her hostility “is the fault of a bunch of gentlemen and the women who serve them calling us all pop girlies” in the first video of the post, before playing Slayyter’s first release via Soundcloud, a cover of ‘In The Pines’ popularised by Nirvana – a grungey debut that solidified her as a varied artist with alternative roots, ultimately criticising anyone who attempts to label her in this way.
The aim of this post, realistically, is to call out major music media outlets, who unknowingly diminish female artists' identities and styles by grouping them into one ultra-feminine, marketable bubble. This is reminiscent of the way that the media portrayed Hole in the 90’s, establishing them as one of the founding Riot Grrrl groups and creating a domino effect where every female musician with a bit of angst and grit, or even just displaying negative emotions, was labelled as Riot Grrrl – even when their music blatantly did not fall under this subculture.
Maybe Love hasn’t made her opinion on this matter clear in the most rational way, but we all know that rational just isn’t her style.
The term "Pop Girly" is a tricky one to decipher, but let’s start with the positives. Growing up as Gen Z, all we saw on our screens were endless boy bands and the push for the "boy-crazy" fan experience. The desire to be picked as ‘One Less Lonely Girl’ at a Justin Bieber concert, or to be noticed reading a classic novel with your effortlessly beautiful hair in a messy bun by your favourite member of One Direction, was real.
However, for the little girls of today, we are seeing them dying to see the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, both of whom sing lyrics of female empowerment. Rodrigo even recently performed at her very own all-female festival, Daisy Chain Fields, and then donated $10 million to charities helping women in need. As well as this, ‘The Man’ by Taylor Swift is being screamed amongst hundreds of stadiums across the world by young women who shimmer with hope.
The "Pop Girly" terminology does uplift these powerful female musicians by pushing them into the spotlight and therefore providing them with an even larger platform to create things such as Daisy Chain Fields. However, this term does feel a lot more negative than positive. It’s surface-level feminism, and these women will be loved and create impactful art no matter what pink, sparkly marketing idea is being painted around them.
As previously mentioned, it’s no surprise that Love isn’t a fan of social media marketers and journalists placing an abundance of female musicians into one tiny label, because the same thing happened to her in the 90’s at the peak of her career. I mean, how can the likes of Charli xcx and Lana Del Rey be placed in the same category? Both are influential and renowned for very different reasons. We hear a blunt yet dance-worthy sound from Charli, with influences that root in electronic subcultures. From Lana, we hear songs of pure poetry, but with a cinematic Americana sound – they’re separate entities, and to group them as mere "Pop Girlies" doesn’t make sense. It’s belittling, not uplifting.
This isn’t a new discussion; in the late 2010s the protestful phrase "Female Fronted Is Not A Genre" was to be seen everywhere: on T-shirts, spoken loudly in interviews and written on festival flags. Women in music are tired of lazy recycled phrases and deserve to be described for what they are creating, rather than tied up in a romanticised bubble that says nothing about their work.
Amy Porter
Image: 'Live Through This’ Official Album Cover