Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing

history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.

There is just no way to sugarcoat it.

The music industry has a reputation of being very unkind to women.

It's been a struggle from the beginning, and even after decades of work, things have evolved to the point where less than a quarter

of the acts on some music charts are women.

The actual figure for the Billboard Hot 100 is around 22 percent, and it's been stuck at

that level for a decade.

I found a few more stats.

If we look at the same decade-long period, women made up only 13% of songwriters.

And if we look at female producers and engineers, the number is less than 3%.

So in other words, gender parity is still a long way off.

So yeah, it's tough out there and it needs to get better.

Fortunately, though, there have always been women driven to make it,

regardless of the obstacles and difficulties in their way.

They want to remake the world of music to make it more inclusive,

and in some cases, have forced it to bend to their will.

This has been true since the dawn of recorded music until today. In fact,

what today's female artist lack in sheer numbers, they make up for in power and influence. Here,

let's tally up some of the women who are changing the game in the 21st century. This is the

ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross.

Well, that kind of sits the mood, doesn't it?

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