I just got back from a fantastic conference (FictionFest, hosted by the CTRWA, if you’re curious. I always enjoy this conference. It’s a fun time, and the drive is long enough for me to get some uninterrupted music time without getting bored or uncomfortable. Almost all of my work is inspired by music. Even Whirlwind, which isn’t inspired by a specific song, is about a musician and the role music plays in her life.
I was driving along, listening to my current favorite playlist, when it occurred to me that I should really make a playlist for Whirlwind. For all I know people think Jo plays country music. I pulled together some songs by women or by women-fronted bands that I think capture the energy of Jo’s band really well.
This isn’t a sample of all of my favorite music. I do like some bands fronted by men – plenty of them, actually. All the members of Whirlwind are women, in particular the lead singer, so I wanted to make sure this playlist reflected that.
The songs also cover a pretty wide swath of genres, which might raise some eyebrows. First of all, you should catch a glimpse of my iTunes library sometime. Second, I did go a little wild when it came to genre here. I wanted to grab for the energy of Whirlwind, rather than just the alt-rock genre. The ladies in the band come from a pretty wide sample of backgrounds, so I didn’t want to have a single influence guiding them.
After all, Matt Bellamy from Muse started out as a huge Michael Jackson fan.*
Anyway, if you’re into rock romance, or just music, give this playlist a try. I certainly had fun making it!
* Source: A radio interview I listened to once, sometime within the last year, before I turned it off because listening to audio only makes the inside of my head itch. Sorry. It’s a blog post, not an academic article, but my citation really should be better.