St. Vincent has explained that the she feels the future is looking brighter for female artists, just days after her experience at the 2019 Grammy Awards.
Back in early 2018, the 60th Grammy Awards attracted quite a large amount of criticism after a disproportionate amount of male artists were given honours during the ceremony.
Speaking to Variety after the awards, Portnow stated that female artists “need to step up”, which instantly attracted vast criticism, especially from a number of high profile female label executives who called his comments “woefully out of touch”.
However, while The Industry Observer noted yesterday that 82 percent more awards were given to female artists at the Grammys this year than last year, US musician St. Vincent has addressed the ‘turning tide’ in a new interview.
Speaking to Rolling Stone recently, St. Vincent (whose real name is Annie Clark) explained how proud she was of this year’s winners, including Dua Lipa, who quipped “I guess this year we really stepped up” while accepting her Best New Artist award.
“I’m in a position where I get to hire people. In the past couple years of this album campaign, it’s been really female-centric,” she explained. “From the directors of show to content to the people I employ on tour, I feel that I’m very lucky to be able to employ women, because I am a woman.”
“And I’m not threatened by other powerful women. I encourage them and I also enjoy being surrounded by them.”
Check out St. Vincent’s ‘New York’:
Elsewhere in the interview, St. Vincent noted that the equal amount of female and male performances at the Grammys was an indicator of good things to come for female musicians.
“I see the tide turning,” she continued. “Equality for all doesn’t mean ‘at the detriment of this person or that person,’ it means equality. I didn’t get to see all the awards, but I was so impressed by H.E.R.”
“She could really fucking sing and play guitar, and she’s so young. It was so exciting to see the ration of men and women playing guitar seem pretty equal, between H.E.R., Brandi [Carlile] and me.”
In related news, St. Vincent recently revealed that she’s producing Sleater-Kinney’s “fucking vicious” new album.
Check out St. Vincent and Dua Lipa performing at the Grammys:
