20 women who shaped the history of dance music

mixmag

No Grace Jones...? No Madonna either, great! I never understood how Madge went from soft porn marchant to feminist icon. I must've missed that day.

I guessed three of them before opening the link. Namely:

1. Donna Summer
2. Sylvia Robinson (did you know that Sylvia knowingly nicked big chunks of Cavern by Liquid Liquid when she co-wrote White Lines with Melle Mel? Liquid Liquid sued and won. White Lines is the better track though IMO).
3. Our Gillian

Debaser wrote:

3. Our Gillian

No disrespect, but does Gillian really deserve a place in the anals of electropop? Even this article seems to be based on a single, 32-year-old track. Proof of the pud and all that, and in the last 25 years she's been involved in a grand total of 5 albums, with only MC competing for the title of classic.

Michael Monkhouse wrote:

Debaser wrote:

3. Our Gillian

No disrespect, but does Gillian really deserve a place in the anals of electropop? Even this article seems to be based on a single, 32-year-old track. Proof of the pud and all that, and in the last 25 years she's been involved in a grand total of 5 albums, with only MC competing for the title of classic.

Now, now. While they chose a bad example of a track to credit her with (no proof she was integral to the creation of Blue Monday, and Bernard feels the need to emphasize it by taking over her keyboard whenever it's played live), she certainly deserves credit. Hasn't she contributed to 8 New Order LP's (Movement, PC&L, Low-Life, Brotherhood, Technique, Republic, Get Ready and Music Complete)? And written they're biggest "hit"? I know you've been dismissive of The Other Two's output (the 1st LP sounds mostly like tarted up demos) but I think The Other Two and You is quite good. Except for the two awkward tracks that open the LP (yes, the two singles), I still enjoy it.

In the words of the albino with diarrhea, fair do's. I like to keep it real.

I think she [Gillian] deserves it. Being part of one of the bands that expanded the boundaries of electronic dance music for a long time she should receive part of the credits too.

She is part of the best band ever. That 500 years of dance music is represented by our Gillian is almost as great as the constant love she gets from NO fans.

Andy wrote: (no proof she was integral to the creation of Blue Monday, and Bernard feels the need to emphasize it by taking over her keyboard whenever it's played live)

I read Sumner's autobiography over the holidays and he says that Blue Monday was primarily his and Steve's creation. He even says that there was a slightly different version of it at first, but they accidentally erased it and had to reprogram the entire thing by memory, haha. As for Sumner taking over Gillian's synths live, from what I'm hearing they are both doing a duet. She's playing one melody on the lower notes, then he joins in to play a different melody a few octaves higher.