Female Acts On The Rise In The UK

Signs are encouraging for aspiring female musicians, especially songwriters, as the number of women finding success in the industry is officially on the rise. 

Although women remain massively outnumbered by their male colleagues, the number of female songwriters signing with UK rights organisation PRS for Music is thought to have increased by 60%, demonstrating the growing appetite amongst listeners for talented acts, regardless of gender. 

PRS, which collects and distributes royalties to songwriters, said 1,755 women signed up in 2019, compared to 1,097 a year ago. Interestingly, nearly 63% were below the age of 30, perhaps indicating a trend towards younger acts. 

Celebrated pop acts like Billie Eilish (18) and Mabel (24) have made headlines recently, for their musical contribution for the upcoming James Bond film and their well-received live performances at award nights respectively. Eilish is already steaming ahead in terms of the number of Spotify streams her most recent album has achieved so far this year. 

Although improvements in gender equality have been made, there is still a feeling amongst industry experts that there is still a considerable way to go. 

Director of membership at PRS, Claire Jarvis, said the recent statistics were “encouraging” but added that the number of women is still “dwarfed” by their male counterparts. Similarly, once female artists find some commercial success, it is thought that this is harder to sustain than it is for men: top 10 female songwriters generated 67% less revenue from royalties than the top 10 male performers.

Social media was rife with criticism for the Brit awards this year, where only one British woman, the aforementioned Mabel, featured in the mixed gender categories. With votes cast by a mixture of the public and industry expert panels, there was a distinct lack of equality in terms of how votes could be awarded: 86 male artists were up for selection, whereas there were only 26 women.

There remains a chasm of inequality between male and female songwriters, but if recent findings are anything to go by, it certainly seems as though there are reasons for young, aspiring musicians to be hopeful as they make their first tentative steps into an industry that is more richly diverse than ever before.

by Adam Cable