Who is your favourite 70s/80s pop, rock soul etc female act: Poll

Where is Bonnie Raitt?

 

She's on the poll.

 

Just like Karen Carpenter was the voice of The Carpenters so was Annie Lennox the voice of The Tourists/Eurythmics. But hey, it's your thread.

 

Yeah, I know. I shouldn't have included Karen really.

 

Best songwriter on the list is Dolly Parton. One of the greats. Best singer on the list is far and away Aretha Franklin, but by the mid-70s her best records were behind her. (Like Loretta Lynn -- Aretha and Loretta Lynn would get my vote if we where talking about female popular artists of the '60s and '70s). Best zeitgeist capturing pop star on the list is Madonna. Most creative and sui generis original genius on the list is Kate Bush. Most underrated hitmaker on the list is Pat Benatar. Most overrated singer on the list is Barbra Streisand. I'm not choosing. Aretha Franklin and Kate Bush are my favorite artists on the list, but the '70s and '80s weren't Aretha's era. Madonna's records, and to some degree -- although more from a prog rocky kind of POV -- Kate Bush's define the '80s in many ways (and "Wuthering Heights" is a quintessential '70s record in some way), but I think the '80s was such a crummy era for pop music, that kind of like being the king of the junkyard. Also if Karen Carpenter is on this list, then every female artist who was not a solo act should be on the list -- like Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, who wrote and performed some of the biggest pop hits of the era.

 

It's Linda Ronstadt for me, followed by Cyndi Lauper.

 

Have no regrets Bobby! Nice inclusion.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8

 

Her first 2 albums are great pop/MOR. I also like I'm Your Baby Tonight and My Love Is Your Love too. Her final studio album, I Look To You, has a handful of great songs, though her voice isn't as good.

But you and your mum probably already know this!

 

Joni Mitchell gets my vote.

 

I need a doctor.

 

I like Bonnie. She was definitely going in.

 

****, another one I forgot!

 

I never realised Kate Bush was a big thing in the States. Huge here, though.

 

Of course if someone is in the States, Kate Bush has nearly zero pop music visibility. Her only record that had any kind of pop profile in the U.S. was The Hounds of Love -- it was the only album she ever had in the States that produced a top 30 single (barely) or got her on MTV. The Kick Inside didn't even chart in the U.S. If she's a major pop act of the era, at least from a U.S. perspective, then the poll maybe oughta also include Patti Smith, who'd get my vote, or Salt and Pepa, or certainly Shania Twain, all of whom had enormously more substantial careers than Laura Branigan or Suzi Quattro or Sheena Easton. Kate Bush's profile in the states is marginal. She's a genius. I love her work. But she's a figure almost like Captain Beefheart here. Closer to that than to Madonna.

 

She wasn't other than the MTV blip that was Hounds of Love.

 

For me it's Kate Bush. And Bonnie Raitt is a close second.

Those are the two whose albums I still listen to regularly. The other artists here produced some great songs that I listen to on occasion when those songs pop up on shuffle. But I don't listen to any of their albums start to finish. With Kate Bush and Bonnie Raitt, I do. Hounds of Love and Nick of Time both hold up today as great albums.

 

I love Joni but i have a hard time thinking of her as an ''act'', she's much more than that.

 

She's a Class Act.

 

Kate Bush was big in Canada starting with her debut album.

 

Sarah McLachlan's first album "Touch" was released in 1988, so technically she could qualify, albeit it's a stretch.

 

Carly Simon............ a superior talent
Linda's great too

 

If I can't say Heart, then Pat Benatar.

 

From the poll choices:

'70s: Donna Summer
'80s: Madonna

Aretha and Dionne were better in the '60s, IMO. And Carole King and Joni Mitchell should have been included (as already has been pointed out). Also Joan Jett (got this from the next post ).

 

I would vote for Stevie Nicks if she were here. Loved Linda Ronstadt in the 70's. Where's Joan Jett?