After reading Elise Johns’ opinion piece in The DePauw, entitled “Why We Should all be Feminists,” I sat in my room and let the airy melodies and lyrics of the girl duo, Lily and Madeleine, consume my thoughts.
I began thinking about the reasons I became a feminist, and that’s when it hit me: I realized how important music has been in empowering my feminist voice. If you peek into my music library you can find a plethora of female vocalists stemming from a wide variety of music genres. This is not to say that if you don’t listen to female vocalists then you aren’t a feminist, but personally I am inspired by an array of female artists as I continue on my feminist journey.
My female musical interests began with the amazing sister pair, First Aid Kit, who exposed me to powerful lyrics and euphoric harmonies. First Aid Kit led me to explore other sister pairs like HAIM and The Staves. For a while, my interests in female vocalists remained singular to girl groups, until I stumbled upon the pop-y female vocalists in Sylvan Esso and Chvrches.
As my feminist voice gained momentum, so did my musical library. I fell in love with the deep passionate vocals from Doe Paoro and Andra Day, and experimental artist like Lapsley, Lizzo and Santigold. My sound may have changed over the past two years, but my love for female tunes has remained constant.
I am reminded with Lily and Madeleine’s new album, “Keep it Together,” the reasons I fell in love with female vocalists, and how my musical interests and prominent feminist voice have expanded. Lily and Madeleine are two young women from Bloomington, Ind., who got their start in high school by uploading covers to YouTube.
In Lily and Madeleine’s new album, the two women take a different approach from “Flumes” to address their “experience of being a white woman in America and a college-age kid in the 21st century.” Their concise new sound features their signature folk vibes, subtle beats and breathy vocals. It’s undeniable that this album is tamer than their last album, but I think this album is a tribute to the pivotal turning point in time these women are in. This album reminds me that these young women are artists, and, thus, they are transforming their sound just as much as they are coming of age.
Just like my transformative female musical palate coincided with my emerging feminist voice, Lily and Madeleine are trying to understand their roles as women in this world. I challenge all of you to peer into your music libraries to see if there are any correlations with self-transformation in your life today, because you may be surprised at the similarities. If you want to listen to Lily and Madeleine, tune into WGRE!