I have a theory that I believe very strongly in. My theory was birthed after noticing all my favorite female musicians from the 90s were putting out a ton of crap in the 2000s. What could have caused this? Had my music tastes changed that much as I grew older? No. Had the artists strayed too far from the genres I loved them in? No. After much musing, I finally found the culprit behind all this musical suckage.
Babies. Fucking babies.
Every single female musician I loved in the 90s who got married and had a baby, or just had a ton of babies (damn Lauryn Hill!) put out nothing but mediocre crap afterwards.
Let's start with Ani DiFranco. This feminist icon was ripping shit up in the 90s. Straight out the gate with her first album (
Ani DiFranco), she was singing her guts out about politics, sexuality, poverty, religion, misogyny, and love. Fiery, inspiring stuff. DiFanco knocked it completely out of the park with 1995's
Not A Pretty Girl, 1996's
Dilate, and 1998's
Little Plastic Castle. DiFranco gets married in 1998 and the music gets a little shaky, but still listenable. After listening to 2001's
Revelling/Reckoning, nobody is shocked that she is divorced shortly after. Subsequent albums are ok, but nothing spectacular. Then she has her first child in 2007, and the albums that followed the birth; the retrospective
Canon (whose "re-worked songs" were horrible), and
Red Letter Year (absolute drivel and unlistenable), made me shake my head in frustration. Ani had fallen prey to the baby curse.
Next up, Tori Amos. This situation pains me because Tori really is one of my favorite artists in the entire world. Starting with 1992's
Little Earthquakes, Tori was turning the alternative scene on its head with her mad piano skills and imagery-filled lyrics. She kept right on track with
Under The Pink,
Boys for Pele,
From The Choirgirl Hotel, and
To Venus and Back. Amos got married, and in 2000, she had a daughter and the next album released,
Strange Little Girls, was a covers album of all male songs and it was full of horrible tracks. My hopes were raised when she released
Scarlet's Walk in 2002, which was a pretty damn decent album, if not lacking a bit of fire. But, that was a fluke as the next four albums were all droll, and her latest album (2011's
Night of Hunters) was actually a god-damned classical music album. The baby curse has Amos tight in its grip, and I for one am heartbroken.
Oh god, let's talk about Lauryn Hill. Lauryn really shone in
Sister Act 2 and with the Fugees, but her 1998 solo debut,
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was an absolute show-stopper and still one of my top ten albums of all time. Now, at the time of
Miseducation's release, she had just had a son, Zion, but it didn't seem to impact the music. In fact, "To Zion" is one of the most powerful songs on the album. However, she the went on to have 5 more children, and also seemed to lose her damn mind. She released an MTV Unplugged album in 2002 after 3 more kids, and it was awful. She's done a few "leaked" singles, some guest vocals, and some half-assed touring, but has never gotten that spark back that she had in 1998. She's six kids deep now, and up for possible jail time for tax-evasion. The baby curse is in full effect here.
Sarah McLachlan is two kids in and horribly depressing us all with
her ASPCA commercials. But, it wasn't always like this. Back in 1993 she was giving lesbians everywhere a soundtrack to U-haul to with
Fumbling Towards Esctasy, and in 1997 released the extremely gorgeous masterpiece,
Surfacing. She kicked off Lilith Fair in '97 as well, and released a great live album,
Mirrorball, in '99. Then it's baby time in 2002 and what we end up with is 2003's
Afterglow, which was okay seeing as she wrote 2/3rds of the album before she got pregnant. Another baby comes along in 2007, and she releases a fracking Christmas album, and then 2010's
Laws of Illusion, which was just a putrid mess of cheese. She tried another go at Lilith Fair, and the results were unremarkable. I foresee the baby curse continuing to suck the sexy out of anything she touches.
This is getting a bit TL;DR, so I'll use Alanis Morissette as my last example of The Curse. In 1995 when Alanis released
Jagged Little Pill, I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread, and gorgeous to boot.
Jagged Little Pill gave an outlet to all my teenage angst, and I was as equally in love with 1998's
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. 2002's
Under Rug Swept was a great little album as well, she did a hilarious cover of "My Humps" for April Fools 2007, and the two albums that followed were okay. Then 2010 comes along, and we find Alanis married and with a baby in tow. This year's
Havoc and Bright Lights is going to be an absolute suck fest if the first single, "Guardian" is any indication. I believe the baby curse will stand true in this case as well.
Moral of the story: Babies will suck all of your creative and musical genius right out of ya through the umbilical cord. Beware, female musicians, beware!
