The Legacy of Lilith Fair and Its Cultural Imprint: Can It Be Successful Today?

0:04 Hey, everyone. So welcome to the One Me, Planet Ghosts podcast. I am Randy Kim. And so I am bringing in a familiar guest. You may remember them with such crisis emergency episodes that we've been doing. And I have said to Jung for the longest that I've got to get you on an episode where we can actually talk about things that are a low lift and not as deeply triggering, such as ice raid violence or mental health or the state of the Trump 2.0 administration. So I was thinking about what would be a really good topic.

0:46 And knowing you, you've always been a big fan of Lilith Fair and- And we're at the 30-year mark of the debut of Little Affair, which is really hard to believe. And so I wanted to dive into the topic of the cultural impact and the legacy that Little Affair had during its time, but also in the years following, and how does it stack up in today's current climate. And so Jung has always been a big fan of so many of the other artists that were a part of Lilith Fair, and I would love you, Zhang, to quickly reintroduce yourself and also what's really making you excited about today's topic.

1:35 Hi, everyone. I'm Zhang, and I'm excited to be here to talk with Randy. It's one of these times where we're bringing one of our conversations that we might have on the phone like into the podcast um and it's also like you said like it's a lighter topic and I feel like we we haven't been able to do that on your podcast yet like the first episode we talked about um suicide and mental health and then the two episodes after that were about uh responding to um to the ice and border patrol raids um and being able to keep yourself safe uh around like protest safety and protest health and wellness so um yeah i feel like anytime we get to talk about pop culture is always fun for me usually it's not recorded uh you know we talk about pop culture a lot so i'm excited to have something uh not related to uh The just, yeah, the terrible political situation, although everything is political, right?

2:50 So we're probably going to get into that. But something definitely not related to death and grief, at least. Yeah, and I also want to point out to listeners that this will always be a fuck ice, an anti-genocide zone. So even if we are talking about pop culture stuff, especially with me with other episodes, this will firmly remain... Very strong in the anti-ice and the anti-genocide and the anti-state sanctioned violence that we currently deal with. So just to give you a heads up that, yeah, that that still stands.

3:31 But anyways, I also hope that, you know, listening to this episode will be a good way to... to decompress and also to really enjoy some of the nostalgia of the yesteryears, especially if you are a Gen X or an older millennial. And I think that that what I think about the music that we were listening to, like for myself as a kid, I mean, Vietnamese and Cambodian music were very present in the household. But when it came to Western music, it was Simon and Garfunkel, a little bit of Elton John, The Eagles, and that slowly came into the B96, which is a Chicago top 40 radio station where house music was very prevalent.

4:20 And That was what I was growing up towards. And then, you know, there was like the mid 90s alternative rock era mixed in with the hip hop of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. So I was exposed to a lot of top 40 radio music at that time. But what about for you? What was the music that you were growing up listening to? And how did it shape the way you grew up in upstate New York as a queer Korean American adoptee? Yeah, I will. So I, uh, as I've shared in other episodes, I'm trans nationally and transracially adopted. So I grew up in a white family.

5:00 Both my parents are white. My younger sister is white. Um, and so I was the only person of color in my family and also was like growing up in a part of Western New York. Um, which like I describe as like the Midwest of the Northeast. It's, um, it's like the Ohio part of New York state. Uh, but surrounded by a lot of white people, like the County where I grew up was like, I don't know, maybe like 90 something, 85, 90% white people. So I was like very heavily growing up in, in white culture. And even the, like the other, uh, racialized family members that I had, like my, my godmother's, um, a refugee from Cambodia.

5:52 Like I wasn't necessarily listening to Cambodian music with her. It was like a lot of like mainstream corporate music. I also, there is an independent radio station that I listened to that was connected to like one of the, one of the universities or like one of the school systems where I grew up. So it was a lot of, for me, like, like some of the music that you said the classic rock of like I loved Fleetwood Mac I loved Carole King and like Elton John like Elton John was one of my first concerts uh loved Simon and Garfunkel's The Eagles really got into Pink Floyd when I was in high school um listening to like mainstream like pop punk and ska, that was really big in the 90s.

6:45 I say even today that white boys, instead of making podcasts, should be making music in their garages and in empty swimming pools. If we had more ska bands, if white guys had more trombone mouthpieces in their mouths and fewer mics, then we might be living in a better place. Um, but I was like super obsessed with like newfound glory and like less than Jake, uh, something corporate blink one 82. Although some people would not count blink one 82 as like pop punk, but like that was like some of the. Seen as some of the more independent music that I was, uh, that I was into, although they are definitely like corporate, um, bands and then, uh, definitely like the, the, the women who were making music that was either they were at Lilith Fair or they were adjacent to Lilith Fair, similar to the type of music that was being played there.

7:49 So I was like a huge Sarah McLachlan fan. I also love like Tracy Chapman, Natalie Merchant. I feel like that was one of the like surprise, surprise musical artists that like I feel like people who would look at us today and not be like, wow, they were both like Natalie Merchant fans in high school. So that was like an interesting thing to like learn about you and our friendship. But also, you know, like Alanis Morissette and I loved Ani DeFranco, like Ani DeFranco, as well as the Google Dolls, the bands, the Google Dolls, they both got their start in Buffalo, New York, which is like an hour and a half from where I grew up. So they were Ani DeFranco especially was like very, very well known in Western New York before she became more widely known on the national level.

8:42 And then my other kind of big type of music, genre of music that I was listening to when I was in high school was musical theater. Like I was such a theater kid. I was obsessed with Rent. I used to be able to recite the entire libretto of Rent without music. That's like how much I listened to Rent, but was also kind of like a candor and ebb type of musical theater fan. Not necessarily like an Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rodgers and Hammerstein type of musical fan. Although I do love The Sound of Music. I performed in The Sound of Music in high school, but was, you know, like Chicago and Cabaret. Like that was that was my jam.

9:25 So, yeah, it was like. a few different types of music that I was listening to when I was a kid, but all definitely I think music that was situated within like a mainstream white culture. Yeah. What did your parents listen to during that time? And was it music that you were also like, that you've adopted into your musical world? Yeah, my parents, so my parents were the ones that introduced me to the classic rock music. So, Um, like Carole King, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, the Eagles. Um, like they were, my parents loved them and loved listening to them.

10:06 And so like, that's how I got introduced to those artists. Um, they also were really big fans of, um, like Harry Chapin and Gordon Lightfoot and like these other, these other artists who are like in that classic rock era, um, So that's how I got introduced to them. Interestingly enough, I got introduced to Fleetwood Mac later because Fleetwood Mac had a like big VH1 reunion concert when I was in high school. And so like everybody in my high school. And behind the music too. Exactly, exactly. So like everybody in my high school was like obsessed with, or in my friend group at least, was obsessed with Fleetwood Mac.

10:49 But like Fleetwood Mac, I feel like has these like, these times where they keep coming back so like around that was one of them like when tiktoks started getting made with dreams like that was another one like when bill clinton just keeps yeah when bill clinton was uh running for president i think for inauguration invited fleaward mech that's how i remembered them was when don't stop was there was his political um song so that song was pretty much like excellent to my brain for a while yeah i think bill clinton got elected when we were probably in middle school yeah what about what about you because like you know with your parents being diasporic like were they listening to um to like classic rock stuff that was on the radio how did you get what did you get introduced that through them or like through finding it on the radio yourself you know interestingly enough like um The first Western music that my dad introduced me to was Simon Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.

11:57 And that album, I mean, he would play that album ad nauseum, like, over and over and over again. I mean, I got sick of it at that time. But I remembered how much my dad really loved Bridge Over Troubled Water to Cecilia. And El Condor Paso, like, which... I find that song incredibly annoying. I think I went to Puerto Rico and this man who is a guitarist was basically talking about how he really butchered that classic and he was going on a rant about it. So ever since then, I have to skip that song. But... But The Boxster is a song that my dad loves playing. I do remember it quite a bit. My brothers and I really enjoy listening to it.

12:39 This is one of the few artists that we could actually bond over. And when my brother passed away, we actually played The Only Living Boy in New York, which I think was towards the last end of that album. And that song, what I would find out was... the friendship dissolving between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. But I've always felt tenderness for that song. And so, especially now, it's a song that really takes me back to a very raw place.

13:20 So yes, I will say that Simon Garfunkel was a big one for me. Santana, one of the things during right before the genocide, when the U.S. soldiers were stationed in Cambodia, rock music, U.S. Western rock music was playing constantly, whereas the Rolling Stones, Santana, Daryl King, The Western artists were starting to make an impression on a lot of Cambodian artists at that time. So they would do covers. One of my favorite Cambodian covers is a, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she did a cover of Carole King, It's Too Late.

14:09 And And unfortunately, she, you know, died during the genocide. And, you know, so when I hear that song, it's a very beautiful song. And I think when I was in Cambodia, I was playing it as I was walking through the independence monument to it felt kind of like it was in a time warp. And I think about how um part of this to like listen to some of these songs you know from that era because it came from a very um it came from a very violent era unfortunately and so it's both beautiful but it's also very haunting uh to me and i know that my dad really gravitated towards that particular era the egos um being one of them.

14:56 I mean, I don't know who, what older Asian man hasn't played Hotel California for the umpteenth time. And I know that my brothers love that song so much that they have played, like, live versions of it. And I cannot tell you how much I hate that song, but my brothers adopted that, so, you know. So, like, like, As I was into my grade school to middle school years, most of the music that I was listening to in the car with them is listening to light FM radio. In Chicago, it was 93.9.

15:38 I started getting exposed to Mariah Carey when she was doing more adult contemporary, like the song Hero or Vision of Love. And then I started to become more into her music when you know, her Daydream album came out in 95. Then I became interested in Janet Jackson. And I started getting into B96 music because a lot of my classmates were listening to top 40 radio. And so I would start to hear about the latest artists or what's going on with MTV. And I didn't have MTV. I didn't have VH1, didn't have cable. So I would get, I would get, I would get, I would hear about these artists through the grapevine, through some of my classmates.

16:21 And I would try to find a way to listen to these songs. And I was obsessed with the radio ever since then. What did it feel like for you as you were getting older and you started discovering music on your own? What do you feel like really started to like grab your attention away from when you kind of started seeing your parents' music as no longer cool, you know? Well, it's interesting because the music that my parents listened to, like, I still think it's cool. Um, like it's, it's formed a foundation for the type of music that I like, which is a lot of like folk and folk and singer songwriter music.

17:07 So like, that's a, that's a big aspect of what I like, even though, um, but the artists that I'm listening to has like really diversified. So like, whereas, you know, I might've started, I was introduced to like Cat Stevens as a kid. Like now I'm listening to like Rhiannon Gibbons and like our native daughters, which is like, black women led folk singer songwriter music that like comes out of like a black American music tradition so I feel like those are that's like some of the building blocks that like built my musical tastes some of my musical tastes today it's really interesting because I I didn't get heavily into pop music until I was an adult um when I was a teenager I was You know, I was so insufferable.

17:59 I was very much like, you know, if something gets too popular, like it's not good anymore. And so it was like the boy band eras, like as I was older when I was like super, super young, like a kid. I was I was a fan of New Kids on the Block, but like as boy bands grew, it was like not my thing at all. My sister was very into boy bands, but I didn't really. get back into pop music until probably like my 30s. Oh wow. Which I think we could have a really long conversation about that too and about the like, why it took me so long to like let music written in major keys like back into my life.

18:44 But I think that, you know, I think it's interesting that so much of the music that I grew up on stayed with me today, even though like I'm estranged from my parents. Like I'm listening to the music that we listened to, like going to, you know, we went to see Elton John together in Milwaukee and Elton John and Billy Joel was like one of the first concerts that I ever went to with my parents when I was like, I don't know, somewhere between like five and nine years old. So it's, it's interesting how like that music just remains so timeless to me.

19:28 Like it, it just really stands the test of time. There's some music that there's some music that just continues to do that. And then some music that doesn't hold up, but I'm, yeah, I'm glad that like some of that music does. I don't know that I don't know that Blink-182, all of Blink-182 songs have held up. Although there's such a demand for them, and I'm like, why? I mean, I tried to get in Blink-182, but I was also kind of, okay, you're laughing at me. I did like Offspring. Don't ask me why. I'm trying to remember. Did you want to be pretty fly for a white guy?

20:09 I know. Give it to me, baby. Uh-huh, uh-huh. When I look back and listen to the song, I'm like, God, this is incredibly ridiculous. Absurd. And... And when we think about the era or what the landscape was looking like for 90s women artists, I immediately think about the pop spectacles like Madonna, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, who are very bigger than life personas and also very much individualistic. They had the charisma.

20:51 you know had the appeal of young girls and and it was interesting because they stood in contrast to like the singer songwriter singer songwriters of years past like a Joni Mitchell or Carole King or Carly Simon and or how they're measured against their elder peers like say Aretha Franklin Diana Ross or Barbra Streisand and I think this is a very interesting timeline because those women artists, especially of the nineties that I mentioned earlier, they were selling, they weren't just selling a million records. They were selling millions of records.

21:32 They were huge. I mean, do you remember VH1 Divas, right? Oh, of course I do. I feel like there's all these things, including Lilith Fair, right? That like, I'll talk, I'll talk with people about them today. And like, they will have no idea, but it's like, remember when VH1 used to have these concerts where like Aretha Franklin it'd be like Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion and they're like all together on a stage like when I think of that that era of music and like 90s pop divas I think of you like that is that's such a cornerstone of like the music that you love and that you talk about yeah and i think of like whitney houston like the bodyguard soundtrack held the top spot for like a good two years i think i remember and i remember such a classic soundtrack so yeah yeah and actually i think madonna i think kurt loader if you remember kurt loader he would always interview madonna yeah i know and he's actually in his 80s by the way too which which is kind of hard to imagine but like But like he would say, like, yeah, you know, Boyz II Men is still in the charts.

22:40 And she's like, man, the Boyz II Men is still in the charts. Why can't I be number one? And this is damn bodyguard soundtrack still number one. And this is like 1995. So this tells you how long that soundtrack was enduring, you know. I wore out the cassette tape of that soundtrack. And Waiting to Exhale on top of it, which was also, like, powered by Black women artists besides Whitney Houston. You had Toni Braxton, you had Brandy, and Aretha Franklin was on that album. So, like, I think of my exposure to a lot of women artists really drove a lot of my music listening history. Yeah.

23:21 And for women rock artists, this was an interesting time because Courtney Love was coming in, but she was also like a bigger than like persona. I think people remember her more for the tabloids and her marriage with Kurt Cobain and the aftermath of his passing. And so people paid more attention to her own controversies more than music. And people forget that he was in a band called Hole, you know, and It was the album, that debut album was released, Live Through This was released, like, I think a day after Kurt's passing, I think.

24:01 It was very, it was within that same timeline. So she was starting to really emerge as a front person for Hole and with rock music. And then you also had Sarah McLaughlin, who you mentioned earlier, who would be the founder of Lil Affair. Tracy Chapman several years earlier, um had a massive hit song a fast car she disappeared for a couple years and then around 1996 emerged big time when give me one reason which was a big summer hit um liz fair uh a local chicagoan um really making her way in the indie world cheryl crow um freelance armstrong which I can't listen to anything after.

24:47 I think Lance Armstrong basically ruined quality music. That's a whole nother topic I'll have to bring up for a Sheryl Crow episode. But like, I was obsessed with Sheryl Crow. That second album had me in a chokehold. I think of Melissa Etheridge, an out queer woman, a rock, a woman rock artist. And people call her like the Bruce Springsteen, the woman answer to Bruce Springsteen, which I also don't think it's fair. But you think of Natalie Merchant, who I absolutely love. I mean, I think of the song Wonder, the song Carnival, which just really gives me goosebumps.

25:30 And Alanis Morissette, I mean, like the Bodyguard soundtrack, that album had a long shelf life. Like it really endured for a good couple of years, from 94 to like 97. I think it had a good three-year run. And that album became like what people remember the most. And then you think of Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Indigo Girls. So it created like this big wave of this independent focused women singer songwriters that explored personal narratives and serious themes such as mental health, being in very abusive toxic relationships, sex, childhood.

26:12 During that time, it felt like a breath of fresh air when the music industry has always been traditionally been very straight, very white male dominated, whether it's in the record labels or promoters, record stores. Radio, MTV, VH1. You look at Clive Davis and Tommy Mottola, who both ran Whitney Houston and Moriah Carey's career early on. Renee, who was the husband of Celine Dion, running her career. So it felt like even when those artists were selling big time records, they were also in a way overshadowed by the men in their lives, the male figure in their lives that really ran the corporate lens and tried to push them, push these artists as more products rather than as artists, as individuals.

27:07 So it felt more like a very possessive relationship But when you look at the women rock artists, it felt like a total contrast to that. It felt like it was more in some ways like a response back to this controlled narrative of a successful women pop singer. But when you have a woman with a guitar writing her own songs, not beholding to like mammoth record labels, it felt freeing. But what was your take on that particular era of that the wave of women artists that were coming out?

27:51 Well, one of the things that like when you were sharing all of that that I remembered and that like I wanted to ask you about is kind of the reaction from my peers to the music that I was listening to. Like I was a person, I don't know about you. I was a person that got frequently bullied when I was in school, like elementary school, middle school, high school. Like I was just bullied in a bunch of ways, like all through that. And like the music that I listened to was part of that up until a point. So like I, you know, I loved listening to like female singer songwriters. And then I also listened to you know they were the folks who are getting played on like the top 40 or the adult contemporary station but then i also was listening to the indie station so you know like i was listening to sarah mclaughlin i was listening to tracy chapman and cheryl crow but i was also like listening to hole i was like learning who like luscious jackson was like i was and then i was listening to like hearing like anita franco which she was like very indie at that time still as she started her own record label.

29:03 And so like, it's interesting how like, I would get bullied for listening to Folks like Sarah McLachlan or Tracy Chapman, both before Lilith Fair was a thing and, and during it, you know, I was called a lesbian. I was gay. Like I was already like an outspoken feminist as much as I knew at that time of feminism, like at my school. And so I was, I was teased for that. You know, I was, I didn't come out till like much later till like my, end of my, end of my teens and like into my early twenties. Um, but like when I would, when I would talk about like male fronted music that I was listening to.

29:48 So when I would talk about like newfound glory, which like they're still around or less than Jake, um, that was seen as cool. So it was an interesting contrast of like these women with guitars is, and me being a feminist was like, oh, that means I'm a lesbian. But if I'm listening to Less Than Jake or I'm listening to New Found Glory, I'm cool now. Because that was seen as more independent music back then, even if they were on major record labels. How did people react to the type of music that you were listening to when you were younger? Especially because you loved so many 90s and 2000s pop divas.

30:33 I did. And, you know, it was interesting because my school was kind of like a mix, was a mixture of still predominantly white, but also there were Black students, there were Latino students. And I also had, you you know, surrounded myself with female classmates and with a lot of my male peers. So it was, I felt like I was kind of dabbling in many different pots. Like with hip hop, I was sort of like my talent. childhood best friend Scott would introduce me to Bone Thugs in Harmony, Tupac, and I started being more obsessed with listening to their music.

31:19 I was like, wow, this is very different. This is something that my parents would never imagine me listening to or would want me to listen to, but it felt kind of rebellious. Around the mid-'90s, this was after Kurt Cobain passed, But there are people into Nirvana. I couldn't get into Nirvana. Pearl Jam. I didn't get into Pearl Jam until actually in college. And then I started to really like Pearl Jam at that particular period. Red Eye Chili Peppers, you know, was a band that I did listen to. You know, like they existed. Yeah. yeah they did um you know um and then you got smashing pumpkins on their band oh yeah i forgot about the smashing pumpkins i was actually truly obsessed with them i had all their albums and i was like not even in a crush way but i was like obsessed with james eha Yeah, I was I was kind of like drawn to him being an Asian American person and like, wow, this is pretty dope in Darcy.

32:22 And, you know, I watched The Simpsons at that time. So I would listen to like some of the music that was coming out from that era. And then what was it like? like being able to just get bits and pieces of what people were listening to was very important. But there was something that was very powerful when I think of Mariah Carey and Whitney and Madonna, especially Madonna. Like, I'm trying to remember one particular moment, but I remember I went to Blockbuster. I rented, I had my dad rent me the Immaculate Collection music videos.

33:03 And- that was something. My brothers started to make fun of me because I listened to Madonna. They were very, very visceral about that. You know, like you listen to Madonna, you listen to Mariah Carey, that's so gay, you know. Oh my gosh, look at us. We were both getting called gay for musical taste for listening to women. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, and did that change since then? Hell no. But like, But like, yeah, and I just remember how formative that was, you know, when I saw videos like Vogue and Express Yourself and I was like, man, there's something that's so empowering about it that I, as a 12 year old, very shy, didn't really have many friends.

33:48 And I didn't know who I was and who I belonged to. So I felt like it was kind of an escape, you know. And then, you know, Janet Jackson came along around that period of time. I think in grade school, I remember hearing the song Again, which was playing a gazillion times. Besides, the song Again was like this popular ballad that was from the Poetic Justice soundtrack. And And it was also in our ballad. I think it was just as overplayed, maybe not as overplayed as say, you know, I will always love you. But I was kind of drawn to her. I was drawn to her choreography.

34:28 I wasn't so much into Michael Jackson, even growing up, even though people were still into him. But I think during the whole, the sexual assault case that was happening during the midnights, it was not cordialism to Michael Jackson. So, but his sister was, you know, was still very popular, still kind of like skirted around the controversy and was still very much her own star. And so I was really drawn to her music. Celine Dion, my dad, I forgot to mention, my dad, we went to a Target. And my brother Tony remembers this too, which is kind of funny. In 1993 or 1994, the song Power of Love comes on.

35:09 And my dad was glued to that TV when he saw her sing. Like he could not get enough of that song. So he got that album immediately. And I would hear the Power of Love like, I don't know how many times. And I didn't get into Celine Dion back then, but I did. when you know the because you love me and it's all coming back to me now then i started getting into her music after that you know and so yeah it that was another part too so um i was really into that particular women pop but also a women r&b tlc was one of them so peppa was one of them um uh who else brandy and monica they were teenagers just like us and i remember brandy from moesha and i've always felt like this um this coolness from brandy too like you know when i listen to sitting up in my room and her first album and the boy is mine i was like yeah it really takes me back aaliyah so i was also kind of growing more into that era the hip-hop the r&b so i i think i dabbled in way too many different pots and pots and pans in the kitchen and um and i also listened to i don't know if you ever listened to casey case some back in the day but i used to be yeah i used to like religiously listen to him like every weekend i would actually start taking down that's his top 40 songs.

36:39 And I would go to like local coconuts. Yeah. So for folks who don't know Casey Kasem, this was like every, it was every Sunday, right? That like he would play he would do this like dj it's several hour long dj set where he would like play the like top 40 songs of of that week and there wasn't as much information like on the internet back then and so unless you were like getting billboard on a regular basis it was like gonna probably gonna be a surprise to you like who who the top, the top 40 was going to be, especially those like top 10 or top five.

37:20 So it was like, it was a big deal. You would like listen to the, you'd listen to the radio and find out like if the number one song changed. Exactly. And I think I remember where I came voice to me, that one sweet day song, like every week I was like, God, when is this song ever going to stop? That song was everywhere. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. it's interesting like hearing both like our experience, not on both. That's unsurprising that like arcs, we had a similar experience, like heavily listening to so many female artists and like being bullied for it. But also, you know, and I think that this is, this is something that has continued this idea of like underestimating the fandom of young people, especially young women, but also young gay boys, whether they know that they're queer or not.

38:11 Right. Like underestimating just the, the thirst for like this kind of music. And like in the nineties, like mainstream radio DJs, I feel like to like, you know, set the stage for like why did Lilith Fair exist and like talk about Lilith Fair right like mainstream radio DJs they would they were so opposed to playing female artists back to back or like a group with um a female lead singer back to back with like a female artist right so like one of like the indie radio station I listened to, like they would do that.

38:51 So you would hear like the Sneaker Pimps and then Anita Franco and then Hole and Tori Amos, but like a top 40 station, like they, they would just refuse to do that. I know that that's like one of the things that like Sarah McLachlan like had gotten feedback on, had heard. And so it was like part of why she had wanted to start Lilith Fair. Yeah. Yeah, which also brings me to this question, like, despite the fact that women artists were wildly successful, like, you know, with all the artists that I mentioned, why was it that top 40 to rock stations were like, scared of even playing them back to back on the radio?

39:35 That was, I mean, yeah, that I mean, the simple answer, right, is sexism. Right. Just total sexism and misogyny and underestimating the fandom, both underestimating the fandom of female artists that like these female artists would be popular enough to like have fans, but also then underestimating just the interest of of young women and young men and boys who are interested in listening to female artists like you were. You know, I think similar to the kind of like swing back that we've seen today, you know, like feminism in mainstream US culture has like gone back and forth between like being so present in like a narrative conversation and like experiencing a ton of backlash so like right now we are in one of those moments where like misogyny and patriarchal culture and like you talk about this around like the manosphere and the podcast space that like that is like having such a rise and I think that there was a similar rise that was happening back in the eighties and the nineties that was like all about masculinity and trying to like push these ideas of masculinity in, in music and in culture.

41:07 You know, like this was, this was a time, right? So like, we remember when we were in like middle school and high school, this is when like music festivals were starting and they would like tour all over the place. Like I'll talk to people about something like Lollapalooza now. And I'll be like, yeah, like I remember when Lollapalooza used to play like 30 or 40 shows like in different places all over the country. And now people very much see it as like Lollapalooza is like in Chicago. So it was like it was a much different type of landscape. But like all of those music festivals were were like everywhere.

41:48 they were male dominated even if they have like one one or two like women-fronted acts right and usually it was it was bands that might have had men in them um it wasn't until later that like they started to have um like female solo acts but you know like there was Lollapalooza which was like started by Perry Farrell there was Warped Tour which was the like pop, punk, punk, ska space. There was Horde Tour, which was the like, like jam bands, like mainstream jam band space, like Oz Fest is like Ozzy Osbourne's thing.

42:29 So like there wasn't, there was all of these music festivals that were like shutting women out. There was like the mainstream DJs who like wouldn't play. women back to back on the radio and so like yeah that's that was the space that like you and I were in when we were in high school like getting fed all of this music on the radio yeah I think this is a great point that you bring up because when women artists start to be more assertive in their creative control or going above the comfort levels of the record company. Madonna at that time in the early 90s was the biggest artist.

43:11 When you think of Taylor Swift, you think of Madonna back in the heyday where she was so controversial. But when she released the sex book, the backlash to her career was severe. like people thought her career was over when she did sex and this and it was a soft pornography book and that she curated and that she was with other gay men of color and and for a lot of men they were repulsed at seeing naked gay men on there and they were kind of like uncomfortable with the idea of seeing madonna owning her own sexuality and being very provocative on her own terms and not because she's serving them, that she's really serving herself and being in this perceived control.

44:01 Sinead O'Connor, before ripping the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, she refused to stand for the national anthem. Or she refused to have the national anthem, the U.S. national anthem played at her concert. And Frank Sinatra basically threatened to kick her ass. And Sinead had... long been an outspoken activist, teamed up with Public Enemy, did a song called Black Boys on Mopeds, which was a call to the police violence that was happening against a young Black person in England, I believe.

44:41 And so she was really going into an anti-war and becoming very outspoken at the peak of her career and when she was on Saturday Night Live it pretty much destroyed her career within seconds and the backlash was so severe that when she performed at a Bob Dylan tribute she got booed but I'll never forget when Sinead decided to stop that song she was supposed to sing and basically did a quick acapella of that war song by Bob Marley that she performed at Saturday Night Live and just stared right into the crowd and just started out and got very emotional.

45:26 And that was hard for me to watch that. So you think about some of the women artists that were trying to actually provoke, because once they once there was this idea, it's like, okay, you know, I've achieved the fandom, I've achieved the attention of the media, but then when you step one foot too far, your career is, like, not only over, but your personal life is under attack. Courtney Love, you know, after Kurt Cobain passed away, a lot of people still, to this day, they'll accuse her of killing Kurt Cobain, and And it is very wild about the blatant misogyny.

46:06 Like, oh yeah, well, Kurt Cobain wrote all of her music. Billy Corgan did all of her music. She's not as good as she thinks she is. So like the minimizing of these artists or Mariah Carey, who's actually a singer-songwriter. People forget that too. She's not some plant. Like she actually wrote a lot of her own songs and she would make it very clear that she did that work. So it tells you like, the the level of misogyny that even the most successful women artists have to like have to contend with on a day-to-day basis yeah for sure for sure i think yeah what you were saying about courtney love reminds me of the the frequent um narrative that people have around Yoko Ono and the Beatles, that like the Beatles broke up because of Yoko Ono, not because of like any decision-making that like the four male members of the Beatles had or didn't have.

47:06 Yeah. I mean, the misogyny, continued misogyny against Courtney Love is, is, is, disappointing yet so predictable and Fiona Apple if you remember her MTV acceptance speech she was a 19 year old person at the time and she talked about the whole world is bullshit which to me is an iconic you know speech acceptance speech if there is any and but people like really made fun of her about that and I'm like um um what's there's no lie there like the world is bullshit and you should not have to model by anybody but you're self like what's controversial about that but that's the world that they were living in because the idea that women were asserting more control creative control was very threatening and it was threatening the pockets of record labels in and they feared losing that control over the women that they were trying to profit from yeah yeah Well, did you want me to like, give a like quick and dirty intro to Lilith Fair?

48:15 Cause I have learned actually that like, even people, you know, people that I'm friends with who are like, within like five to eight years of me, like have not heard of Lilith Fair. So I feel like, um, maybe we should have done it up top, but we can do it now. Like what even is Lilith Fair? Um, so and remind me did you ever did you ever go to lilith fair i know that it was probably it was like around here probably at what like tinley park or something probably probably which is the worst venue i know i know how much you hate tinley park um i went to it i went to it all three years so i was like I've seen, you know, I've seen Sarah McLachlan like nine times.

48:59 I've seen the Indigo Girls a bunch of times. I've seen Ani DeFranco, although Ani DeFranco never performed at Lilith Fair. I've seen her like almost a dozen times. So like, yeah, it was I used to spend a lot more time like going to concerts and seeing live music, but. Um, for folks who like haven't heard of Lilith Fair, so we, you know, we just mentioned kind of like the landscape for music in the late nineties, but in the nineties going into the late nineties for female artists, especially female artists that were not pop or R and B artists.

49:39 Um, you know, that were like singer, songwriter, folk, folk rock artists and just how how difficult they were finding the music landscape. So in in the mid 90s, like 1996, I think that it was like Sarah McLachlan started to like she wanted to experiment with like, well, what if we did actually like have I was a headliner and then there was like a woman who was touring with me, who was opening for me. And she was like super discouraged against that. The same as like, Oh, we can't play women back to back on the radio. Right. So she started it kind of as an experiment, like her and Paula Cole went on tour together and then she saw how successful that was.

50:29 And that's where she got the idea to, to do Lilith fair. Um, And so Lilith Fair started in like in its own space in 1997. It was being headlined by like Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole. I remember people were like demonizing Paula Cole because she performed on Saturday Night Live and like showed an unshaved armpits on Saturday Night Live. It was either Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show or something, but I remember watching that, and then I remember people freaking out about that.

51:11 So it was the two of them, and then the Indigo Girls, Jewel, who is not as prevalent in making new music, but was kind of at the height of her career in the 90s as well. Was Sophie B. Hawkins part of it too? Because I know she was an out queer woman at the time. So Sophie B. Hawkins might have been a village stage performer, but I don't know if, or like a second stage performer, but she, I don't think she was listed as one of the headliners. So, so one of the things that I remember about Lilith Fair, which I thought was so cool was that there would be, and this is similar. I think I, I actually, I haven't been to Lella.

51:53 at all. I didn't go when it was touring and I haven't been here. I know you've been, but like you would go into the venue. There was, it was like a huge outdoor venue where Lilith Fair would be. And there was like the main stage, which was usually like a big amphitheater. And then There was a second stage where they would have other well known but not headlining performers. And then there was a village stage. So like the village stage would be people would join for like one or two days. or like some cities would hold contests where like you could earn a spot on the village stage so like Christina Aguilera was on the village stage like Dido when she was super early in her career Nellie Furtado before she got really big because Nellie Furtado is a Canadian performer just like Sarah McLachlan so like they knew each other through like Canada music scene so it was like that that was the village stage.

52:53 And then there was also like all of these booths and tables, um, where you could go, that would be like nonprofits and charities, but also corporations. Um, So one of the things I remember is that like Planned Parenthood was just everywhere at Willa Fair. They were like building. Yeah, they were building up like young women's organizing at that time, which like went into like the March for Women that happened like in the early 2000s. So yeah, that's a general information about Lilith Fair.

53:33 But it was wildly successful. And I think that people did not expect it to be so successful. They made more money in the first year of Lilith Fair than Lollapalooza did that year. It's like, fuck you guys. You don't want us to tour with you? Fine, we're going to... get together and do it ourselves. And they, yeah, they rate, they grossed more money than Lala during their first year and like made more than like $60 million over like the run of the three years, which is like wild to me.

54:15 you know, I love it. I love it, but it's, they raise and they raise so much money for nonprofit and charity organizations to like, uh i think it was like 10 million dollars or something like that um but yeah one of my favorite lilith fair lore things which i tell everybody uh just like a nerd is that i'll remind people that like be or a poor strips you know the strips that you like you put on your nose and then like they would have the commercials where you like pull it off your nose it's supposed to like pull all of the like but white heads and black heads off of your nose. Like they were so big because they were one of the like, they were one of the early corporate sponsors of Lilith Fair.

55:00 So like when you walked in the gate, everybody, like you could walk around to the tables and like pick up gift bags, pick up swag. And like one of the things that I remember getting is like this bag full of like BRA products. um and like pore strips were in them and so like all of these like teenage girls and like gen x so gen x to gen x millennial like teenage girls and and women and their friends we were like all getting biore pore strips and like trying them out and then that was like the explosion of the biore portion was like because of Lilith Fair because they were like giving out so money at Lilith Fair I like the same thing with like the Frappuccino and like bottled Frappuccinos um from Starbucks like that was that was like the early days of the Frappuccino and they were like giving they would like give out samples at Lilith Fair and it really caught on so it was it wasn't like an indie type festival.

56:08 It was definitely like corporate sponsorship, but also you can, you can tack it on to like the parallel rise of like different things in culture, like related to the rise of Lilith Fair. Yeah. What do you remember since you didn't go, what do you remember hearing about Lilith Fair at that time? Were you ever interested in going or were you like, this is not for me? I didn't think it was for me back then because you know, growing up as, you know, being or trying to understand my own masculinity. I did not feel like this would be a good fit for me. But I remembered like around 96, 97, I remember Sarah McLachlan's surfacing album that came out and Building a Mystery had a chill coat on me.

57:00 Adia, I remember- I'm like Building a Mystery had a chill coat on everybody. Yes, it sure did. It still does. And Adia, I remember seeing the video to Adia on VH1 playing all the time, maybe just as much as The Boy Is Mine in the summer of 98. I kid you not. And so I was exposed to Sarah McLachlan music. And around that time, Sheryl Crow had that second album, which had If It Makes You Happy when she was going more into the alternative route. And I was like, wow, this is... Like, I was starting to get into the music that was coming from the Lilith Fair, so to speak. And I didn't get into the weeds, like, say, the Lilith Fair or the Ani DeFranco.

57:45 But I was starting to pay more attention to some of the women arts. I tried to get into it. really couldn't, I really couldn't get into her. I don't know that was picking up was very popular during that time. I kind of dabbled into them. So like, it didn't feel accessible to me but also like the idea of me going to concerts felt like a far-fetched dream because my parents would never allow me to go to any concerts with uh with full of strangers and this is before cell phones this is a very different time but i'm curious for you what was it like going to a little affair as a teenager in that era where you know were your parents like worried about you going out with, like, your friends or, you know, trying to, like, figure out the logistics and the crowd.

58:45 I mean, when you think of Lollapalooza or OzFest, I mean, you think of the very heavy masculine energy that comes into that place. Like, moshing was already becoming very dangerous. People were getting... were hurt, that there was, you know, there were sexual assaults that were happening to women concertgoers. There was a lot of, there was also safety issues that women experienced, like, you know, going back to the Rolling Stones, you know, of the early 70s, you know, and thinking about, like, the behaviors that went on, you know, whether it's from the artists or from the organizers or the crowd.

59:29 I wonder what it was like for you to go to like a big festival that was so transformative. So it's interesting because like I grew up in a very sheltered household. My parents were extremely overprotective, but they like, they loved going to concerts, like these big concerts. So if I wanted to go to a concert, like one or both of my parents would go with me. And so it's when I went to Lilith Fair, it was like me and my sister and like cousins or a couple of friends and then like my mom.

1:00:11 So like all of these concerts that I went to were like with my mom, because that's the only way I was allowed to go. So like I went to Lilith Fair with my mom and she was like super supportive of me, like being in a space like Lilith Fair. Um, she actually like, she bought me like my first, like, you know, rainbow sweater and like rainbow themed backpacks. And then was like, encourage, so encourage this, this kind of like mainstream pop feminism in me, but then was very upset when I became an actual feminist and even more upset when I like came out as bisexual when I was like 19. Um, But like, you know, my first concert that I went to was one that my parents took me to, you know, the Elton John Billy Joel concert.

1:01:01 Like my first concert where I like smelled weed was like a concert that like I went to with my parents. It was the Moody Blues. Also at that same like outdoor amphitheater. So there were like there were some concerts that like I wasn't allowed to go to on my own because it was it was too dangerous and like both of us too dangerous and my parents didn't want to go to them. So like Lollapalooza, I was not allowed to go to, um, and I wasn't allowed to go to concerts on my own until, um, I was like midway through college kind of. Um, so uh all yeah i went to see i went to like horde tour and like these other festivals but like my parents would go to um which i think it's it's interesting going to concerts with your like very overprotective mother uh but that i lilith fair was for me like seen as a safer space by my mother because it was like all women performers, there wouldn't be mosh pits.

1:02:10 It was like, you know, it was like an indoor amphitheater where it was seated and then lots of lawn space, a very kind of like similar to Ravinia, but like not as bougie, definitely not as bougie as Ravinia, but like that's still that same sort of, that same sort of layout. And so, yeah, that was my experience with like, being able to go as, as a kid was like being heavily chaperoned. Wow. And what would, what would you describe like the demographics, you know, like walking into, walking into a venue and did it ever feel like an inclusive environment or did it feel kind of threatening in some ways?

1:02:57 Um, I think because at that time I, um, didn't have the same understanding of like of my racial identity and had no understanding of my sexuality at that time. Like it, it felt very there. I wasn't necessarily questioning whether it was safe or not, but it felt familiar because I went to you know, the high school that I went to was like almost all white is probably like, 80 to 90% white. And I would say that like an average Lilith Fair was probably at least like 75% white people who are like there in the crowd.

1:03:45 But it was also a space where like, instead of white people bullying me for being Asian, like I kind of just there are so many people there that I'm just like blending into the crowd. And is this idea that like, we're all here to like hear women play music. And so like, we're all going to like accept each other. And I say that like from the perspective of somebody who like got to blend into the crowd in that way, um, that like, that was my experience of, of my racial identity at that time. And especially in contrast to like how I experienced it at school, which was like getting relentlessly bullied for being different. Um, But it was, you know, it was, uh, like Gen X folks, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of people my age were like there with their moms or like there with like an aunt there with like another adult.

1:04:41 Um, but there was, so there was like younger baby boomers, Gen X folks, like older millennials who we were like teenagers, um, it was where I, where I grew up in the middle of New York was, you know, I would say like middle class to like upper middle class crowd because you, you know, you have to like pay money to like get into these concerts. But it was a lot of people who just like really were there for the music and loving the music and not necessarily having the music to be male centered. Like, Uh, there was definitely, I had this like internalized misogyny at the time of like, I'm serious about the music.

1:05:28 It's not just because like, I'm not going to like music just because I think a boy is cute or a guy in the band is cute. Um, and you know, recognizing that later is like internalized misogyny, but I was, I was very much of like, I'm not, I'm not like other girls type of thing when I was younger. Um, so it was, yeah, it was a lot of people who were like a lot of hippie aesthetic, a lot of just like a lot of lesbian people who are like out lesbians, which like in the late nineties, um, public, uh, acceptance of like people who are out lesbians was like starting to grow a little bit.

1:06:10 You know, like Melissa Etheridge was a, was a little affair performer. The Indigo girls were little affair performers. Um, And the idea that like you could be angry and like be really angry in your music. Fiona Apple was there. She I think of is like one of the like original like angry girl music people that I ever saw live. And so, yeah, it was formative to me in many ways. And I think that my experience was so specific to like my upbringing as a transnational and transracial adoptee that like grew up in a lot of white spaces because it definitely was a very white space.

1:06:54 I won't say all white because that's a ratio of people, but it was a predominantly white space, both in like the people who were there, the type of like folk rock and rock music that was being offered. Like there wasn't a ton of, of like genre diversity. in terms of including rap and hip-hop in those first couple of years. And also the majority of the performers were white as well. I wonder about were there queer men or were there men that were at Lilith Fair as willing audiences or because their girlfriend dragged them to Lilith Fair?

1:07:36 I'm curious about That's a great question. Honestly, was not on my mind. Like I was not even paying attention to that. I, I, yeah, I was not paying attention to men or looking to see if there was men there or seeing, trying to see if there was men in the crowd. I was like very uninterested in the male gaze, um, which same today. Um, But, like, yeah, I really don't remember. I think it's just because that was the first time that I'd been surrounded by, like, in a crowd with so many women that I didn't know that, like, wasn't a ballet class.

1:08:23 Mm-hmm. You know, interestingly enough, when we talk about the racial dynamics at Lilith Fair, it was known as Lily White Fair. I mean, it was mocked for not having the diversity. Like, there was no Asian performers, no Latinx performers. Very little Black women representation, but the breakthrough came when you had Erykah Badu, who was already starting to emerge in her career. Yeah, I think Erykah Badu joins the second year, I think. And I think, and then Missy Elliott, I believe it was 98, and she was already blowing up. both as a hip-hop and R&B artist and producer too so she was already emerging Queen Latifah yeah they all joined the final year because I think there was like Erica you know Tracy Chapman was there the first year it's like folk so fit the genre like Erykah Badu joined the second year the like the movement of like neo soul was like it felt close enough to the like folk rock indie singer songwriter coffee house sound.

1:09:32 And then finally that expansion to like rap and hip hop is being like a totally separate genre from like, from the like coffee house vibe. And were there a lot of Lilith Fair peers that were fighting against that? Because it would seem to make sense that there would be a lot of pushback. They're like, oh, well, Love Affair was really about folk and soft rock music, but it should not include hip hop or R&B music. I don't know if that was something that was entering in. And another part I do remember was that Lilith Fair, like, late night talk show hosts, like the Jay Leno's and Dave Letterman's of the world, they, like, you would hear, like, Lilith Fair being mocked constantly, despite the fact that it was a damn successful.

1:10:23 I mean, I totally remember that in SNL. Like, I used to watch SNL so religiously. And I remember... I remember like the sketches and the bits that, especially like Anna Gosteyer, who ended up being a performer at Lilith Fair. But like she had this character that was like a Lilith Fair performer. And so would like talk about her experiences as a Lilith Fair performer and like it's both funny like as somebody who was like went to Lilith Fair to me it's like funny in a way of like we're kind of like not taking ourselves too seriously but then also like on on the other hand of like oh like I'm making fun of this thing in front of all the in front of all these other people who also oppose it um But yeah, in terms of like the pushback against the racial diversity and against the rise of rap and hip hop being featured at Lil Up Fair, I think that anti-blackness in US culture is unfortunately timeless.

1:11:37 Like it is a thing that does not end. And I think that at that time in the culture as well as now, something being rap and hip hop was seen as like moving further and further away from like a purity or moving further and further away from a safeness which is like the anti-blackness that's rooted in it that you know I think there's conversation there's been cultural conversation about the ways that like white mainstream culture views um artists non-black artists as like quote unquote ruining their careers or even black artists like this i think that this discourse happened a lot with mariah carey as well but that like the more you get into like rap and hip-hop and the further away you get from folk folk or rock or even pop uh you are like you're ruining your career in a way which of course is not true but is like part of that narrative so like that happened to mariah carey when she went from like pop to like more, more hip hop beats.

1:12:45 Um, it happened to, it happened to Gwen Stefani when she went from no doubt into her solo career, which I think we can critique her solo career in other ways, but the idea that like she was moving into more of like a rap and hip hop space, like that was not necessarily the thing that was like, that was like bad about her solo career. Um, And so I think because all of the mostly white women who were going were just not as familiar or felt very threatened, to be honest, by performers like Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Eve, who were reclaiming femininity and womanhood from a Black Lens instead of from this like mainstream like white waves of feminism space.

1:13:39 I think that there is definitely like, oh, well, this is I thought this was our space, but it's not when really like it continues to like be a space for women and women's music and like female artists. yeah and I know that one of the I know we didn't get a chance to watch the recent documentary on Lilith Fair but one of the things that really happened that wasn't talked about was the inclusion of women in other parts of the music industry. You had tech and AV people, you had engineers, you had healthcare for festival crew workers. And so it wasn't just about the women performers and the musicians.

1:14:21 It was also the people, the organizers, the people that were part of creating that festival and highlighting the work that they that women were doing you know which was very foreign um to which was very foreign uh back then and and still is to an extent and still is like there are I think that it's it's interesting um you know I think someone I think of someone like Taylor Swift right who like this is not going to be the Taylor Swift discourse podcast. I don't think that like either of us are like well-versed enough in like being fans, critical fans of hers to like have that conversation.

1:15:06 But one of the things that has always been interesting to me about Taylor's career is that like whenever you bring up Taylor Swift, people will be so quick to like tack on jack someone like jack antonoff or like another male producer as though like she can't write she is not like writing and like making this music on her own which she like very much is i think there's so many things to criticize about a number of the artists that were performing at lilith fair the same way that there is to like critique about taylor swift and the way that she she makes music the way that she like presents herself to the world, the way that she has built her brand.

1:15:49 But it's like, let her, let her and let all of these other women like have that space on their own and create more, let's create more space for women who are not like the front facing performers to have more space in the music industry. Right. Like, like you said, as like tech and AV, like at a concert site, engineers at a concert site, but also like sound mixers on albums, like producers and songwriters that like the only, there should be more spaces for women other than like the performance of femininity. And often these days what's demanded of like sexuality that like that people have to have to perform externally in order to make it big in the music industry yeah and also like there's also more women's songwriters than just Diane Ward yes like yeah exactly but I also wonder about like you know for Latinx women came in much later too like well it would start to come in like maybe like towards like the 2000s but I remember unfortunately Selena was gunned down and and this was the potential of you know, seeing a person like her about to rise, about to really come up and a person who was really getting the attention of young Latinx girls and that wanted to emulate her too.

1:17:20 And I think about what it meant for like maybe for Asian American women or Asian diaspora women that were like how they viewed like could they even see themselves in this space you know back then when there were no uh women artists i mean it wasn't until like maybe karen oh from the yeah yeah yes like came in like into the 2000s that we made that we started to see this very slow um inclusion or the slow introduction of other non-white artists in that space because rock um rock for a good 40, 50 years has been very dominated by white men and then with white women.

1:18:05 So it was very hard for other people who are not white to think that they could have a space or even for black women artists. Like I think there was, I don't know if you remember her, her name was Reese, R-E-S. She had like this rock, this kind of like this rock album in the early 2000s. And I was like, my gosh, she is really good. And but like for the record companies, like they just were like, well, you're not doing R&B music or Khalees at that time. You know, Khalees was also very much a person you could not put into a genre. And like.

1:18:47 like there were certain artists that you that that that radio was like I don't know if I want to play her music because I can't because she might be too black for our station or for black stations like oh her music might be too white for them you know so this expectation that like black artists have to either be doing rap hip-hop or R&B and then like white artists and White artists are allowed to kind of... Crossover. Insert themselves into any genre and be celebrated for it. And the same with Latin-A artists.

1:19:30 There's an assumption that a Latin-A artist or diasporic Latin-A artist is going to be doing Spanish-speaking only and is going to be doing salsa or some sort of Latin pop. or reggaeton. And so, yeah, I think that the way that the way that music similar to like movies and books is like obsessed with the categorization of genre. And then when we got to the end of the 20th century, what do you think was the result of little affair after those three years like what how do you think this affected sarah mccloughlin's career and how people view her as an artist but also as the founder of little affair and and the trajectory of where it was going into the 2000s because this was starting to be a different time now because right around that turn um the teen pop music started to explode the backstreet boys and sync um Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and then there was like the Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez.

1:20:43 So that was all culminating at that same time around the time of Lilith Spears. And it seemed like, and correct me if I'm wrong, but like the artists that we were talking about, like Joel Sarah McLachlan Fiona Apple they started to take a backseat during that time or at least it felt like they were kind of like being cast aside to fit in now this new group of artists this new pop the new pop sensation so I wonder about your own take on that or at least from an outsider point of view Yeah, well, I think one of the things that did happen, which I wouldn't say it's feminism, right?

1:21:30 Like it's not, I wouldn't say that it was like a feminist shift, but Lollapalooza and other festivals like it, like they did start to include more female artists and more like women fronted groups. But I think that also, like continues to ask the question of like, just cause there's more women there. Does it mean that it's feminist? Does it mean that it is like upholding any sort of feminist principle or that like we are looking at dynamics of power or like opportunities for collaboration, um, and, and like building community, which is like what feminism is so rooted in, or is it just that like more women are there and are being centered?

1:22:17 Um, because I think what you were talking about with like the rise of different pop acts, you know, like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, who did get a start in a place like Lilith Fair, as well as the evolution of just pop as a genre, like being separate from the type of music that was being featured at Lilith Fair. Like it strikes me as like, so many artists becoming so much more individual that one of the, you know, I think there's, there's so many things with the musical landscape, the music landscape and the concert landscape that we could talk about that shifted like in the years following when Lilith Fair ended.

1:23:10 Also, you know, that contributed to the idea that like, some something like lalapalooza was also no longer a touring festival like it is a single site festival and like both of those things they happened for so many of the same reasons in terms of like burnout in terms of like having to having to like get along with a whole bunch of people to like tour together with them all summer instead of you just get to like come into one place and like do your thing and then leave um which is very much what happens at a place like Lollapalooza now. Whereas when Lilith Fair was touring, they were getting to know each other.

1:23:51 They were helping out with each other's children. They were celebrating birthdays together. They were probably doing doing that thing that happens when like multiple people who are like menstruating at the same time, like their cycles are sinking and we're like making sure that each other has pads and tampons, right? So I think that like that, that era of music festival just changed a lot in, in going into like, what is more of an individualistic type of music space today, even if it includes a lot of, a lot of women simply because there are so many more artists.

1:24:37 Um, but like these women aren't necessarily always touring together. There are definitely exceptions to that. Like, you know, uh, Beyonce has, like, been... Beyonce and Beyonce's concerts and Beyonce's music has been a springboard for, like, showcasing other Black women artists, especially. Like, Taylor Swift will frequently, like, take other female artists with her as openers when she's touring. So, like, those things are happening, but not in the same... to the same scale that Lilith Fair was happening. Yeah, it's...

1:25:18 It's kind of, I think when you think of like the turn of that century, especially with the changing music landscape, like you also started seeing like Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, and you saw more of like this kind of like the Pope. little affair take on it's like okay let's be let's have a little bit of fun let's be a little bit more rebellious um but it also kind of felt in some ways safe in in some ways um because that teen pop era felt like it was more controlled but it was also like like you didn't hear enough of and like even to the point where like Liz Phair started doing pop music which you know like she got grilled by music critics and then Joel went into that pop dance mode at one point and yeah Liz Phair for like the there was yes she brought in one of Avril Lavigne's producers yes and like you could hear the shift in her in her work from like one album and to another album um one thing that like that just popped into my head as you were speaking is this idea of like you know what you were saying so clearly is like teenage pop acts versus like these adult women and you know the benefit to the music industry of like having such young artists who maybe don't have as much experience in the industry or like haven't fully learned what they can say no to and build boundaries

1:26:51 around um and being being at higher risk of like being taken advantage of or being exploited by the industry versus like so many of these adult women who were headliners in lilith fair like already having successful careers, even if they haven't fully broken into the mainstream yet, but like having being older and having more experience as as like singers, songwriters and touring musicians just creates creates a different dynamic than if it's, you know, someone like Britney Spears on her first tour or like Avril Lavigne on her first tour is going to be so much different than like, okay, Bonnie Raitt is here and she's like the concert mother to like all of us here touring with Lilith Fair.

1:27:37 And it's something that like continues to then like take away power from the men who are behind the scenes from like being able to exploit the artists who are on tour. Yeah, and I also think about the effect of Lilith Fair that it had on a lot of grown women, seasoned artists, I would say. Madonna at that time had a career revival with Ray of Light, and I think in some ways it was kind of inspired by Lilith Fair in some ways, too, when she was starting to really embrace more of the introspective take of motherhood, and that became one of her biggest albums, and also it... Also, it created the longevity, which was very rare among women.

1:28:22 If you were past 35 years old, you were considered a husband or a wash. But then you look at Tina Turner. probably one of the few outliers that defied the ageism and became one of the biggest touring artists at the end of the 90s, also around the time of Lilith. It seemed to be on par. I also think about Cher. People had thought that Cher was, her career was basically in the gutter for a number of years, which I think it's very wrong. But in the pop landscape, no one thought that she was going to have a number one hit in 1998 at the age of 50 years old, you know?

1:29:03 So I think that around that time, you also started seeing like even some of the older women all of a sudden become or start having these career revivals that are in the pop mainstream landscape, which you really want. would never think would happen and I think that still is a problem today to be honest with you because it's hard to see 40 plus year old women um chart on the billboard these days it just feels like like it's still a very ageist landscape um um totally like the ageism and the sexism kind of woven together You know, I think of a band like the Rolling Stones and they're like they're so old and they keep touring and people are just like, yes, they're so good.

1:29:50 They have to keep touring, but they they like won't. go to see a woman who's like over 45 touring, you know, like there's obviously there's exceptions. Right. But like, you know, someone like Sarah McLachlan, who I've seen so, so many times, but haven't seen, haven't been able to go see the times that she's been, uh, in or near Chicago. Um, you know, like in her, her concerts aren't necessarily selling out anymore. And that makes me sad. Right. That like as a touring musician, like she, um, she's not necessarily like at the height of her fandom anymore. But then also like, I think about the Indigo girls who I have been able to see usually because their concerts are a little bit more affordable for, for me now.

1:30:40 But like, they are also older and touring, but they are, Yeah, they're touring smaller venues. They're not looking to sell out stadiums or arenas anymore the same way, or amphitheaters, although they are selling out some. But they're not looking to sell out those sorts of venues in every single city and have such a loyal fan base from just being such regular tours all the time. But yeah, I also, I think of the ways that someone like Missy Elliott like when she went on tour after being a part of Lilith Fair, like she, she really learned from that experience and like credits it with the, with when she like invited Alicia Keys and Beyonce to like go out on tour with her that she was like, oh yeah, like I can have women open for me and I can use my concert platform to like lift up artists at that time.

1:31:37 Like Beyonce was like just in the process of like leaving Destiny's Child to like be a solo artist. So I think of that as like being a cool thing that she like credits Lilith Fair for, um, And also just so wild to think of Beyonce being a solo opening artist when she's one of the biggest artists of our time now. Yeah. You know what was also kind of interesting? Because I was having this conversation with Anjali on Lady Gaga. And Lady Gaga opened up, when she began her career, she opened up for New Kids on the Block.

1:32:18 Yeah. which to me, it lives rent-free in my head. I'm just like, how is that even possible? It's like you have a very emerging eccentric star with quite a wardrobe coming in. And New Kids on the Block, like years past their prime, they were in reunion legacy status. So it didn't make any sense. And she was also opening up for the Pussycat Dolls too, which- Yeah, like the genre difference. That reminds me of how like Lizzo got, got her her touring start like opening I think it was for Sleater Kinney which I think of them as like being very different genres as well um but also like a an example of like showcasing like female female musicians yeah yeah and when you think about like like Lilith Fair now, if it like, well, in 2010, they tried to revive it.

1:33:16 And unfortunately it just, it didn't work out. I mean, tickets were not selling, Bigger X were canceling it. It just felt like it was very much in disarray. And then I think one of the failures of that, of that fair was that it didn't seem to grow with the times. It didn't evolve into- And that's something that like Sarah McLachlan has admitted. Yeah. Yeah. It was a very different landscape by that point because Lady Gaga, the return of the pop spectacle was starting to emerge. Kesha was very big. Britney Spears, you know, I mean, unfortunately that was during conservatorship era, but like, but like the Rihanna's, like you have like the pop spectacles really coming back in full force.

1:34:01 And, and Taylor Swift was already starting to come into her own. So it didn't feel like they needed that. a little fair to to use it as a as a stepping stone but I also felt like in some ways that a lot of like independent women artists were kind of ignored or at least put cast aside you know especially with the changing landscape yeah yeah that's something that I think about as well that I think the the space of a festival, especially a festival like Lilith Fair, with the village stages, which would usually be a platform under a small tent with someone being up there with a guitar and a microphone and maybe some band members behind them.

1:34:51 You could win a contest to get that spot. It feels so much different now than the way that most folks will tour. I think festivals are sometimes a good place to showcase smaller artists. I won't necessarily say independent artists all the time, although that can definitely happen. A place like Coachella or a place like Lollapalooza, or definitely a place like Pitchfork, which Pitchfork is not in existence anymore. But that's a place where you could hear something really new you might not hear on the radio, or that might not you know, back then be played on like MTV or VH1, like might not have those like music videos that were in regular rotation.

1:35:43 But I do think of that piece being lost of like the way that festival, the festival landscape has shifted. So like when you want to go to lots of different places, you'll people would usually tour tour by yourself now. um whereas like if you want to perform with a lot of other people or um you're just gonna like go and like perform with a lot of people but then leave like that's when you would play at a festival the festival isn't necessarily going to multiple places um because of the logistics of that so that's a thing that i am thinking about in terms of like how how do independent artists get to break through into the mainstream um like is is tick tock the new village stage um is the algorithm yeah i mean is youtube the new village stage and i have a few artists that like i've discovered through instagrams through instagram in that uh like reshares tiktoks i'm not on i'm not on tiktok because i'm an elder millennial but there's i was on tiktok i've discovered i've discovered independent artists through um through instagram and um instagram via tiktok um but I think that there are fewer live spaces to see and

1:37:13 discover artists in that way, unless you live in a place like Chicago where there's constantly live music. I didn't grow up in a place like Chicago or like in a place, um, where it was like a suburb close enough to a place like Chicago. So that wasn't the music landscape that I had access to. Um, So I would only get to see these mainstream or indie artists through the independent alternative radio station or through a big festival that had a third stage where I could see local folks. Yeah. I also wonder if Lilith Fair would be brought out, how would it respond to the current political social climate?

1:37:58 Because when it ended, like during its time, it was during the Clinton era. So it missed out the entire Bush era. And also like, when it was trying to be revived, that was during Obama's first term. But with Trump the past 10 years, I wonder what that would have looked like and how would they have responded to like the Black Lives Matter movement, to immigration, to stop anti-Asian hate. How would a person like Sarah McLachlan respond to like these growing social concerns and also having to recognize that, yes, you are a white woman that's very privileged and how like how how like how can a place like how can a how can um an institutional mainstay like little affair survive in that context or be trusted to be that venue like like who would you have to invite who would you have to disinvite if you know one of the artists that's something that was anti-black or or or very trump adjacent and and how social media moves so it's i i i wonder what that would have looked like and also um not to mention like the like even though little fair included a number of queer women well what about trans women what about non-binary folks what would that look like too you know Yeah, I think those are all really interesting questions to like bring Lilith Fair into

1:39:30 like what is the what's the present day context and I think even the context that they left behind that they that can be critiqued like when Lilith Fair was around right because it was started by. white women who are talking to other women who are in their sphere. And so that ended up including black women who were making the same type of music, but because there wasn't a lot of genre diversity, like it was not going to include the breadth of like racialized women making lots of different types of music. One of the things that I think about, especially in terms of like what a space like Lilith Fair might look like today or how it might operate is.

1:40:20 And I think that, you know, I didn't go to the relaunch of Lilith Fair back in 2010. I was like, number one, pretty broke. I was like in grad school making my, my salary at that time was $800 a month. So I was definitely not going, I was not going to Lilith Fair. I was not going to Lollapalooza. Like that year was a very broke year for me. It was like a very low earning year for me. But one of the things I think about that happened then and happens now was like all of the internalized misogyny and heterosexism that is, is acceptable within the, society and like the centering of men that that was then and it still is now so acceptable within mainstream feminism this idea of like we have to bring in men into our feminist space so for instance like in abortion rights you'll see lots of like men for choice groups popping up um that like center center and celebrate men for like becoming these megaphones of feminist rhetoric while also like ignoring women for having those same ideas.

1:41:37 So not that I am like anti, I am not anti Pearl Jam or not anti Eddie Vedder, but I will often see folks celebrating Eddie Vedder for like being supportive of abortion and Planned Parenthood in ways that like I don't necessarily see them supporting or celebrating women artists for doing the same thing right like Pearl Jam is like relentless tours that's like a thing that they're known for as a band and so like it's a it's something that I've seen people just like love on Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam for while also it being so acceptable in society to like make fun of a space like Lilith Fair so that's something that I think about a lot I also think that if Lilith Fair were to try and happen in the same way, and I'm sure that this was part of why it wasn't as successful in 2010, is that it would be because of the amount of money it takes to run that sort of festival, you have to be just so aligned with corporate interests and corporate sponsorship and so and to like you're playing to um to like kind of the most the widest mainstream audience right and so to me it would be like if the women's march were a

1:43:07 music festival like if it were if lilith fair were a festival that toured it would be so dependent on each location rather than like having some sort of like like principle that An investment in like intersectionality and and supporting people who are multiply marginalized. Like as part of like an overarching approach to its principles right so. in some places, like the women, like in Chicago, the women's March, like features a racial diversity of women. It includes trans women in leadership.

1:43:50 And then it, it has an analysis around disability. But in, in other places that are not Chicago, like it does not have those things. It is like, holy, like a very, very white space, a very, very middle-class space, um, a very mainstream space. Um, and I think about Lilith Fair's, um, kind of uh attention to and focus on a specific kind of women artist um like not only were like black women and other women of color not necessarily included as musicians unless they fit a certain type of genre but even uh women who were there was a lot of women who um who were part of like the alt girl, riot girl space, who were not part of Lilith Fair as well.

1:44:50 It's like an artist like Ani DeFranco was not part of Lilith Fair. Luscious Jackson, the group Luscious Jackson, like they thought that something like Lilith Fair was like super corny. What about Annie Lennox? What about Annie Lennox? Was she considered for that too? I don't know. I would have to look I would have to look that up to see if Annie Lennox was like part of Lilith Fair. But like I think about all of these reasons why like there were artists who just weren't part of Lilith Fair, whether the music was considered too alternative or whether like they had they were were having a battle with like their own internalized misogyny about what it would mean to like be in an all women's music space.

1:45:38 or whether the genres were just not seen as fitting into the mold. So I think that all of those things would have to be taken into consideration. And I think that there's also a space, like a conversation that we could have about and that people, I feel like, keep having an insistence on Like politics being separate from the rest of our lives and politics being separate from culture. So my like my experience of Lilith Bear is that it was a space for for women and feminism like Planned Parenthood was there.

1:46:23 But we're very much seen as like politics is separate from from music. And very mainstream nonprofit, too. Right. So like, even though, even though like fans and non fans, you know, demands that performers like Beyonce or Taylor Swift, like speak out about certain issues, like they, they are very mute. on those issues right like Taylor Swift isn't necessarily like issuing statements to like in support of Palestine Beyonce is not necessarily saying like ice out of our country right and so there's this idea now that like politics and culture are very different and that like everybody belongs in a fandom um and so I think something like Lilith Fair would have to contend with, like, that pressure within culture that, like, politics don't belong here.

1:47:24 Whereas I think that with or without Lilith Fair, like, are we understanding feminism, right, as, like, a foundation and a system to remake and rethink the way that we're interacting with each other? We're thinking about feminism as, like, an analysis of power like who has power over who else which is what I understand feminism to be or are we thinking about feminism as just a way to like have lots of women somewhere or a way to like have women become equal with men and then what often is unsaid is like have white women become equal with white men so I think there are larger questions about like what is the role of of feminism is like an animating force, like in music.

1:48:19 And how do we see ourselves relating to each other through gender when it comes to the intersections of feminism and culture? Yeah. I really appreciate you taking us through the weeds of it because I wonder, like, Could Lilith Fair, would Lilith Fair be equipped to handle like the kind of sponsors that they invite in? Are they connected to funding Israel or, you know, or some of the artists, are they Zionists? You know, like, so there's a lot of contentions like these days of, like well okay well how is this festival how is this festival being made who is it sponsored by who's supporting it and what money is it funneling towards so i think that these things we are now examining a lot more closely than we did say 20 30 years ago especially in this day and age and totally yeah and i think any i mean any corporation that's going to be large enough to sponsor a music festival is like you don't get to be that big unless you're doing something shitty.

1:49:29 Right. Like even like you and I are like huge fans of Rihanna. Right. Like we went to see Rihanna's last tour that we like, I don't know if we knew it was going to like kind of be, I don't want to say it's her final tour, but I don't, I don't think we knew it was going to be this long until she like made music again. But like even somebody like Rihanna, like she didn't become a billionaire by like, paying everybody who is like making all of her underwear and lingerie and like skincare products, like to the fullest extent of like how they should be paid. Right. So even, even the, the artists and the people that we, that we may love their art, like they are, does not necessarily mean that like they're making their money in socially just ways and so any artist that is going to be seeking or needing corporate sponsorship in order to do to like share their art with the world at the scale that they might want to it's like going to be making compromises and it's like where it's a question just a question of like where do we as fans sit with how artists are making those compromises?

1:50:48 And what are our expectations of musical artists and celebrities to be activists and advocates, even if they aren't? What are we projecting onto them to make ourselves feel better about our fandom in order to be like, I can support this artist and their politics? Yeah, it's still an ongoing process for me because God knows how many people I've had to, like, silence on my playlist. And it's like, okay. I know, you've been going through, like, your whole evolution of, like, what does it mean to be a fan, like, in this age of, like, genocide and exploitation. It's been really interesting, like, as your friend to, like, watch you go through that and to, like, talk about it with you.

1:51:30 Yeah, no, it's certainly something I've been unpacking, especially in my 40-plus years being here. It's like, okay, like, Like, right now, like, why, like, like, why should I be spending $200 on a hoodie, or maybe an independent artist who is really genuinely doing good music and putting themselves out there, or an or a grassroots organization or, you know, doing mutual aid, especially in this difficult time i'm like like right now the world is on fire in all cylinders and i think right now the pop spectacle of it of it's starting to fade out because we're dealing with very grim realities at the moment uh economically speaking it's a very dire situation um independent artists are struggling to make money especially in the age of ai and spotify and you know and you know paying just pennies at the very least, at the very most for their music, which also ruins the creativity and the autonomy that they have as artists to explore and not have much of the platform.

1:52:39 So it's a very difficult landscape to watch happen and seeing how it affects art and also how we consume it and how we have to be very vigilant about what we are supporting and the consequences of where our dollars are going to you know and so we I know that people will say like oh it's cancel culture like we're too quick to you know judge or you know we can't expect perfectionism but we should be able to ask questions we should be able to you know um to expect better or to at least be like hey you know what I'm just gonna divest um I think that there's better ways I could spend my afternoon I don't think I need to go to a concert like this year I have like zero concerts I don't know if there's any shows that I'm really interested in unless Sade comes out of retirement which I'm still waiting 16 years later um Sade, if you are ever listening, somehow if the algorithm reaches you, I hope that you somehow do a farewell tour.

1:53:48 My gosh, the concept of Sade listening to your podcast is so delightful. It would be great. Oh, that would be fantastic. I mean, I love Sade. I feel like Wanda Sykes, when she was basically begging on Sade's needs to not go away, to not, she's like, I knew you would disappear in 10 years. And I'm like, damn, but now it's like really 16 years. I'm like, I'm looking at the clock. But yeah, like, but I also wonder that there are some women artists like, you know, a Bjork, a Shirley Manson that would bulkhead. They're like, absolutely not. And also because their positions are considered more extreme, you know, on on their political views and also their artistic side and what they value especially when there's more artists that are looking at things from a decapitalized mentality too so it's like a big festival may not necessarily benefit them either well I think about so I think about like the there's specific festivals that I feel like live in in the legacy of Lilith Fair both in like Lilith Fair's um accomplishments but also like Lilith Fair's mistakes right or not live in the legacy but like you can look at them in conversation with like what has come after Lilith Fair so like Brandi Carlisle's festival like she has a for the past few years has had a festival the girls just

1:55:18 won a weekend which is like in uh in Mexico um So it's like a bunch of, a lot of women, very white. It's like a heavily country and folk space. That's like kind of going into the space in Mexico that like none of them are like part of. But it is a space where like women, it's like a heavily like all women space and like very lesbian space and like all of the performers are women. But I'm also, and like that has a very kind of like political focus, right? Because Brandi Carlile is like very outspoken in very specific ways around like women's rights and feminism, like LGBTQ rights and all of that.

1:56:10 But then I also think of a space like Afropunk, right? Which has a lot more gender diversity, but also is like uplifting people black women in a way that like a space like, like the girls just want a weekend might not be centering black is not centering black women in the same way. Like there, there may be black women who are there performing, but it's not centering black women, both either as performers or as, or as fans. And so it's, Like I think an Afro-punk is like a heavily politicized space from like a racial justice perspective, like a gender perspective as well, like a Black feminist perspective.

1:56:58 And so I think about like those two types of spaces as like other like just political spaces. orientations towards like what a festival can look like today and then of course there's like the festival that just happened and is happening again next weekend Coachella which is like sapping all of the water from the Coachella Valley and like making it harder for like the people who are there like serving like the workers of Coachella to like It's making where they live a worse place to live and like feeding, feeding and lining the pockets of like somebody who is supporting right wing goals, which like goes back to, I think what you were saying a lot about fandom.

1:57:44 Like, what does it mean to be a fan? What are the expectations that we are putting on these like large moments of pop culture to like mobilize for our movement building in the absence of like our, our desire to like do other types of organizing or be able to tap into other types of organizing. Yeah. And with that also said, I think about who could be a potential lineup for a little fit. If it were to be revived, I mean, who would be an ideal fit? I mean, I think of student archives who I really, really love. Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Cardi B, Miley Cyrus, Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, Janelle Monae, her, SZA.

1:58:31 I mean, Janelle Monae was, I think, was going to be a performer at the, like, revived, the revived Lilith Fair. Yeah. Nora Jones as well. Nora Jones, I think, was one of the folks that had pulled out. Yes. Yes. And, like, her, SZA. Mm-hmm. I could see Lady Gaga doing one of those special appearances because she's a showgirl, you know? So I could totally see the versatility, especially in parts of her career. I could kind of see that. Rhiannon Giddens, Coco Jones, Tiana Taylor, Carol G, a big Latinx artist.

1:59:11 I'm like, this is so multi-genre. I am trying to, because I'm like, look, let's talk about the current times. Like, what would make sense? You mean, like, Chaperone, obviously, I could see that. Valerie June, I think you brought Valerie June up. Megan Thee Stallion, Boy Genius, or three of the solo, or three of the members. Solo, any of them could work, like Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy. they could easily perform in a place like that. Maggie Rogers, who I really do love. I saw her a couple of years ago and really enjoyed her music. Kesha, especially where she is at now in her career, now as an independent artist, which makes me very happy because I have followed her career.

1:59:57 I have followed her journey. And, you know, I've always had a very soft spot for her. So it's like to see her be able to get her own music back is very powerful. And that's powerful. Muna, Carly Rae Jepsen, people have to stop saying that she's more than that person. that call me maybe song i i swear i love carly ray jepson i love her queen of the sad banger her and robin absolutely robin could be a good one too uh brandy carlyle let's say hello to my cat hey well robin is robin is gonna be playing at um at some of harry styles dates this summer oh wow that's wow what he typically he typically will have um female artists open for him good good good It'll either be female artists and or like queer male artists will be his winners.

2:00:54 That's dope. Brandi Carlile, yeah, we've talked about. Kacey Musgraves. I think Lizzo right now, she's kind of having her own fallout of her career. It's kind of interesting to really watch how far she's come crashing down, you know, mainstream-wise, especially after the allegations, yeah. It's been interesting, like watching watching kind of the ways that mainstream culture has has like dismissed and kind of thrown away somebody like Lizzo in the same in the same way, like the ways that that people have also just been like so, so quick to quote unquote, like can't try and cancel someone like Chapel Roan.

2:01:43 I feel like it speaks to even even though there are so many women who are touring like there are so many female artists who have been part of Lollapalooza like. chapel rhone included right but like billy eilish is um is like a headliner rosalia is a headliner like all of these there was a k-pop group that was a headliner like even though women are being included in these spaces and definitely not as much as they could but like being included more it to me it it definitely doesn't feel like we are making space for like a feminist understanding of like supporting women artists um and like we said like especially independent artists um but it's it's it's harder and harder to like have spaces for like touring independent artists especially if they're women especially if they're people of color and especially if they're women of color And also the fan base, too.

2:02:46 I mean, like, I wonder if K-pop, you know, if it would fit in that kind of an atmosphere, in that kind of landscape, too. Like, would a K-pop girl group, you know... um find a place in a place like that or the fact that maybe it's too big that i mean they do perform and you see them perform like at um coachella lalapalooza which is becoming more commonplace i mean k-pop fans have a very very dedicated base and especially with now k-pop demon hunters that has really grown i i it's like it's like we're seeing like another version of teen pop you know emerge in a different direction and it's quite a it's quite an evolution to witness that and i kind of wonder like yeah the days of little fair may feel very antiquated to what it is now but i feel like in this age of like of festivals and maybe the future of festivals what is that going to look like maybe 10 years from now when things start to rapidly change with you know the way um artists are being promoted and and how they're getting paid you know what's their budget um yeah it's it's a very interesting time but i think maybe a question to wrap up is like what would be like some of the memorable song i know this is like a rabbit hole question here but what

2:04:16 would be some of the memorable songs that stand out to you during the little fair era that you're like wow you know i can like i i feel so deeply connected to like as part of my life soundtrack so um possession by sarah mclaughlin um fumbling towards ecstasy is like one of my favorite all-time albums. So possession, um, is definitely such a standout from Lilith fair. Um, criminal by Fiona Apple. And like, I grew up playing the piano. And so I loved musical artists that played the piano.

2:04:56 So like Fiona Apple and like Tori Amos and like Ben folds, like Elton John, Billy Joel. Right. So, um, i like i loved watching fiona apple like perform criminal um fast car by tracy chapman is also like one of my all-time favorite songs and so like getting to see her perform that live is was incredible for me and then one of the um one of the common lilith fair occurrences that would happen to every show um And it happens now when the Indigo Girls tour solo is that Closer to Fine is always the closing song of their encore.

2:05:41 But at Lilith Bear, they would invite the other headliners to join them on stage and all sing Closer to Fine together. So you would have six or seven women on stage with Amy and Emily of the Indigo Girls all singing Closer to Fine together. And the Indigo Girls would be like usually the closing, the closing performer. So it was like the end of their encore as the second headliner that they were performing. So Closer to Fine, like I've seen it live so many times and I love it every single time, whether it's Amy and Emily singing it by themselves or whether it was it's like a group of of seven women who are like singing it all together.

2:06:29 Yeah, and I think that there's some songs that really come out of that era. I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan, the live version. It gives me so much goosebumps. And I remember that was our high school graduation song when the high school choir sang that. And so I still get kind of like in my own emotions to that song. I will say Carnival or Wonder by Natalie Merchant or These Are The Days When She Was With 10,000 Maniacs. Yeah, it timeless um cheryl crow's second album um like if it makes you happy um every day is a winding road to her third album which was which had songs like um uh my favorite mistake there goes the neighborhood um who else would it be um i think of who else could have also missy elliott that first album when she did can't stand can't stand the rain um that was such an epic music video that was way ahead of its time um i remembered that very well i mean she was in this big bloated uh uh you know i She was in this big bloated, I want to say half the bat, but I think apparently when she was going to Virginia Beach, they had to fill it up at a gas station, I think.

2:07:54 I kid you not. It was like a big air suit. It's a big air suit, basically. And it was so epic. And I loved it. I loved the creativity. Nelly Furtado's Whoa Nelly album. People sleep on that album, okay? So everyone thinks of the Timbaland connection and Timberlake. No, everyone needs to like really re-listen to the Whoa Nelly album, like Shit on the Radio, I'm Like a Bird. That was such a good album. I don't know if you're a fan of it, but I was a huge fan of that album. Mm-hmm. so yeah i this has been such a great deep dive i really i know this is like we've been talking for like two and a half hours so i know if anyone has made it to the end of our conversation thank you yeah thank you so much i hope that you get to like support your your local indie artists and make sure that you know you know that you are um supporting their work and and also like yeah i think this is a really good deep dive and i hope that people will you know think about the nostalgia in their lives that they are that they've grown up with and i hope this kind of sparks some good memories or maybe some curiosity for you to discover this but i really really enjoyed this so much so jung thank you so much love to always have you on I just want everyone to like go find a like Lilith Fair playlist on whatever music streaming you're using.

2:09:27 I know that I have like definitely found them on title. So hopefully you will be able to as well. Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much. Have a good one.