Issue 9 2009

Last time I educated you about the history of females in metal, telling you about the few prominent females and how females had still struggled to find a foothold in such a male dominated society. This week I’ll attempt to educate you about the rise of female fronted metal.
In the early 1990’s two bands of significance, Theatre of Tragedy and The Gathering formed and released albums which would go on to be the foundations of Gothic metal and directly influence these later bands. The thing that made these two bands stand out from their peers is the fact they were fronted by females. In the early 90’s this was practically unheard of, but Theatre of Tragedy and The Gathering seemed to find an as yet untapped market by combining delicate female vocals with the heaviness of metal music. Another element that started to emerge with these two bands was the combination of metal music with classical elements. But despite the growing popularity of these two bands, females still lacked a solid foothold.
Then in 1996 Tuomas Holopainen was sitting around a campfire with some friends when he had the idea to start a little project. He enlisted the help of a friend of his, Tarja Turunen, to sing the lyrics expecting a voice similar to that of Anneke van Giersbergen, front woman of The Gathering. He instead found that Turunen had a powerful classical voice which was far too strong for his simple acoustic music. This prompted Holopainen to add more heavy metal elements to his project. Holopainen would later name this project Nightwish, and now after 13 years, 6 albums, the addition of a full orchestra and choir to their album recordings, changing their original bass player and the controversial public firing of Tarja Turunen, Nightwish have sold over four and a half million albums worldwide, created the sound of Symphonic metal and become one of the most prominent European metal bands. Nightwish have greatly helped the rise of female fronted metal bands to prominence, both in being a spearhead for their peers and providing inspiration for countless other bands. I don’t think it’s possible to put into words how massive these guys are in Europe. In their native Finland, you can actually get a Nightwish credit card.
Because of the early pioneers such as Doro Pesche and Girlschool, the latter influences of The Gathering and Theatre of tragedy, and finally the emergence of Nightwish as a metal heavyweight, females now seem to have found their active place in the metal world. It is now not an uncommon sight to see a band of long haired, unwashed, drunk men fronted by a long haired, washed, mostly sober female.
However despite this new found prominence, most female fronted metal bands are somewhat confined to the genres of gothic and symphonic metal. Females are also mostly confined to the role of front woman, with very few female musicians finding their way to prominence.