NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Female musicians in Nashville have long complained about the lack of representation on country radio, but now a collective of female songwriters are singing “Time’s Up.”
The Song Suffragettes were formed in 2014 in response to a growing concern that women were being excluded by labels and radio and spurred by comments by a radio consultant that compared women to tomatoes in a salad. Only 18 out of the top 100 country singles of 2017 had a female artist featured, a percentage that has been stagnating in the genre for years.
Kalie Shorr is one of the original members of the collective that plays in a writer’s round every Monday night at the Listening Room Cafe, just a couple of miles away from Music Row.
“We had all individually gone into a stuffy Music Row office and had someone say, ‘No,’ followed by ‘because you’re a woman,'” said Shorr. “I have even had label executives say, ‘I am just really burned out on women right now.'”
But Shorr and her fellow singers said the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements that started in Hollywood and spread to other industries is a critical step forward in a conversation that has always been a secret in many industries. Shorr, along with another Suffragette singer Lacy Green, were inspired to write “Time’s Up” after watching the scores of actresses dressed in black at the Golden Globes.