You won’t have read about the artists in this post on Pitchfork as literally none of them are pasty, po-faced sods wailing a-tonally about their ex-girlfriends or rappers from the mean streets that apologetic members of the upper-middle class can like, totally relate to.

In my perfect world, instead of the wife beaters and meth whores we are currently worship, these ladies would be in the charts forever and I wouldn’t want to pull out the car radio with my bare hands once a week. Because in my perfect world that fucking anathema Glamorous wouldn’t even exist. Good, eh?

Nikka Costa

Nikka Costa is the daughter of producer Don Costa. She started recording from an early age, but it wasn’t until her album, Everybody Got Their Something in 2001, (which PRINCE featured on, btw) that she found some kind of commercial success. Songs from the album have been featured in ads and movies like the truly brilliant Crossroads (from which I learnt many important lessons like if you get raped and pregnant by your best friend’s fiancee you should probably just keep that to yourself, k?) and Blow, in which the marvelous ‘Push and Pull’ was featured (and is worth listening to for a true measure of this lady’s craaazy vocal range).

Janelle Monae

OMG if you avoid every artist on this list, please at least take a quick look at this one. Janelle Monae is an up and coming, Grammy award winning artist from Kansas City. She was recently discovered by Big Boi of Outkast (you might recognize her from the Morris Brown video) and is easily one of the most innovative female artists around right now. She based her album, currently being released in 4 parts or ’suites’, on the movie Metropolis which she has built a whole new futuristic ideology around. The story of the first Suite is that she is a robot on the run from the law, because she fell in love with a human and must now be destroyed, because humans and robots can’t be together. Seriously, watch the above video and tell me its not an incredibly cool concept. And that’s not even her best song. How Taylor Swift and her mopey vaguely Christian bullshit can dominate the charts and Janelle’s EP barely clears 25,000 copies I will never know. This is what Modern Soul should sound like and Duffy can chow down on my hypothetical dick.

Esthero

Esthero is one of the few Canadian people who don’t make me want to vomit into my own cupped hands (sorry Canada). Her 2nd album Wicked Lil’ Grrrls is, to pretend I am a Pitchfork reviewer, “an absolute tour de force of musical wizardry that would leave Claudette Rogers nervously wringing her hands”. This year she co-wrote three of the songs on 808s and Heartbreak, including Love Lockdown, so maybe this year she’ll start getting some recognition within the repugnant milieu of show whores and reality TV stars we call ‘the public eye’. The song above is called If Tha Mood, but my favourite song by her is called Everyday Is A Holiday (With You), which she co-wrote with Sean Lennon, but the only version I could find is a little bit crappy.

Veronica Maggio

Veronica Maggio is a hot, sexy piece of sexual sexiness. Look at her! Bitch is merely perfect. She is currently signed to Universal Records Sweden, but the only reason she is not super popular here too is because she doesn’t sing in English and I really think she should. If Annie can learn she can learn. Plus Veronica has the added advantage of actually having a decent voice.
(Another good song of hers which sounds like it could have been recorded by Roisin Murphy is Stopp. The video is brilliant too)

Sia

Most of you will probably have heard of Sia as her song Breathe Me was the last ever song on Six Feet Under omg! I would have liked Sia even if she couldn’t sing because she is a crazy bisexual blonde who likes to make stupid faces and tell dirty jokes, but she can sing so that’s even better. And the fact that she sounds this good live makes her ten times more awesome in my book.

Lindsay Lohan

If you are not a loser (me) or a 14 year old girl you were probably only vaguely aware that Lindsay Lohan had a music career of some sort. Lindsay Lohan’s debut album, ‘Speak’ was the typical trailblazing ‘pap’ you’d expect from a girl who has spent most of her career contendedly suckling from Disney’s milky teat. However her second album, was, as it is entitled, ‘A little more Personal’. Lindsay co-wrote most of the songs on the album, including the song above, called ‘Confessions of a Broken Heart’, written about her relationship with her abusive father. While she is certainly no Etta James, I was impressed with the album as a whole, this song in particular which I found to be quite touching. A for Effort, definitely. Its quite easy to overlook the fact that Lindsay Lohan is talented (see also; almost destroying acting career), you know, because she’s a trainwreck coke addict lesbian.

WORDS: AMY GREEN