![Gwenno:]()
Gwenno: "This next song is called 'Patriarchaeth'," Gwenno told the crowd at 6 Music Festival last month, a wry smile on her face. "Which means patriarchy. Which means pretty terrible time for women." Her music, sung entirely in Welsh, is almost invariably packed with scathing political and social statements.
![Little Simz: One of the many grime artists overlooked at this year's BRIT Awards, Little Simz was, at least, named one of Forbes' European 30 Under 30s at the start of this year. At her album launch show last year, she was joined on-stage by Kano and Stormzy - both longer in the tooth than her - and held her own spectacularly.]()
Little Simz: One of the many grime artists overlooked at this year's BRIT Awards, Little Simz was, at least, named one of Forbes' European 30 Under 30s at the start of this year. At her album launch show last year, she was joined on-stage by Kano and Stormzy - both longer in the tooth than her - and held her own spectacularly.
![Mitski:]()
Mitski: "I thought that standing up for certain things would not make me popular," Mitski once said of the early days of her career, "but that's stupid." Since that revelation, she's been not only a kickass musician - with songs of both poignant, lullaby-like calm and of reckless, scuzzy urgency - but a vocal critic of inequality.
![Bjork:]()
Bjork: "Everything that a guy says once, you have to say five times." More than twenty years into her career, and Bjork is still a formidable presence - both as a musician and as a human being. As her label founder Robin Carolan attests to, she still battles with gendered assumptions that she isn't "in charge of her records." She is, and her forthcoming album is "going to blow you all away."
![PVRIS' Lyndsey Gunnulfsen: Not content with merely being the lead singer of a band who manage to effortlessly blend electro-pop with post-hardcore (no easy feat), Gunnulfsen has also become the gay role model she so craved for as a child.]()
PVRIS' Lyndsey Gunnulfsen: Not content with merely being the lead singer of a band who manage to effortlessly blend electro-pop with post-hardcore (no easy feat), Gunnulfsen has also become the gay role model she so craved for as a child. "I never had someone to look up to and be like ‘oh that person is OK and they’re gay,'" she told the BBC. "If I can be that for someone, then it’s why I’m open about it."
![Charli xcx: Not content with merely being an unapologetically brash popstar in an industry that encourages passivity, or helming her own BBC documentary on feminism, Charli xcx has just launched her own record label.]()
Charli xcx: Not content with merely being an unapologetically brash popstar in an industry that encourages passivity, or helming her own BBC documentary on feminism, Charli xcx has just launched her own record label.
![Kacey Musgraves: Country music isn't exactly renowned for its progressiveness. Which is why Kacey Musgraves - whose music casually alludes to female empowerment while sending up heteronormativity - is so important.]()
Kacey Musgraves: Country music isn't exactly renowned for its progressiveness. Which is why Kacey Musgraves - whose music casually alludes to female empowerment while sending up heteronormativity - is so important. "So, make lots of noise / Kiss lots of boys," she sings in breakout hit 'Follow Your Arrow', "Or kiss lots of girls if that's something you're into."
![Christine & The Queens:]()
Christine & The Queens: "It's funny, because at some point I really wanted to be a man," Christine & The Queens - whose expansive, poignant electro-pop is one step to the left of most of her contemporaries - told Gigwise recently. "Now it's shifted a bit. Now I'd rather stick with being a girl, to fight for it to be exactly like being a man."
![Anohni: After a long and important career as Antony & The Johnsons, and many years as an openly transgender woman, Anohni decided to adopt her new stage name last year. If her first single under the new name, '4Degrees', is anything to go by, the best is yet to come.]()
Anohni: After a long and important career as Antony & The Johnsons, and many years as an openly transgender woman, Anohni decided to adopt her new stage name last year. If her first single under the new name, '4Degrees', is anything to go by, the best is yet to come.
![FKA twigs: Unfortunately, a high-profile relationship has exposed twigs to the UK media's unpleasant tendency to pit women against one another. She's risen above this though, and proved herself truly inimitable. Her new single, 'Good To Love', makes the prospect of a new album in 2016 even more exciting.]()
FKA twigs: Unfortunately, a high-profile relationship has exposed twigs to the UK media's unpleasant tendency to pit women against one another. She's risen above this though, and proved herself truly inimitable. Her new single, 'Good To Love', makes the prospect of a new album in 2016 even more exciting.
![Beyonce: We hope the release of the already-iconic 'Formation' means Beyonce's got another album brewing, because the world can only go so long without a new Beyonce album before it starts suffering withdrawal. Take 'Flawless' for example. The world's biggest, most powerful popstar sampling a TED talk on feminism by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Incredible.]()
Beyonce: We hope the release of the already-iconic 'Formation' means Beyonce's got another album brewing, because the world can only go so long without a new Beyonce album before it starts suffering withdrawal. Take 'Flawless' for example. The world's biggest, most powerful popstar sampling a TED talk on feminism by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Incredible.
![Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace: More than a decade into her career, and with five studio albums under her belt with punk rock band Against Me!, Laura Jane Grace came out as a transgender woman. The band's sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, documented her journey towards self-realisation with beautiful insight. The band's next LP is due for release this year.]()
Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace: More than a decade into her career, and with five studio albums under her belt with punk rock band Against Me!, Laura Jane Grace came out as a transgender woman. The band's sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, documented her journey towards self-realisation with beautiful insight. The band's next LP is due for release this year.
![Susanne Sundfor: The Norwegian musican would probably have mixed feelings about her place in this list. While accepting the Best Female Performance accolade at a Norwegian awards ceremony, she changed her speech on the spur of the moment.]()
Susanne Sundfor: The Norwegian musican would probably have mixed feelings about her place in this list. While accepting the Best Female Performance accolade at a Norwegian awards ceremony, she changed her speech on the spur of the moment. "I am first and foremost an artist," she told the crowd. "Not first and foremost a woman." It reminded people of the importance of highlighting gender inequality without treating women as "other".
![Garbage's Shirley Manson:]()
Garbage's Shirley Manson: "I just need to hear what the women have to say," Manson told Gigwise last year. "I feel like the world is welcoming lots of male voices quite easily, so I'm like 'what are the girls saying about this?' There is no female perspective, but there is a perspective coming from that of a female and I think it's different for everyone." Garbage's new album, Strange Little Birds, is out this year, so expect Manson to continue her reign of brilliance.
![Halsey: When Halsey, visibly upset, stepped outside Radio One headquarters to reassure fans that she wouldn't leave without meeting them, it was not evidence that she'd suffered some sort of]()
Halsey: When Halsey, visibly upset, stepped outside Radio One headquarters to reassure fans that she wouldn't leave without meeting them, it was not evidence that she'd suffered some sort of "meltdown," as many headlines declared, but of how viscerally important she is to so many young fans. A beacon of hope for those whose sexuality, race or gender identity falls somewhere outside of the dominant norms, Halsey is a special kind of popstar.