Recently, somewhere, it was pointed out to me that for the first time in recent memory that there were no female solo artists in the Top 30 the past couple of weeks outside of Taylor Swift. 

The reason this is such a big deal to some people is that it seemingly puts country music as a ‘boys club’ and it brings up an age-old argument about the demographic that listens to country music.

Quite simply, it means that gatekeepers at country radio and other taste-making places (like this website for starters) think that country music’s most dominate fan demographic, the 25-44 year old female, is shallow.

They think that women want to have ‘cute’ or ‘hunky’ men singing about these women or singing doey-eyed loves songs to these women. And while there is a segment of this that’s partially true, how do we explain the fact that the three of the most popular solo artists in country music right now are females?

You can’t.

Female fans may love cute singers and become loyal to them but they are just as loyal to Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift.  Younger fans, like my 12 year old niece, can’t get enough of the female artists out there.

And here’s a reason why: they want songs they can relate to regardless of the gender of the artist.

So no matter if it’s a Brad Paisley song about gettin’ it on listening to some “Old Alabama” or a Taylor Swift song about that moment of first love in “Sparks Fly,” fans wanna be able to relate to it.

Here’s another thing to consider when this ‘news’ about few female solo acts in the current top 30 of country radio charts: most of the female artists simply released singles nearly at the same time and are facing a slow moving pack of singles and are just outside of the Top 30.

Country fans aren’t as shallow as folks are quick to believe. Yeah, some fans may be knuckleheaded enough to only like singers that are ‘cute’ or ‘hot’ to them but honestly, that kind of stardom doesn’t last long and it takes songs that appeal to people to have a career that does last.

This isn’t to say that looking attractive doesn’t help an artist; it’s just not the be-all-end-all some like to think it is.

One other point to highlight about this argument, and it’s a big one, is that for the average country music fan, they don’t know the difference between a current top 40 chart hit and a recurrent chart hit. In fact, the three songs that are currently in the recurrent Top 10 (Swift’s “Mean,” Sara Evans’ “A Little Bit Stronger” and Miranda Lambert’s “Heart Like Mine”) all get played enough to be considered Top 30 hits on the ‘current’ hit chart (this according to Billboard’s chart data).

All of this says nothing of the current duet between Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, Aldean’s duet with Kelly Clarkson or even the duos and groups fronted  or co-fronted by females singers.

So, as you can see, the whole “There’s few female solo artists inside the top 30” is a complete and utter nonsense argument to have, although it did make for a nice rant and discussion here.

What do you think? We wanna hear from you?  Do you prefer male or female singers? Do you think that women artists get less of a fair shake to become stars?