Four Powerhouse Women Artists

I read somewhere recently that most people become hardened into their musical tastes by the time they turn 30 years old; and those people rarely explore new music after that. Which is a shame because, as I've mentioned here before, discovering new music is actually good for your brain.

So it's just as interesting to me how I find new music as it is what those new favorite songs turn out to be. For example, I found Cloud Cult on a Tidal indie feed. I found Sara Bareilles from YouTube algorithms putting her songs in front of me. Boyfriends turned me onto things like The Eels and David Gray.

Here are four amazing women artists who came to me in meandering ways over the last few decades. They are as top-notch as any male artists out there but somehow find themselves left out of many, many important lists. 

One of these artists I came across after the age of 35. The other three I discovered after I was 40.

Paloma Faith

Paloma Faith isn't known in the U.S. (I know because I keep asking.) She doesn't have U.S. hit records that I know of. Her Wikipedia singles page doesn't even have a U.S. column. 

I discovered her watching a show on cable a decade or so ago called Live From Abbey Road. The first episode I saw (it might have even been a "best of" show) was all artists doing covers of Beatles songs and the show had Antony & the Johnsons singing "Here Comes the Sun," Seal singing "Something," Melody Gardot singing "Because," Imelda May singing "Oh Darling!" and Paloma Faith singing "You Never Give Me Your Money." 

She was one of the artists I've followed ever since. Around the time I saw her on Live From Abbey Road, she had just released her debut album, Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? (2009). Her album artwork is always interesting and her performances and videos are always colorful and theatrical.

The album is full of songs I loved including:

"Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?" 

"Upside Down" 

I'm always a sucker for the retro-sound-made-modern songs that so many artists were doing around this time.

"New York"

She's not the first (or even the first one-hundred probably) of lovers to lose mates to New York City. She just canonized the issue. 

I think about this video every time I go bowling (which was just last Sunday, actually).

"Stargazer"

This is one of my favorite Paloma Faith songs.

"Play On"

Another one of my favorites.

Then in 2012, Paloma Faith released Fall to Grace  

which had this amazing song and video: 

"Picking Up the Pieces"

My favorite of her videos. So lush.

"Never Tear Us Apart"

This was a bonus track on the album and it's a good cover of an INXS signature song. I'll say it as often as I have to: the offer to "if I hurt you, I'll make wine from my tears" is not a selling point. Nobody needs tear-wine. You can get wine pretty easily without suffering for it.

In 2012, she released A Perfect Contradiction. 

My favorite song on that album was this one co-written by Diane Warren: 

"Only Love Can Hurt Like This"

Did I say "Picking Up the Pieces" was my favorite Paloma Faith video? Because maybe it's this one.  The water thing. And the sex thing.

 She released The Architect in 2017 that had:

"Warrior"

And "Surrender"

She also released Infinite Things in 2020.

Camille O'Sullivan 

Another artist not known very well in the U.S., I don't follow O'Sullivan with the same regularity as Paloma Faith but I would love to see her perform live some day. 

And I can't remember if I first heard of her on Morning Becomes Eclectic, the indie radio show on NPR in Los Angeles, or if it was on the British show Later with Jools Holland which we used to watch years ago, also on cable TV.

She's done a lot of Nick Cave covers, including a whole live album of them. I have a distinct memory of her singing Nick Cave's "God Is In The House" on Later With Jools Holland and I've never seen a live performance that was quite like it, as dripping with theatricality. (But it's not available online). This is her version from the 2019 Nick Cave album.

In 2012 she released an album called Changling that had two songs I loved. This was her last studio album. Like Melody Gardot, (mentioned above), O'Sullivan suffered head injuries from a serious car accident and both Gardot and O'Sullivan have used music and singing similarly to rehabilitate from those injuries and the resulting chronic pain. 

And medicinal music fascinates me.

"Revalator"

I love the slow build and the cynical wisdom of this song. 

"The Ship Song"

Another Nick Cave song.

"Come sail your ships around me / and burn your bridges down" 

"Take It With Me"

This is a Tom Waits cover that I really love, from her Live at the Olympia  album (2008).

Kristina Train

This artist I also discovered on Later with Jools Holland around the time her Dark Black album came out in 2012. She is a U.S. artist not very well known in the U.S. but she received a big boost when Bruce Springsteen singled out this album on NPR with Ann Powers and on his own radio show. He astutely compared her to Dusty Springfield.

"Dream of Me"

"Pins & Needles"

Probably my favorite Kristina Train song and one I like to compare to "Needles & Pins" by Cher.

"I know I'll be biting the bullet 'cos you got your hand on the gun." 

"Waltz With Me Under the Sun" (2013 from the movie Queen of Carthage)

There is not a very great distance between this song and those songs from the Disney soundtrack of Alice in Wonderland. 

Then there was no new albums after that until two digital releases, one from 2021 (Rayon City) with:

"Francis Albert"

And "Over You"

and "Comical Coming Down"

and then the download album from 2022 (Body Pressure) where things get funkier and experimental:

"This Side of Love" 

"Corner Dream Lot"

Ooh. What an ending, too! 

This is an artist with lots of loose ends and one-offs. Here's another one of those songs to throw on the pile of "These Days" covers. (2013)

She released County Line (2025). She went from a pop artist to a retro soul one to a jazzy experimenter and now is refashioning herself as a Nashville artist. Is this flexible and fluid? Or indecisive? 

I don't know. Anyway, this morning I'm listening to this new Nashville album and I hear a song that sounds vaguely familiar so I look at my Tidal track listing and I have these seconds of cognitive dissonance. WTF! 

She's doing a lovely, lilting version of Cher's "Believe"! This isn't the first time a singer has done a good country arrangement with this. 

"(Don't Let the Sun Set On You) Tulsa" 

She goes all twangy in this one. The title doesn't match what she sings and that bothers me but that's the only thing that does in this throwback song.

  

Patty Griffin

Now this artist came to me through the mix tapes of an old boyfriend my friends often call "Bad John." He put "When It Don't Come Easy" on a mix tape for me and then I put the song on one of my mix tapes to my Dad and then he became a fan too. 

After "Bad John" and I broke up he tried to give me all of his Patty Griffen albums in a bar one night as sort of compensation for troubles incurred. But I just wanted to hear the albums all the way through to find the best songs and then I gave them all back.

Patty Griffin is so good he was possibly worth all the trouble.

From her album Living with Ghosts (1996)

"Mad Mission"

This is one of my motivational songs. 

"Sweet Lorraine" 

This song triggers memories of a childhood girlfriend or two who had bad and jealous Missouri parents. I've always had sympathetic affection for the song. 

From the album Flaming Red (1998) 

"Mary"

"Peter Pan"

Wendy's very compelling response to the Peter Pan fairy tale. This one gets me every time. If I had to pick a song for the love of my life, it would be this one.

"I believe you now when you say that this will hurt 
so I don't have to go and play with you in the dirt now." 

From the album 1000 Kisses (2001) 

"Long Ride Home" 

Patty Griffin has some great album artwork, too. 

One of my favorite archetypal American car songs.

From the album Impossible Dream (2004)

"When It Don't Come Easy"

The "Bad John" mix tape contribution. It's a perfect song really: atmospheric, emotional, simple, redeeming.

From the album Children Running Through (2007) 

"Heavenly Day"

This was my wedding dance song to the person my friends call "Good John." 

My Dad had made a video collage of wedding photos submitted by the guests who were married already which played to the Alicia Keys song "No One" and then we came back out, our first appearance as the newest married people and danced to "Heavenly Day." It was so much fun planning that wedding.

I would be remiss if I didn't include my Dad's favorite Griffin song, "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)." He included that in the "death reel" video he made for one of our New Mexico family reunions. 

A few albums happened between 2007 and Patty Griffin (2019) which had:

"Luminous Places"

What a gorgeously sad song this one is. 

From the album Crown of Roses (2025)

"All the Way Home"

"Between the boots and the dust and the men you can't trust..." She still has a way with words. And the musical textures through which to weave them. 

I'll leave you with this poignant lullaby:

"A Word"

 

By the way, a few of these women had famous boyfriends. But you don't really need to know that. 

All of these artists are songwriters, providing most if not all the material for their albums, with the exception of Camille O'Sullivan who is so far purely an excellent curator and interpreter.