I can never resist a good “best of” list, and culture blog Flavorwire has come up with the 50 essential women-in-music albums, giving a short blurb for each album. It’s a pretty wide-ranging list, spanning a variety of styles and 50 years of music: from  Ella Fitzgerald’s first songbook album back in 1956 through to M.I.A.’s 2007 album Kala.  

I’m pleased to see a few of my personal favourites in there, including albums from Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and PJ Harvey.  There are a few others that didn’t make the cut that I’ve had on high rotation over the years, and are definitely on my essential list:

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Grant Lawrence interviewed Julie Fader on CBC Radio 3 yesterday.  If you want to know why she’s the “Polaris secret weapon,” you need to listen to this.

The wonderfully talented singer/songwriter/guitarist Aimee Mann will be touring Vancouver and the west coast of the US in early October (she’ll be playing the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on October 8).  Mann’s been on the music scene for many years, and received wide mainstream acclaim with the release of the offbeat movie Magnolia back in 1999, the soundtrack to which she contributed 8 songs, including the gorgeously desperate “Save Me”.  Her songs have a lot of emotional depth with meaningful lyrics, haunting vocals and strong melodies.

Mann gets bonus points for her appearance on an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - she and her band played at The Bronze, and rocked Spike’s socks off with their performance of Pavlov’s Bell. 

If you’re on the west coast, don’t miss out on seeing her live.

Elle magazine has compiled a list of twelve of the greatest female electric guitarists ever.

It’s a pretty awesome list, but it doesn’t have any audio, so I’ve rounded up some sites with audio or video from all twelve (links after the jump).

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