News Section Editor Zaynab Khuder gifts both our eyes and our ears with a beautifully curated list of her top 10 ‘unhinged’ musical endeavours pursued by women. Spanning thirty-one years of creative greatness, you’re bound to find at least one new comfort album or EP in The Zaylist.
1. When The Pawn by Fiona Apple, released in 1999, is Apple’s second album following 1996’s Tidal. The album’s full title, a poem written by Apple, expresses:
“When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring
There’s nobody to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall, it won’t matter ‘cause you’ll know that you’re right.”
Apple’s poetic voice doesn’t stop there; the album is filled with gut-wrenching, emotional, and symbolic lyricism. Some of my favourite tracks to check out include: ‘Limp,’ ‘A Mistake,’ ‘The Way Things Are,’ and ‘Get Gone’. However, the entire album is noteworthy and every song tells a story, narrated in the soulful voice of Fiona Apple.
2. Vespertine by Björk, released in 2001, is a follow-up album to the iconic Homogenic. Vespertine opens with the hauntingly beautiful track ‘Hidden Place,’ and the album is definitely one of many notable works by Björk. It has that element of lo-fi and lyrical rawness that is communicated so well through breathy, uniquely ethereal vocals.
The whole album, from start to finish, is a journey that takes you through tales of love and sex. Some of my favourite tracks include: ‘Pagan Poetry,’ ‘Unison,’ ‘Cocoon,’ and ‘Heirloom’.
3. Love Deluxe by Sade, released in 1992, takes a new step in formulating her usual melodic jazz sound to produce this soulful, emotionally charged body of work. There’s an unmistakably yearnful aspect to Sade’s Love Deluxe: it’s a longing for love and to be loved.
Tracks ‘No Ordinary Love,’ ‘Like A Tattoo,’ and ‘Kiss of Life’ formulate the album’s sound in the classic Sade style, heavy with longing, angelic vocals, and smooth instrumentals.
4. Dry by PJ Harvey, released in 1992, is PJ Harvey’s debut album and one of her most notable in showcasing her incandescent, grunge-like vocals that formulate through her raw and unabashed lyricism.
‘Sheela-na-gig,’ ‘Dress,’ ‘Happy and Bleeding,’ and ‘Hair’ are all notable tracks that resonate with the restrictions posed by femininity in a starkly different take than the usual preconceived music by women in rock at the time. PJ Harvey is undoubtedly an iconic name to alternative female musicians, her debut album solidifying her unreplicable talent.
5. Pure by Diana Gordon, released in 2018, is a refreshingly personal and intimate record that encapsulates the personal experiences in Gordon’s life.
Pure narrates familial and internal hardships, the disconnection and connection, and the pain and subsequent love that family can bring. Through five R&B tracks, ‘Wolverine,’ ‘Thank You,’ ‘Kool Aid,’ ‘Moment To Myself,’ and ‘Too Young’ Pure is a love letter of vulnerability.
6. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski, released in 2023, follows the inescapability of loneliness, the plague of grief, and the yearnfulness of love and existentialism that Mitski narrates so well, not just in this album, but throughout her whole discography.
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We feels emotionally charged, brutal and isolated but soft and filled with emphatic expressions of love and its beauty.
It is a no-skip album, but the highlights for me include: ‘Buffalo Replaced,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘I Don’t Like My Mind,’ and ‘I’m Your Man’.
7. Z by SZA, released in 2014, is SZA’s first album and possibly her most underrated. This album isn’t as established or necessarily as “good” as its follow-up CTRL (which is an absolute masterpiece) but in Z we’re introduced to SZA and her unique sound as a woman in R&B.
Some of my favourite tracks include: ‘Child’s Play,’ ‘Julia,’ ‘Warm Winds,’ and ‘Sweet November,’ all filled with the ethereal and unmistakable melodic voice that SZA is so well-known for.
8. Live Through This by Hole, released in 1994, is a pivotal and personal album for me. The Hole that burns through me, is a symbol from the ancient Greek tragedy Medea that inspired the band’s name.
This album is angry, its raw female rage that is narrated with visceral lyricism and themes of female autonomy under the gaze of the misogynist in ‘Doll Parts’ when Courtney Love sings, “I am doll eyes / Doll mouth / Doll legs.” It's an expression of trauma and sexual violence through the unabashed, poignant and grungey vocals of Love. Every track on this album is note-worthy, but my favourites have to be: ‘Miss World,’ ‘Plump,’ and ‘Asking For It’.
9. From The Choirgirl Hotel by Tori Amos, released in 1998, is an autobiographical body of work curated from the context of the emotional pain and grief surrounding Amos’ first two miscarriages. Amos infuses this album with earnest feelings, her voice narrating in a softness that comes from within her talent and expression of such fierce emotion.
From The Choirgirl Hotel is immersed in raw, cathartic intensity, some of my favourite songs include: ‘Spark,’ ‘Cruel,’ ‘Raspberry Swirl,’ and ‘She’s Your Cocaine.’
10. Carpet Bed by Ethel Cain, released in 2019, is Cain’s first EP before releasing Golden Age three months later, also in 2019. In my opinion, Carpet Bed is probably Cain’s most underrated body of work, the mainstream attention shifting solely onto her first album, Preacher’s Daughter (2022), deservingly so.
However, Carpet Bed began the foundation for Cain’s sound, condensed into four amazingly sombre and profound tracks: ‘Growing Pains,’ ‘Dog Days,’ ‘Misuse Oh,’ and ‘Antlers’ are all hauntingly beautiful, which are without a doubt in character for Ethel Cain’s discography.
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