Pop's new wave

Ladyhawke. Photo / Supplied

When Geri Halliwell was asked to define girl power in 1997, she said: "When you reply to wolf whistles by shouting Get your arse out'." It was not, perhaps, the most nuanced contribution to the post-feminist debate, but it made its point nonetheless. Her group, the Spice Girls, blazed the trail for a certain kind of sassy female singer who squared up to male authority with a tongue-in-cheek feistiness that demonstrated she had nothing to prove.

But for all Halliwell's self-conscious chutzpah, the paradox was, of course, that the Spice Girls were manufactured by men - the five members met after responding to advertisements placed in the press by a father-and-son management team.

Now, a decade on, a new wave of female artists has arrived, in all their glorious eccentricity.

Singers such as Lady Gaga - who performs in Auckland on May 16 - Wellington's Ladyhawke, New York's Lissy Trullie and Britain's Little Boots and Elly Jackson (from pop duo La Roux) are rapidly accruing a fanbase, not only through their songs but also through their distinctive fashion sense, saturated by 80s references and insouciant androgyny.

It is they, cultural commentators and industry insiders agree, who are at the vanguard of the most fashionable scene in town. "The tide of skinny boys brandishing guitars has finally abated," says Emily Sheffield, deputy editor of fashion bible Vogue. "This year's swell is all about the girls ... eccentric, quirky and as sure about their melodies as they are about their style." New York magazine has just declared that 25-year-old Trullie has taken up "the red-hot joint of downtown cool".

The current prevalence of female solo artists marks a sea change, according to British radio DJ Steve Lamacq. "For years the music industry didn't really know how to sell a female vocalist," he says. "The men in charge had their own preconceptions: you could either be Kate Bush, a rock vixen, Carole King or Kylie Minogue and that was it."

Paul Rees, the editor of Q magazine, calls this the most "interesting and provocative" pop movement in recent years, fuelled by the need for escapism in times of economic hardship.

"The best thing about it is that it's glamorous," he says.

"It's more interesting than a bunch of boring blokes, singing drab, bin-men music." It is true these 20-something women seem to be redefining a music industry that, for the past few years, has been dominated by dispiriting male guitar bands sporting skinny jeans and uncombed hair.

"There was just nothing more that four boys with a guitar could do," says Lamacq.

"It had become very, very boring." Instead these women have moved from guitars to synthesisers, from acoustic harmonies to infectious techno-pop, from self-indulgence to overindulgence. They are less mouthy than Lily Allen or Amy Winehouse, less manufactured than Girls Aloud or Leona Lewis, and more creatively original than Adele or Duffy with their soulful vocals.

And although their musical styles may be wildly different - Elly Jackson favours an electro-synth sound, Lissy Trullie performs sassy guitar power-pop, Lady Gaga is heavily influenced by dance music - they share something more indefinable: an attitude of individualism. It takes a certain amount of rock-star impudence to turn up to sign your recording contract, as Jackson did, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "I'm a c***". Indeed, these singers appear to have in common a willingness to be different and the desire to shape their own futures.

Victoria Hesketh, 25, better known as Little Boots, has insisted on maintaining creative control by choosing her own producers and disseminating tracks on MySpace.

"I want to change people thinking that because it's a poppy thing that a record label's pressed a button on the giant songmaking computer and this popped out at the end," she says.

Other female soloists delight in the synthetic kitschness of the electro-pop era - the video for La Roux's first single, Quicksand, featured Jackson perched on the edge of an oversized Martini glass against a pink Miami Vice sunset.

Lamacq believes the resurgence of interest in feelgood pop has also been fuelled by a desire for escapism.

"We're going through times of economic hardship and we just want to dance, drink and forget," he says.

"It's a case of How I learned to stop worrying and love the Human League'. That snobbery has been swept away by this generation."

But while these artists enjoy not taking themselves too seriously, it does not mean they treat their music with the same triviality.

According to Garry Mulholland, author of the acclaimed This is Uncool and Fear of Music pop chronicles: "Being funny and piss-taking doesn't mean you're not singing about sincerely held beliefs.

You want your pop stars to be pop stars. If something's intelligent, it doesn't mean it has to be presented by a man who doesn't shave and puts his jeans on backwards.

"A lot of this is about the pleasure of dressing up, of reinventing yourself and that's what you want in a time of recession.

You don't want someone staring at their shoes, singing about feelings if your life is a dull, drab grind." Alongside the irreverence and the escapism, there runs the more profound subtext of self-empowerment.

Artists such as Ladyhawke and Trullie seek to subvert the notions of traditional, sexualised femininity by striking consciously androgynous poses. Trullie, with her cropped hair and leather motorbike jackets, recalls the sleek cool of a Warhol Factory girl, while 29-year-old Ladyhawke favours men's tailoring, Dr Martens boots and bowler hats.

"When you look at the way that women have been presented in the media over the last decade with the lads' mag boom, it's been diet, style, shave to increase your sexual availability to a male audience," says Mulholland.

"After a while, there was going to be a reaction and these young women are not going to play this game." Jackson cites David Bowie, Annie Lennox and the 80s film star Molly Ringwald as her influences. She wears vintage tailored jackets and winklepickers, topped off by a chopped bob of red hair.

For Rebecca Lowthorpe, the fashion features director of Elle magazine, this new generation of singers has a different style precisely because it has not been manufactured: like Patti Smith or Debbie Harry or Madonna before them, they look as if they are in charge.

"Even though their fashion is recycled from a previous era, what makes it interesting is that they are not styled by other people," Lowthorpe says.

While the 80s are big in both music and fashion, the era has new connotations for the singers, she says.

"It's not about aggressive power suits, shoulder pads and a woman's place in the boardroom. Instead, they can have a bit more fun with it." For the moment, at least, the future is female. But this new cohort of solo artists would be well advised to learn from the past.

"Everything in music is cyclical," says Lamacq. "I've spoken to a couple of [recording people] recently who have said 'Please don't send us to see any more girl singers. We're just so bored with them'."

Yet although tastes will inevitably change, perhaps these women will leave a longer-lasting legacy of what it means to be a female pop star. After all, girl power should be about more than exhorting a man to drop his trousers.

Lady Gaga

Born 1986 in New York
Real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
About her: Influenced by glam rockers such as David Bowie and Queen as well as 80s pop singers such as Madonna and Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga's debut album, released last year, has spawned two international number one hits, Just Dance (Grammy award-nominated) and Poker Face.

Ladyhawke

Born 1981 in Wellington
Real name Pip Brown
About her: Brown named herself a character played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1985 Rutger Hauer film Ladyhawke. With a style heavily influenced by Electric Light Orchestra, her debut album was released in September 2008. She is currently writing material for her second album.

Elly Jackson

Born 1987 in London.
About her: Part of the British band La Roux, she wears trousers and has a Flock of Seagulls quiff, causing some to refer to her as a panto Peter Pan. Her style is synth-pop. La Roux's self-titled first album is due to be released onJune 29.

Little Boots

Born 1984 in Blackpool, England
Real name Victoria Hesketh
About her: At 16 Hesketh took part in the reality show Pop Idol and was eliminated in the third round. She went on to form a jazz trio before becoming Little Boots. Her style is electropop.

Lissy Trullie

Born 1984 in New York
Real name Lizzy McChesney
About her: She has been compared to model Agyness Deyn and boasts the androgynous cool of one of Andy Warhol's Factory girls. Her style is a mix of new wave and 60s girl-group sounds and the softer side of the Velvet Underground.

The mothers of invention

Blondie

With her blond tresses and spiky punk attitude, New Wave sprite Debbie Harry channelled the spirit of blond bombshell Marilyn Monroe inside the heart of rock'n'roll and in the process became the first sexy girlpower icon.

Madonna

Before she became Adopt-o-mum, she was the feisty, defiant Material Girl and set herself on the road to being the most successful female entertainer in history with a string of hit singles and albums in the 1980s.

Annie Lennox

The Scottish singer - and one half of the huge 80s synth-pop duo Eurythmics - was an early 80s style-setter for her blond waif-cut and androgynous looks alone. But it was her astonishing contralto voice, matched with her flinty attitude, that set her apart from her girly-girl competition.

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