2. Betty DavisBetty Davis
Being a bass player myself, I am generally a fan of funk music and I feel like the harder and more emphasised the grooves are on a record, the better. This is certainly a very groovy and funky record and on top of that, what enhances the album from there is Betty Davis’ really out there, bold, in your face and raunchy personality. Very unforgiving, totally unadulterated, not inhibited in any way, shape or form. And I really think it’s an album, an artist and a series of songs that are worth re-analysing in a world of Cardi B’s ‘WAP’. I know everybody is freaking out about that song as if it’s a brand new phenomenon or something, and the hubbub is warranted in terms of the popularity of the track – I don’t think a song about that subject matter has ever been so wildly popular or widely discussed. But it’s not like it hasn’t happened before, women have been discussing their sexuality in music for generations, it’s just that a lot of the time people haven’t been listening. Or it’s just been kind of derided and not as widely accepted and I think it’s important to go back and recall those artists that broke that ground a little bit. There are even people before Betty Davis that you could cite as having done that too, but certainly for her time, she was pushing that envelope in that way. There were few people of her decade that were going as hard as Betty was on a lot of the tracks she is here. On top of that, her vocal style as well, that insane animated rasp that is so over-exaggerated and over the top, it’s really crazy to me. Another, almost inadvertent theme that I realised once I had compiled this list was that I gravitated towards some pretty bold vocalists, and Betty certainly fit the bill for that.
