All I'm askin' is for a little respect.

A trendsetter is a person who leads the way in ideas.  A lot of times this applies to fashion, but it can also apply to music.  This is particularly true now, when there are so many resources to discover and listen to new music. How does the average listener even know where to start?  My sister-in-law Kally is loyal to Pandora, my wife Ranisa watches VH1’s You Oughta Know and my friend Margie is the entertainment manager for a casino and is always being sent new music.  Well in the lyrics of King Radio, but made famous by the Grateful Dead, “Let us put men and women together / See which one is smarter / Some say men, but I say no / The women got the men like a puppet show.” 

While living in Washington DC in the mid-1990s when I first started promoting concerts, I received the advice that I needed to get the college ladies on-board with the shows and then the gentlemen would follow.  This proved correct over the course of many, many shows.  Then years later while working at Stage AE in Pittsburgh, I have gotten to know some of the staff who work at the concerts. In fact, a majority of the concert-day staff are women and in late July when one of the female staff members referenced that I check out the opening act for Warren Haynes in late September, I took her musical recommendation seriously.  Although the artist was more country than I would typically seek out, something about the bluesy lines, “I used to spend my nights out in a barroom / Liquor was the only love I’ve known,” really jumped out at me.  Not surprising, since the lyrics belong to recent Country Music Award winning sensation Chris Stapleton.

Another example would be when Clean Bandit was dominating the airwaves this summer with their song “Rather Be”, their first UK Singles Chart-topping song, and I was fascinated with the vocals from the hook.  I would later find out that the singer was Jess Glynne, but she would then fall off my radar.  Flash forward to November when I would hear the song “Hold My Hand” (not to be confused with the Hootie & the Blowfish song of the same name).  Once again the vocals grabbed me and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was Ms. Glynne.  I then went home excited to share with Ranisa a cool new song, and she said she already knew all about Glynne from the song appearing in advertisement for Coca-Cola.

Forget the customer rule, women are always right.  Michele Anthony, is the Executive Vice President of U.S. recorded music for Universal Music Group. As the No. 2 executive at the world's biggest music group she's not running a label; she's overseeing those who do.  Julie Greenwald is the Chairman/COO of the Atlantic Records Group and has more than contributed to putting together a diverse roster that includes rock legends, up & coming pop artists and singer-songwriters.  The list continues, in fact Billboard’s Women In Music 2015 nominations are now open for submissions. 

Thanks for reading.