Music on the distaff side

Lillith Fair: "A Celebration Of Women In Music" (Arista)

This album is infuriating. That is, it is sickeningly representative of the suppressed riches in rock 'n' roll. Let's face it, from the management level, to artists, right down to those of us who write about rock, the music business is still, basically, a boys' room, men endlessly celebrating men. And, yes, systematically excluding women or, more often than not, simply "celebrating their sexuality". That's what makes the whole concept of Lillith Fair, a touring ensemble of women artists, so subversive.

Better than that, in her sleeve notes for this double CD, the organiser of the event, Sarah McLachlan, points out that "our desire is to showcase not only popular main-stage artists, but to bring attention to lesser known artists". Even better is that the music is uniformly brilliant and largely devoid of the political/feminist propagandising many might expect from such an event. It really is music that is being celebrated, maybe even more so than women.

So what do you get? Kicking off, a positively primal blues called Mississippi from Paula Cole, a passionate Scooter Boys by Indigo Girls and, representing those "emerging artists", a lyrical Autour de Lucie from Sur Tes Pas. See what I mean about an abundance of riches? Add to that frequently fully focused live cuts by the likes of The Cardigans, Lisa Loeb, Suzanne Vega, Emmylou Harris, Merideth Brooks, Dar Williams, Shawn Colvin and Sarah McLachlan herself and you have a sublime record of a tour that is apparently due to come to these shores soon. By Joe Jackson