For the first time in pop history, the Top 10 album charts are made up of mostly female solo acts. But why has it taken so long for women artists to break through the vinyl ceiling and prove their worth?

THIS WEEK’S Irish album chart looks like a separatist feminist enclave. All the top 10 placings – bar a token male entry at number eight for a Thin Lizzy Greatest Hits collection – are taken up by Adele, Amy Winehouse and Imelda May (all with two entries), while Beyoncé, Rihanna and Lady Gaga also feature. Such a female dominance of the album charts has never happened before, and the Irish sales figures are mirrored internationally. This year has seen a sharpened stiletto smash through the long-standing glass ceiling of the album charts and the female domination we are seeing now signifies a massive commercial and cultural turnaround.

While female acts have always fared well in the singles charts, they have a miserable history in the album charts. The singles/album distinction is an important one as an artist’s true worth is measured by how they perform over a series of albums.

The first UK album chart was introduced in 1956 but it took 21 years for a female artist to hold the number one position. And even then Connie Francis's 20 All-Time Greatswas a collection of songs written mostly by men. It wasn't until 1982 that a woman who wrote her own material made it to the top spot: Kate Bush with Never For Ever.

Even the likes of Dusty Springfield, Shirley Bassey, Cilla Black and Sandie Shaw could never hit the album top spot, and while acts such as Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Carly Simon did perform well, they never made it to number one.

There was, and still is to a degree, a perception within the music industry that rock music is a male affair with women artists being assigned either of two roles: that of pop “totty” or the sensitive acoustic singer/songwriter type. Historically, the message was that men wouldn’t buy “women’s music” in any significant quantities and thus the marketing and promotional departments wouldn’t really push albums by female artists.

Despite its racy image, the music industry is a deeply conservative body (witness how it’s struggled to adapt to the digital era) and not seeing any bottom line returns from female albums, a self-fulfilling prophesy was put in place where female artists were seen as being for the singles market only. Kate Bush apart, it wasn’t really until the end of the 1980s (totally out of step with most other industries) that women asserted themselves in the album charts. In October 1989 there was a substantial breakthrough when the top four places were taken by Kylie Minogue, Tracy Chapman, Tina Turner and Gloria Estefan. And as more and more female acts racked up multi-million album sales (led by Madonna, Shania Twain and most recently Dido), the old prejudice slowly dropped away.

While much was made of The Spice Girl’s “Girl Power” slogan in the 1990s, it’s worth noting that the slogan was written by a man (as were most of their songs).

This current remarkable about-turn – which has seen a female artist at the top of the Irish and UK album charts for 25 out of the last 29 weeks – can in part be explained by the emergence three years ago of two young female talents. Unlike big US female artists such as Beyoncé, who has the best songwriters and producers in the world at her disposal (never mind the multi-million dollar budget), both Duffy and Adele were nurtured by independent labels (Rough Trade and XL, respectively) and both came from ordinary families (Adele was born to a single teenage mother). Crucially, both wrote their own material (the only way you make money in the music industry) and when their resepective debut albums – Rockferryand 19 – went on to become multi-million seller on both sides of the Atlantic, there was a profound change in how record labels viewed the signing and promotion of solo female singer-songwriters.

While traditional male guitar bands such as Travis and Oasis saw their sales wane, the big money was being made by the likes of Amy Winehouse, who outsold Coldplay and U2 with her largely self-penned Back To Blackalbum. And in Lily Allen the business found an act with the self-confidence to dictate her own career terms.

Over the last two years labels have been actively looking for a new Duffy or Adele. If, as label bosses will tell you, it comes down to throwing a €1 million development deal at either a male four-piece guitar band or a young solo female artist, the latter will always win out.Florence and the Machine were the first to benefit from how seriously the labels now take female acts; there are a number of bright young talents in a holding position ready to come in to land in the album charts later this year or early next year.

For solo Irish females such as Cathy Davey, Lisa Hannigan and Julie Feeney, it means that attracting publishing deals, festival slots and TV/radio exposure gets that bit easier (or, as some would have it, fairer).

In 10 instances this year,solo female acts have occupied all of the top three places on the Irish and UK album charts; twice this year they have occupied all the top five places. Those figures are even more impressive when you put them in context: only 11 per cent of all albums released this year have been by solo females.

Five of the six biggest-selling albums of the year so far have been by solo female artists. In this year’s Mercury Music Prize for the best Irish or UK album of the year, four of the nominations are for single female artists and all concerned see the prize (announced on September 6th) as a three-horse race between Adele, PJ Harvey and Anna Calvi. It’s the first time that has ever happened.

High five: The top solo female albums of this year

1 Adele 21

2 Adele 19

3 Lady Gaga Born this way

4 Beyoncé 4

5 Rihanna Loud