Citrus and Cinder Blocks

A look at gender bias and misogyny in the indie music genre

By: Sydney Goethel

Even the most casual music listeners are aware of the clear lines drawn between male and female artists. A male artist could easily get away with language and actions in their songs that would be considered career-ending for a woman in this industry. In recent media, “WAP” is a prime example of this trend. While male artists are encouraged to sing about sex and their fantasies, when women do it, it is considered such a shameful act that some are willing to “cancel” the singers who challenge this damaging norm. However, one genre in which this divide is significantly less discussed is indie music. While the genre itself has gained popularity in the recent decades, the beginnings of indie music (short for “independent”) were significantly less political than others, leading to its cultural significance being understated in the wider sphere. A product of the post-punk movement and the cravings of many artists to feel total freedom in their work, indie is a subclass of the wider alternative spectrum, and is still considered a fringe genre by today’s standards. Thus, indie hasn’t gotten the recognition nor the criticism that many other genres like pop, country, or rap do. However, that doesn’t mean that indie doesn’t carry the same double standards and problematic trends that more popular genres do. For example, Alt-J’s hit “Breezeblocks,” while a catchy song, has some major problems when it comes to the message it sends. While the unique, rumbling voice of lead singer Joe Newman and the steady pounding of the drums contribute to an eerie but captivating song, the lyrics are surprisingly horrifying. The song contains the lines, “She may contain the urge to run away/but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks/Germolene, disinfect the scene…” When viewed as a whole the message becomes painfully clear: the song is about an abusive relationship in which the man assaults his lover and then drowns her in the bathtub, holding her down with cinder blocks. The song is horrifying and disturbing, but no one has ever outright criticized the all-male band for it. In fact, the album that “Breezeblocks” appears in (“Awesome Wave,” released in 2012) went on to earn the Cambridge-based trio a Mercury Prize. It was also named the BBC Radio 6 Music Album of 2012, and the song itself went on to become third on the Australian 2012 Triple J Hottest 100. However, another indie song, released only 8 years later, has an incredibly different story. “Lemons” was released in the middle of the pandemic by self-made artist Brye. In the song, she discusses the toxicity of bullying and abusive relationships, singing, “You’ve tried to knock me over by acting like you’re above me/and pretending that I don’t have a voice… I’m legitimately tired of being walked all over/by these insecure babies who think that they’re men.” Her song hits the exact same points that “Breezeblocks” does in terms of melancholic but powerful vocals and nuanced strings to back it up. Yet, besides a dedicated but otherwise average sized TikTok boom, “Lemons'' mostly faded out of the public eye as flashier, more bombastic songs took its place. However, the much older “Breezeblocks” still remains a hallmark of not only Alt-J but post 2000s British indie music. How is it that the all-male group’s songs have remained so culturally and musically relevant, while Brye (who to this day is still a solo female artist) has been allowed to fall out of favor? In her song, Brye specifically calls out bullies and their behavior. Although the song is mainly directed at male bullies, she does not generalize to all men nor does she perpetuate a cycle of allowing her tormentors to continue their abuse. The male voice in the song, supplied by Cavetown, even confesses, “Won’t admit that I’m just jealous of the way you move/through my words like you're bulletproof.” Although the song does hold some heavy undertones, the message of protecting your own mental health and refusing to allow toxic relationships to persist is a strong one. “Breezeblocks,” however, is the opposite side of the same coin. It even dares to brush off violence and abuse as a twisted form of love, which seems to be disproportionately aimed at women. At the end of the song, the narrator claims he is hurting his partner out of intense love: “Please don’t go, please don’t go/I love you so, I love you so…” It is painfully obvious that the song is not only romanticizing but condoning violence and abuse, and the writers of the song walk away completely unscathed. However, if an all-female band released the exact same song but had a woman abusing her partner instead of the other way around, things would likely have turned out very differently. Brye and other women, including Lorde, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo, often include lyrics about mental health, shutting down unhealthy relationships, and displaying the full range of human emotion, and for that they are considered revolutionary in some eyes but radical or dangerous in others. Controversy seems to follow these female artists wherever they go, not because of who they are as people but because of how society has been conditioned to perceive strong women as dangerous or bent on disrupting long-held beliefs. However, male artists largely fly under the radar of the media’s biased gaze, content to continue to roll out misogynistic lyrics and make outrageous claims about what is morally right and wrong. Since the moment music became relevant in society it has been largely dominated by men. Of those men, most are white and heterosexual, even in a genre such as indie, which is largely appealing because of its individuality. While this may not be the fault of individual bands but more of the collective ideas of who is within and without, we all have a responsibility to set the standard for what is morally acceptable and what isn’t. While Alt-J has released more tame music since their “Breezeblocks” days, and society is beginning to widen the scope of what it sees as “good” music, it is clear that more work needs to be done in many sectors to break down this divide between male and female artists and the messages they both project.