Author Description

By any measure, 1996 was a landmark year in American Music. It was the year female solo artists out-charted their male counterpoints on the Top 20 charts for the first time in history. And, they did it by an impressive margin of 61 to 39 percent. Intrigued by the seemingly sudden surge of female recording artists, the author examined the pop charts from 1996 back to the start of the modern era, 1954, to determine the significance of the event. What he discovered astonished him: Not until 1996 had women ever out-charted men on the pop charts-the 1996 event was a historical first for American music. This revolution brought about incredible changes in the industry and in the music itself. But the building blocks for these changes were laid many years before by hundreds of women in front of the mic and behind the scenes. Go, Girl, Go! is the story of their musical revolution.