Alison Stieven-Taylor - Rock Chicks: The Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now

Everyone of the rock chicks in this book have sung songs that are etched into my personal history. Such is the power of music that I only need to hear a few lines or the beginning of the tune and Im immediately transported to the moment connected to that particular songbreaking up with my boyfriend, the birth of my sons, my first trip to Europe.

Suzi Quatros Can the Can was one of the first albums I bought. I danced the heels off my stilettos to Tina Turners Nutbush City Limits at the disco end of the 1970s and tried to emulate Debbie Harrys two-tone hair while listening to Parallel Lines. Hearts rock anthems used to blare from my car stereo and I played Stevie Nicks Rhiannon and Edge of Seventeen until the tape became so stretched it was cobbled up by the cassette player.

In the early 1980s I drank black coffee, wore black leather and lycra and smoked gold-tipped Russian cigarettes. I listened to Marianne Faithfulls Broken English as if it were the new religion. Marianne had taken tales of suicide, love, drugs, sex and hate and wrapped them in a vice-like grip with her tobacco-ravished voice and acid phrasing. It was an album of pure geniusand malice. I bought a bootleg copy from a friend who worked for Gaslight Records because it was banned in Australia for its use of profanity.

By 1983 I was working in Los Angeles as a publicist on the Men at Work North American and Canadian tour. Australian culture was having its fifteen minutes of fame in the USAbeing an Aussie made you flavour of the day. I shared a house with two sound engineers who worked with Prince and bands like Motley Crue. When I returned to Australia the following year I moved from publicist to writer, interviewing artists for various music magazines including Rolling Stone and Australian Musician. Although today we are not allowed to accept gifts and freebies, journalists used to get great perks and I enjoyed my fair share of backstage parties and industry events. In 1998 I covered the New Zealand Music Awards for Rolling Stone, the year a tiny woman named Bic Runga swept the pool and alternate rock band Shihad were gods.

Even though trends shift, and what you were listening to in the 1970s is different to what you may enjoy today, the permanency of music and its ability to move you is constant. Musics ability to interpret, reflect, celebrate and commiserate the human condition is fundamental to how we communicate. For the average Jane on the street, music is a part of her everyday life. Through radio, CDs, films, video, TV and online, our sensesand imaginationsare constantly stimulated.

Music is also a business. Record companies advance money to bands to record, tour and make videos. All these funds have to be repaid through record sales. The musicians make money out of song royalties and those who are also songwriterslike Stevie Nicks, Pink and Madonnacan become seriously wealthy from song rights alone.

Rock Chicks celebrates the women musicians and singers who have given us some of the most stimulating and evocative songs by which our lives keep tempo. Rock on.