(Minor spoiler for Love Life of a Naked Girl follows)
In my latest novel Love Life of a Naked Girl is a scene in which a group of female musicians appear on-stage in various states of undress. It's a fun scene; it isn't especially important to the plot, but it is my way of paying tribute to the various women in music over the years who have chosen to make a statement by performing naked or semi-naked in front of an audience.
The idea of nude musicians has long been something I wanted to show in fiction. I think for several reasons. There's the fact that, when I'm not A D Rowen, I'm a huge music nerd, with a massive record collection and a long history of going to gigs and listening to and reading about music of many genres, but especially in the 'alternative' camp (punk, heavy metal and hard rock). But more than that, I find that when female musicians perform nude or semi-nude, it's usually rarely done in the name of sexiness or titillation. It's more often a statement, an empowering, pro-feminine, anti-sexist, body-positive thing. I welcome this type of thing in art and culture, and I think it's a strong message for a female musician, who most likely does not have the sort of body that one would find in, say, the pages of Playboy or on the Paris catwalk, to stand naked in front of a crowd.
The following is a selection of female musicians that, over the years, have come to be quite well-known for being nude or semi-nude during performances, sometimes as one-offs but more often as a regular thing.
I've left out artists who are known for being pro-nudity in other respects (including being nude in music videos or on album covers). While artists like Miley Cyrus are notably positive about nakedness (Miley a few years ago declared herself a nudist and frequently posed naked and unashamed - for this reason I gave her a little nod as a pro-nudity celebrity in Brave Nude World - although she's since mellowed a little in her persona), she's never actually performed fully naked on stage. The same is true for singers like Sky Ferreira, who appears nude in her album artwork but keeps her clothes on for live performances, and Lady Gaga, who has taken part in nude performance art separate to her concerts and recording career. That's not to make less of what these artists do, but for the purposes of this list I'm drawing a line between women who have posed nude to promote their art, even with a body-positive message, and women who have actually been nude on stage.
I've also left out male artists. There are a whole host of men, usually in punk rock and associated genres, who have taken to the stage nude or with their genitals exposed (GG Allin, Iggy Pop, Nic Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age, David Yow of the Jesus Lizard, the Dwarves), but the message and intent there is often somewhat different. Nudity on stage can be for shock and confrontation whatever the gender of the performer, but male nudity onstage doesn't tend to have the undercurrent of empowerment.
So without further ado here is a brief list of some female artists who have become somewhat known for performing live music without their clothes on.
Kembra Pfahler (The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black)
Kembra Pfahler is a punk rocker and performance artist whose work frequently involves the female body, often her own and often nude. Perhaps her most notorious moment was when she had her outer labia sewn together in a performance art piece titled The Sewing Circle in 1992. She started her band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black in 1990. Her onstage appearance usually involves a gigantic black wig, thighboots, gloves, blue, red or purple body paint, and no clothes. Her band play a style of glam/punk/shock rock and she's sometimes accompanied by other naked body-painted women onstage. She's a truly fascinating individual, committed to art, performance and feminism.
Read an extensive interview with Kembra Pfahler here: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/kembra-pfahler/
Rockbitch
I couldn't write this article without mentioning Rockbitch, although a true history of this band would take far too long to recount. An all-female rock/metal band who grew to prominence in the 1990s, Rockbitch became notorious for performances which involved not just nudity but full-on sexual acts (such as masturbation with dildos, and lesbian displays) on-stage, and even sex with audience members, all wrapped up in a transgressive, pro-feminist, vaguely pagan philosophy. They were strong advocates for body-freedom (they once filmed a video where the band members walked naked through the streets of Amsterdam, their home city) and female sexuality. Their music never lived up to the controversy and power of their live shows but that was perhaps never that important; they split when their record company began to try to encourage them to tone it down a bit and concentrate on recording.
Grausame Tochter
Much like Rockbitch this band (their name translates as 'Cruel Daughters') come from the European goth/electronic/industrial underground and are known for their extreme stage shows and the transgressive, norm-defying philosophy behind their performances and music. They are advocates for BDSM practices and enthusiastic about the kink and fetish scenes and frequently incorporate BDSM displays into their live performances. Guitatist Lisa Marie frequently performs in the nude, and vocalist and band founder Aranea Peel also sometimes appears naked or semi-naked and covered in make-up and fake blood.
Wendy O. Williams (The Plasmatics)
Punk legend Wendy O. Williams was a former sex-show dominatrix who was once arrested, age 15, for sunbathing nude in public. From 1978 to 1983 she was the lead singer and driving force of the punk band the Plasmatics, who played alongside the likes of the Ramones. Plasmatics shows frequently involved equipment being blown up, guitars chainsawed, and Williams taking to the stage in nothing but panties and electrical tape crosses or shaving foam covering her nipples. After the Plasmatics broke up Williams had a lengthy solo career during which she continued to take precisely zero shit from anyone, recording a cover of Stand By Your Man with Lemmy from Motorhead. Troubled by mental health issues for many years, she tragically committed suicide in 1998.
Amanda Palmer
Once again, one couldn't compile a list of female performers who have used the power of the nude body on stage and ignore musician and artist Amanda "Fucking" Palmer. Palmer is no stranger to nudity in art and performance; around the time of her first solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer? she took to posting vlogs and photos online of herself naked with lyrics from her songs written on her body, and when she was pregnant in 2015 posed as a 'living statue' of Damien Hirst's Verity (a giant sculpture of an anatomical cutaway of a nude pregnant woman) outside the New York Public Library. After the Daily Mail newspaper published a write-up of her performance at the 2013 Glastonbury festival where they spent the entire time talking about her breasts being exposed by her top, she penned the response Dear Daily Mail calling them out for their sexism and misogynistic reporting. During a live performance of the song she removed her clothes and played nude to demonstrate she was not ashamed of her body or uncomfortable revealing it on stage.
Stacia Blake/Miss Stacia (Hawkwind)
Stacia Blake met the psychedelic rock band Hawkwind at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1971 when she was 19. Six feet two inches tall and voluptuous, she asked the band if she could dance on stage with them and was told she could as long as she did it naked. She readily agreed and went on to became a fixture of the band's stage show, usually dancing nude or topless, often with psychedelic designs and slogans painted on her body. She described her performance as interpretive dance and appeared with the band until 1975. She is immortalised in the cover artwork of the band's Space Ritual live album.
Zia McCabe (The Dandy Warhols)
Zia McCabe joined American art-rock band The Dandy Warhols in 1995 as a keyboard player. The band's sole female member, during their early years she often preferred to play topless. She explained this in interviews, saying that she felt natural topless on stage as she would see men in crowds in the mosh pit at rock shows remove their shirts due to the hot and sweaty environment and see no reason why she should not be able to do likewise, just because she was a woman and had breasts. She later posed nude while pregnant for the Suicide Girls "alt-porn" website
L7 on The Word
Although not commonly known for on stage nudity, in 1992 all-female grunge band L7 were booked to play the British television music show The Word, and caused some some controversy when singer Donita Sparks dropped her trousers and underwear and performed the song Pretend That We're Dead naked from the waist down, ostensibly in a statement against the male-dominated music industry, or perhaps just because she felt like it. They were L7, they pretty much did what they liked, which was itself a powerful statement.
Tove Lo
While many of the examples on this list are artists who have had long careers and a lot are no longer performing or making music, Tove Lo is a contemporary singer and songwriter who has only begun recording and releasing music in the last decade. Tove Lo often speaks positively about sex, bisexuality, feminism and female body image in interviews and in the subject of her songs. During her live performances, especially during the song Talking Body, she often lifts up or removes her shirt to expose her bare breasts while she sings and is unapologetic about using this as a statement.
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There are I am sure many other instances or artists I have missed from this list, but it represents those that have been memorable to me. I present this list not to titillate, as that is rarely the intention of the artist, but to show that there are some great and remarkable female musicians out there pushing the boundaries and defying taboos around the female body in art, and that is worth recognising.
Love Life of a Naked Girl by A D Rowen is available on Amazon now.
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