ONTD Original: 25 Great Solo Debuts by Female Artists
Last week, I took a look back at 50 of the greatest debut singles by female artists, in reaction to an overwhelmingly white, male list published by Rolling Stone. Over two posts ( 1, 2), I listed songs spanning multiple decades and genres, with the only criterion being that my selections exclude the solo debuts of vocalists made famous as members of an ensemble.
Now, I'm giving those women their due. The 25 tracks below account for only a fraction of the great music borne of women in bands and girl groups striking it out on their own.
Diana Ross - "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" (1970)
Click to viewStevie Nicks - "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1981)
Annie Lennox - "Why" (1992)
Björk - "Human Behaviour" (1993)
Lil' Kim - "No Time" (feat. Puff Daddy, 1996)
Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)" (1998)
Beyoncé - "Crazy in Love" (feat. JAY-Z, 2003)
Rachel Stevens - "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" (2003)
Courtney Love - "Mono" (2004)
Gwen Stefani - "What You Waiting For?" (2004)
Róisín Murphy - "If We're in Love" (2005)
Fergie - "London Bridge" (2006)
LeToya - "Torn" (2006)
Cheryl - "Fight for This Love" (2009)
D. Woods - "Legalize Me" (2009)
HyunA - "Change" (2010)
Beth Ditto - "I Wrote the Book" (2011)
Nicola Roberts - "Beat of My Drum" (2011)
TAEYEON - "I" (feat. Verbal Jint, 2015)
JENNIE - "SOLO" (2018)
Lauren Jauregui - "Expectations" (2018)
Normani - "Love Lies" (with Khalid, 2018)
Caroline Polachek - "Door" (2019)
Aluna - "Body Pump" (2020)
Hayley Williams - "Simmer" (2020)
What singles that I didn't include would you add to this list?
P.S. I have created a Spotify playlist of the songs from my previous two posts-comment for the link!