Queens Without Crowns
Seven women who remind us that rock was never meant to have a dress code
There is a strange thing about rock music.
We love to talk about rebels.
The outsiders. The troublemakers. The people who kicked down doors, turned their amplifiers up too loud and refused to play by somebody else's rules.
Yet somewhere along the way, rock history developed a habit of putting a surprisingly small number of women on the guest list.
We've all heard the names.
We know the obvious pioneers. We know the stadium stars. We know the women who became household names.
But what about the women who never quite got their place in the pantheon?
The musicians who played the clubs while somebody else got the magazine cover.
The bands who toured relentlessly while history remembered somebody else.
The women who weren't interested in being rock's token female presence because they had something much more important to do.
They wanted to rock.
That is what Queens Without Crowns is about.
Not the biggest.
Not the most famous.
Not the ones with the most awards.
And certainly not a ranking.
Instead, we're going looking for seven women and bands from around the world who remind us that rock music has never belonged to one gender, one country, one decade or even one particular sound.
Some are pioneers.
Some are survivors.
Some are still making noise.
And some are names that you might be hearing for the first time.
That's where the fun starts.
Because around here, the road less travelled usually has the better soundtrack.
FANNY
The women who were there before the world was ready
Let's start at the beginning.
Not necessarily the beginning, because women were making rock 'n' roll long before this, but at a point when the idea of an all-woman rock band being taken seriously was still something of a novelty.
Enter Fanny.
Formed in California in the 1960s, Fanny became one of the first all-female rock bands to achieve significant recognition from a major record label. They signed to Reprise and recorded four albums between 1970 and 1973, working with producers including Richard Perry and Todd Rundgren.
But here's the thing.
Fanny weren't a gimmick.
They weren't assembled because someone thought an all-female band would make an interesting publicity photograph.
They were musicians.
Guitar. Bass. Drums. Vocals.
And they could play.
Their own history proudly describes them as accomplished rock instrumentalists who were musicians first. They toured extensively and built a reputation as a formidable live act.
That's important because the story of women in rock is too often reduced to what they represented.
Fanny's story should also be about what they sounded like.
There is muscle in their music.
There's groove.
There's soul.
There's a looseness that reminds you that these weren't people trying to prove they belonged in a rock band. They were simply a rock band.
And perhaps that's one of the reasons their story is so fascinating.
They weren't waiting for somebody to invent a space for them.
They walked into the room carrying their own amplifiers.
Your first listen
Start with "Charity Ball".
Then dig into the 1970 self-titled album if you want to hear the band before the machinery of the record business polished some of their edges.
And if you're really serious about the deep dive, seek out Live in 1972.
That's where the argument ends.
Turn it up.
Listen.
The question isn't whether women could rock.
The question becomes:
Why didn't more people hear this?
GIRLSCHOOL
The school that never taught them to behave
If Fanny helped open the door, Girlschool walked through it carrying a Marshall stack.
London.
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal is beginning to take shape, and four women decide that they have absolutely no interest in standing politely at the edge of it.
Girlschool emerged from the band Painted Lady and became one of the defining all-female acts of the British heavy-metal scene. Their connection with Motörhead helped place them firmly inside the rough-and-ready world of British metal, and their 1980 debut Demolition cracked the UK Top 30.
Then came "Emergency."
If you want a song that explains the attitude, start there.
It's fast.
It's dirty.
It's uncomplicated.
And gloriously unconcerned with whether anybody thought four women should be playing heavy metal.
Girlschool didn't need to reinvent metal.
They understood something perhaps more important:
Metal already worked.
Give it loud guitars, hard drums, attitude and a song you can shout along to.
Done.
Their history became intertwined with Motörhead, and that relationship makes perfect sense. There is a shared musical philosophy: don't overthink it, don't soften it, and don't apologise for making a racket.
Girlschool's importance isn't simply that they were women playing heavy music.
It's that they became heavy music musicians.
That's a distinction worth making.
Because once the music starts, gender should become the least interesting thing in the room.
The riff is the thing.
Your first listen
"Emergency."
Then Demolition.
And once you're there, don't stop.
Because Girlschool's career didn't disappear after the early '80s. They have remained active for decades, making them one of the longest-running all-female rock bands.
That's not a footnote.
That's a lifetime of turning up the amps.
KAREN ZOID
The voice that refused to fit the mould
South Africa has never lacked musical women.
From Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie through generations of singers, songwriters and performers, women have played a huge role in shaping the country's musical identity.
But rock?
That's where Karen Zoid enters the picture.
Zoid arrived at the beginning of the 2000s with something South African rock didn't quite have in the same way before: a female voice that was prepared to be loud, sharp, funny, vulnerable and completely herself.
Her debut album, Poles Apart, established her as an important new voice in South African rock, with songs in both English and Afrikaans. Contemporary coverage at the time described her as filling a gap in the Afrikaans music scene with a female perspective that could be both satirical and gripping.
And that bilingual element matters.
Because Zoid didn't need to imitate American or British rock to sound like a rock artist.
She could rock in Afrikaans.
She could rock in English.
And she could sound unmistakably South African doing it.
Her career subsequently grew far beyond those early records, with major local recognition and performances alongside international artists.
But for this story, I'm less interested in the awards than in what she represents.
A woman standing in the middle of a rock scene and refusing to be told what a female rock singer is supposed to sound like.
There's no need for a costume. No need for manufactured rebellion. Just songs, guitars and a voice that knows exactly where it wants to go.
Your first listen
Go back to "Afrikaaners is Plesierig." and then explore Poles Apart as a complete album.
Don't just cherry-pick the obvious tracks.
That's where the B-Side Man philosophy kicks in.
Listen for the artist underneath the reputation.
SHONEN KNIFE
Never underestimate the power of fun
Osaka.
Three women form a band.
And then proceed to spend decades making music that sounds like somebody threw the Ramones, garage rock, bubblegum pop and an enormous amount of Japanese enthusiasm into a blender.
Welcome to Shonen Knife.
The band was formed in Osaka by Naoko Yamano, her friend Michie and her sister Atsuko. Their first live show reportedly had an audience of just 36 people.
That's a beautiful place to begin a rock story.
Thirty-six people.
No stadium.
No mythology.
Just a band and a room.
Over the decades, Shonen Knife built an international cult following. Their music was short, loud, catchy and frequently gloriously absurd.
And then Kurt Cobain discovered them.
Cobain famously became a fan after hearing the band and later described the experience of seeing them live with the enthusiasm of a child at a Beatles concert.
Suddenly this little Japanese band had a passport.
But here's what I love about Shonen Knife.
They never seemed particularly interested in becoming important.
They were interested in being fun.
Food.
Friendship.
Everyday life.
Punk energy.
Pop melodies.
Guitars.
Lots of guitars.
It's a reminder that rock doesn't always have to be angry to be rebellious.
Sometimes rebellion is simply refusing to take yourself too seriously.
Your first listen
Try "Twist Barbie."
Then go wherever the rabbit hole takes you.
There are decades of Shonen Knife waiting down there.
And if you're smiling by the end of the first song, that's the point.
NERVOSA
Three words: turn it up
São Paulo.
Prika Amaral forms a band.
The result is Nervosa, and subtlety is immediately removed from the building.
Thrash metal isn't exactly known for gentle introductions.
Nervosa took that intensity and turned it into a global career.
Their debut full-length, Victim of Yourself, arrived in 2014, followed by extensive touring through Latin America and Europe. Their career subsequently took them through major festivals and eventually to Rock in Rio, where they played to a crowd reported by the band at more than 70,000 people.
And this is where the "hidden gem" label becomes interesting.
Nervosa aren't exactly obscure anymore.
But they belong in this story because women in heavy music still don't receive the same automatic assumption of legitimacy that male bands often receive.
Nervosa never waited for that legitimacy.
They earned it one blistering show at a time.
The band's current incarnation is fronted by founding guitarist Prika Amaral, who took over lead vocals in 2023, alongside guitarist Helena Kotina, bassist Hel Pyre, drummer Michaela Naydenova and bassist Emmelie Herwegh.
And 2026 has brought another chapter with Slave Machine, their sixth album.
This is no nostalgia act.
This is a living, breathing metal machine.
Your first listen
If you want the early blast, go straight to "Into Moshpit."
If you want to hear where the band came from, start with Victim of Yourself.
And then stand well back.
VOICE OF BACEPROT
Sometimes rebellion sounds like a guitar amplifier
Now for perhaps the most remarkable story in this collection.
West Java.
Three schoolgirls.
A teacher introduces them to heavy music.
And a band is born.
Voice of Baceprot.
The trio of Firda Marsya Kurnia, Widi Rahmawati and Euis Sitti Aisyah formed the band in 2014 while they were still schoolgirls. Their musical education included System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine and Lamb of God.
The name itself, Baceprot, means "noisy" in Sundanese.
It's difficult to imagine a more appropriate name.
But their story is about considerably more than volume.
As young women from a conservative area of Indonesia, forming a metal band wasn't necessarily going to be an easy path. They encountered opposition, criticism and online abuse. Yet they kept playing.
And the music gave them something more important than rebellion for rebellion's sake.
It gave them a voice.
Their songs have tackled issues including feminism, sexual assault, climate change and the right to choose one's own path.
That makes Voice of Baceprot one of those rare bands where the story behind the music adds another layer to the music itself.
You don't have to agree with every lyric.
You don't even have to care about the social context.
Just listen to the riffs.
Because beneath all the headlines, this is a metal band.
A bloody good one.
And their journey has already taken them from a rural schoolroom to international stages, including Wacken.
Three girls found metal.
Metal gave them a language.
And they decided to speak very loudly.
Your first listen
Start with "God, Allow Me (Please) to Play Music."
Then try "School Revolution."
And if you don't understand why these three women have become an inspiration to young musicians far beyond Indonesia, turn it up and listen again.
SANNIE FOX
The blues got weird. Thankfully.
There is something wonderfully appropriate about ending our seven-stop journey with an artist who doesn't fit neatly into a box.
Sannie Fox is a South African singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer whose music moves through psychedelic blues, rock, soul and desert-blues territory. Her albums Serpente Masjien and My Soul Got Stranger were both nominated for South African Music Awards, while she has also received international recognition as a live performer.
And if you like your rock with a little mystery around the edges, this is where you should dig.
Fox isn't interested in giving you a neat genre label.
There's blues in there.
There's psychedelic rock.
There's soul.
There are guitars that sound like they're having a conversation with the desert.
And then there's that voice.
The kind of voice that doesn't need to shout to make you pay attention.
Her earlier work with Machineri produced the album machineri, with artwork created by Storm Thorgerson, the legendary designer associated with Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin imagery. Her solo work continued down a more psychedelic and soulful road.
And this is precisely the kind of discovery that makes digging through the back catalogue worthwhile.
You might not have heard the name.
But once you have, you'll wonder how you missed it.
Your first listen
Try "Freedom" from Serpente Masjien.
Then let the album play.
Don't shuffle it.
Don't skip around.
Give it the same courtesy you'd give a classic album by an artist whose reputation you already knew.
Sometimes the hidden gem isn't hiding because it isn't good.
It's hiding because you haven't found the right road yet.
NO CROWNS REQUIRED
Seven artists. Seven stories. Seven completely different ways of making rock music.
And that's really the point.
Fanny didn't sound like Girlschool.
Girlschool didn't sound like Karen Zoid.
Karen Zoid doesn't sound like Shonen Knife.
Shonen Knife certainly doesn't sound like Nervosa.
Nervosa and Voice of Baceprot occupy very different corners of the metal universe.
And Sannie Fox?
Well, Sannie Fox appears to have wandered into another room entirely and brought a psychedelic guitar with her.
Good.
That's what rock is supposed to do. It is supposed to be messy. It is supposed to be loud. It is supposed to be beautiful and ugly and funny and angry and strange.
It is supposed to make you turn around and say:
"What the hell is that?"
And then turn it up.
The women in this story don't need to be crowned.
They don't need a separate category. They don't need anyone to tell them they're allowed to belong. They already do.
And perhaps that is the biggest lesson hidden inside these seven stories.
For decades, women in rock were sometimes asked to prove that they belonged.
These artists answered in the only language that really matters.
They picked up their instruments. They wrote the songs. They walked onto the stage. And they played.
So here's to the women who kicked open doors.
Here's to the women who found doors already open and kicked them wider.
Here's to the women who built their own doors.
And here's to the ones still standing outside the building, guitar in hand, waiting to make enough noise that somebody finally notices.
No crowns.
No competition.
No permission required.
Just rock 'n' roll.
And seven more reasons to dig a little deeper.
QUEENS WITHOUT CROWNS PLAYLIST
Fanny — Charity Ball
Girlschool — Emergency
Karen Zoid — Afrikaaners is Plesierig
Shonen Knife — Twist Barbie
Nervosa — Into Moshpit
Voice of Baceprot — God, Allow Me (Please) to Play Music
Sannie Fox — Freedom
Seven songs.
Seven roads.
One very loud reminder:
The history of rock has always had more queens than crowns.
Comments
Post a Comment