“The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights,” states a quote on the website for International Women’s Day. As part of those collective efforts, yesterday, (which of course was International Women’s Day) a variety of events took place across the world from large rallies to small gatherings. It was interesting to note that of the events recorded on the IWD website the country that had held the most events wasn’t any of those with the biggest populations in the world, but our own country of the UK.
In terms of women in music quite a few radio stations marked the occasion in some way (BBC Radio 1 for example only used female DJ's) and some artists themselves acts got on the case and recorded and uploaded songs, celebrating or drawing attention to the day. The song that we think had the best sentiment was Femme’s cover of Respect by Aretha Franklin, which of course was originally recorded by Otis Redding, and had a somewhat different meaning, the word ‘respect’ in that case being a euphemism. Yet it was Aretha’s version that became the hit, a signature anthem for feminism and one of the greatest songs of all time. So here’s Femme’s take on it, which keeps reasonably faithful to the original in terms of melody but with a more modern electronic pop vibe.
If you haven’t heard of Femme before then why not find out more and listen to some of her own material (here) which we posted in the middle of the night during our 24 hour Blogathon event earlier this year. We are very pleased to confirm that between this blog and Alphabet Bands blog we raised just over £1,500 for Cancer Research in finishing the Blogathon.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T is a free download for the time being and we're hoping that Barack Obama has been listening, because then he might learn how to spell the word after his mistake a day or so ago.
Femme - R.E.S.P.E.C.T
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