trouser shorts: queens of british pop, nerve's sexiest frontwomen

Tune into BBC1 tomorrow at 22:45 for the first in a new two-part series chronicling the careers of 12 iconic female singers and musicians from the 1960s to the here and now. Narrated by Liza Tarbuck, the first installment of ‘Queens Of British Pop’ spans the ’60s to the cusp of the ’80s with features on Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Suzi Quatro, Kate Bush and Siouxsie Sioux.

Kate Bush herself unfortunately does not provide new interview material, but longtime collaborator Del Palmer crops up to talk about the halcyon days of her early career. Obviously there’s no fresh input from Dusty either, but Marianne, Sandie, Suzi and Siouxsie will look back in fondness at their own remarkable trajectories to stardom. Other contributions comes from various friends and fans, including Sir Tom Jones, Lulu, Burt Bacharach, John Lydon, Martha Reeves, Nancy Sinatra, Mark Radcliffe, Henry Winkler, Marc Almond, Peter Gabriel, Claire Grogan, Jarvis Cocker, Kiki Dee and Adele. 

The second programme, aired next week, traverses the last two decades by looking at the impact made by Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet, Kylie Minogue, Geri Halliwell, Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis. If you can’t wait ’til then, you can watch plenty of preview videos from the programme here. The BBC are also running a public poll to determine “the ultimate Queen” that will run until midnight on April 21st. The winner will be announced on the 24th. Choose from 60+ artists here.

* * *

Online dating site and chroniclers of all things sex, Nerve, has published a list of their Top 40 sexiest frontwomen in the history of rock. Not sure when the likes of Liz Phair, Fiona Apple and Peaches – there are others – were ever technically frontwomen, but whatever. It makes for interesting (if sometimes angering!) reading, and you’ll never have predicted the winner. If you did, we’ll send you a lollipop. Read it here.

* * *

Alan Pedder

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, alison moyet, amy winehouse, annie lennox, dusty springfield, geri halliwell, kate bush, kylie minogue, leona lewis, news, queens of british pop, sandie shaw, siouxsie sioux, suzi quatro

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 9:52 pm and is filed under news, trouser shorts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.