While creating a country music playlist on Spotify, country star Martina McBride found that the overwhelming majority of the songs recommended were sung by men and decided to speak out.
McBride says she hard to refresh her list of Spotify song recommendations 14 times before it included one women – Carrie Underwood.
“And this on a week when we had four stellar releases by women,” wrote McBride, citing new music from Trisha Yearwood, Tanya Tucker, the Highwomen, Kelsea Ballerini, and Sheryl Crow.
Comparing Spotify to Apple Music’s A-List Country playlist, McBride noted that Apple Music had 13 women out of 65 total, or 20 percent.
The underrepresentation of women in country music on radio and now on streaming has been the subject of much public debate for several years. It’s a circular problem – fewer women on radio mean that the labels sign fewer women which leads to even fewer woman on the radio.
It’s a major problem that Spotify and other streamers and their algorithms now appear to be exacerbating.