Mike made a comment recently that got me thinking, i.e., why I have this thing for bands with female vocalists. I didn’t actually think I did, but as I look over my collection, a whole bunch of examples stand out: Veda, the aforementioned Rilo Kiley, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Delgados, Ivy, Loquat, Stars … and that’s just the stuff on my iTunes "Recently Played" list.
I couldn’t really think of a way of writing this out without sounding slightly misogynistic, so I’ll just say it with the disclaimer that I love and respect all women, including the ones that are bitches.
The thing is, I love normal testosterone-driven rock as much as the next guy, but I do think that sometimes a male voice tends to limit itself to certain themes. I’m not talking about general concepts like "unrequited love" or "confused about life" or whatever, because we hear that in mainstream emo every day. What I mean is little subtle things, like when Veda vocalist Kristen May sings "Is there anything left in this world that will satisfy me?" or when The Delgados’ Emma Pollack invites everybody to "come down, down, down" — it just feels different when a female is singing it.
That said, I like songs that are grounded in the musical styles that resonate with me (I’m never gonna enjoy r&b or hiphop quite as much as alt.rock), and bands with female vocalists represent a very welcome variation. Veda is actually a great example of this; as I mentioned in an earlier review, emo never felt so sincere as when I heard Kristen May singing it. Stylistically, Veda is fairly similar to other emo bands, but having a non-male vocalist has given their music a dimension that those other bands will never have.
I guess, in a nutshell: I like female-fronted bands because they sound different while sounding pretty much the same.