Doing it for themselves—and for us

Women have undeniably become the most dynamic and vital creative force in music today. Without their good energies and ideas, music, which in the digital age has become more background than art, would be much less interesting and inspiring.

- BY ROBERT BAIRD

Many and perhaps most of today’s popular-music superstars are women: Beyoncé, Adele, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and of course Taylor Swift. Beyond the headlines is a vast world of independent and assertive music creation. From the costumed, Black Sabbath-indebted metal stylings of Riley Pinkerton of Castle Rat through the UK jazz of Nubya Garcia and on to Molly Tuttle's bluegrass-pop and Kathleen Edwards's Americana, women are often the reason to listen to new music. Three new albums are representative of the spirit and originality women are now bringing to music on their own terms.

Madi Diaz is willing to open the door to her heart and invite strangers to stroll in. What they'll find there is a churning mix of fear, anger, defiance, self-knowledge, and evolution. Not shy about being incisive, Diaz crafts songs that are by turns haunting and beseeching, then immerses them in the messy guts of love and all its maddening complications.

Fatal Optimist is Diaz's sixth album and the last in what her latest artist bio calls the “Heartbreak Trilogy.” While its rawness, which often verges on obsession, can be startling, it can also be undeniably honest and powerful. In “Feel Something,” in which her eye for detail shines, she sings “I wanna be someone who doesn’t know your middle name.” Then she pushes her voice in the wishful choruses, “If you want me to make you feel something/If so how, if not why, if I can.”