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Leslie Fram and Jennifer Nettles
It’s no secret that women in the country music industry have been fighting for equality for the past few years.
From the infamous “Tomato-gate” incident in 2015, when a radio consultant compared female country artists to tomatoes in a salad (calling their male counterparts the “lettuce”), to today’s streaming service playlists, which can best be described as “male-centric,” the women of country haven’t received a fair shake.
Now, they’re taking a stand and demanding to be heard. With big names like Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, and Kelsea Ballerini front and center, the casual country fan may assume the genre’s female-driven songs are just as easy to find as those of the guys. But in reality, only 16 percent of the top 500 country songs from 2014 to 2018 were performed by women (per a study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative).
>>> Leslie Fram and Jennifer Nettles on Nashville Lifestyles The Podcast
CMT is stepping up to change the game with their Equal Play initiative. Spearheaded by CMT’s Senior VP of Music Strategy Leslie Fram, Equal Play’s goal is to create measurable industry-wide action to dramatically increase female representation in country music and carve a path for parity.
Before joining CMT in 2011, Fram made a name for herself in the male-dominated world of radio, making her especially qualified to lead the fight. It was during her time at Atlanta’s influential alt-rock radio station 99X that she first met Jennifer Nettles, then part of an independent band. Nettles, one-half of the hitmaking country duo Sugarland, has also joined the movement, partnering with Fram and CMT to promote Equal Play. An outspoken voice in the industry, Nettles made headlines at the 2019 CMA Awards when she hit the red carpet in a Christian Siriano-designed cape that read, “Play our f*@#in records please & thank you!”
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Jennifer Nettles
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Daniel Brown for CMT/VIACOMCBS
Leslie Fram
The two women sat down to discuss their shared passion for Equal Play, the importance of women supporting women, and the movement’s shifting mission in a time of global change.
EQUAL PLAY FINDS ITS FOOTING
Leslie Fram: We started [CMT’s all-female showcase] Next Women of Country in 2013. I had come from the rock world, and the first thing I noticed in my first year in the country format was that women were underrepresented, especially on terrestrial radio, and I didn’t understand why. So, we started a franchise to support females with videos and content. And then I found out you couldn’t get on a tour unless you had a song on the radio. So, we started a tour. Jennifer was one of the first who really came onboard. She had an existing tour playing in large venues and she allowed us to partner and make it the Next Women of Country Tour. She headlined, Brandy Clark played, Lindsay Ell, Tara Thompson.
A year and a half ago, I was like, “What more can we do?” We decided we would make the video channels from CMT to CMT Music, which is our 24-hour music channel, 50/50 male/female. We also commissioned some research that went straight to the fans because people weren’t talking to the fans. They were speaking for the fans but not going directly to them.
The fans overwhelmingly said, “Of course we want to hear women on the radio!”
Jennifer Nettles: As I was looking around the industry, I continued to see a sadly reoccurring absence, a theme of absence, where women were concerned. I think socially in terms of the country in general, and maybe even in the world, we have been in a space of yearning and momentum toward change—when we think about the #MeToo movement, when we think about the Time’s Up movement, when we think about all these movements where women are starting to take back their power—to claim their power.
I held that lens up to country music, and just said, “Wow, there’s a big problem that’s happening. There’s a big lack of representation of women.”
Leslie is so smart and has been on the business side of things for so many years. I’ve been on the artist side of things and we felt that there would definitely be much more synergy and much more power in coming together.
CMT Next Women of Country Event 2019
WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN IS ALWAYS IN FASHION
JN: The CMAs last year happened to be celebrating women because everybody was starting to feel this churning. And so, everybody’s wanting, especially from a visibility standpoint, to seem supportive and to seem on the edge of what is cutting edge and on the edge of what is socially just. The CMAs wanted to make their show about celebrating women. They had the three hostesses. The opener for the whole night was this big medley of women singing, all the way from Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, music from women in country music over the years. I wanted to be able to make a statement to say, “You know what, this is great that we’re doing this, but the reality is unless there is systemic change, this is just lip service.”
So, I made a literal fashion statement on the red carpet and just said, “Play our effing records, please and thank you” on this beautiful cape that I wore. It caused quite a stir of conversation, which was what I wanted it to do.
LF: I think what it’s also done is that it’s made people more comfortable speaking up and speaking out. I know that artists frequently reach out to Jennifer, as they do to me, and were afraid to say something because they didn’t want to alienate a group or alienate radio. But I think more of them now feel more comfortable speaking up and speaking on behalf of their fellow artists.
What we had tried to do with Next Women of Country was say, “Support each other and great things will happen.”
You started seeing [female] artists on social media talking about when somebody released a new record or a single or a video. Then you saw them in videos together. It’s just blossomed into this amazing thing. Not really a lot of formats can do that or say that, but in country, there’s definitely that camaraderie between female artists.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...
JN: The microcosm of country music is indicative of the macro of society and culture on the whole. I think in the same way that 10 years ago we didn’t hear women speaking up, we didn’t hear marginalized communities in general speaking up in the ways that we are now. I think that the problems were still there, I just don’t think people were as vocal about it as they are now. I definitely feel that there has been sort of an unsettling of the sediment and people, as we’ve seen all over this country, are starting to really speak out. But specifically, where women and country music are concerned, I think the problem has been there forever. I think that it has only been recently that women are speaking out to the degree that they are.
LF: We don’t really see a lot of the male artists speaking up about the issue. I think what they try to do is speak about it by maybe bringing somebody on tour with them, but it really would be nice to hear some of the male artists speak up.
JN: And we don’t hear a lot from the business side, especially not in an offensive way. There will be a defensive response when someone is called out or called upon within the business—among the labels, among the managers, among radio, among the streamers, but there isn’t a lot of offensive movement being made among those communities. So, it’s going to take the women like Leslie and CMT and the Equal Play movement and the artists like myself; it’s going to take those people speaking out to empower the rest of our industry to do the same.
STREAMING SETBACKS
LF: The problem is not just exclusive to terrestrial radio. There are issues with streaming services not supporting women, and the biggest [streaming] playlist having 60 songs with three to five women [sprinkled] in now and then. And you can put women in content and editorial all day long, but they need help in playlisting and regular hours during the day on terrestrial radio. The problem is really widespread.
JN: There is definitely a dragging one’s feet or standing still. Like yes, we hear you and we’re not doing anything. I think in terms of where the business is now, never has there been more music being created, and people try to speak of that as if it is a measure of their industry’s health. It is not. Never has more money been changing hands over music that artists do not see because of the way that the streaming services work and because of the way the laws work. Never has there been more music out there and never has a hit meant less. In and out. Gone.
LF: I’m on the board of the Recording Academy here fighting for artist rights, songwriters’ rights, because right now, we’re putting a lot of songwriters out of business as well, because of the streamers and how that works.
A NEW WORLD
JN: Before COVID we had a beautiful plan in place, and we were noticing that the industry was responding to being informed, educated, and they were responding to public negative pressure. They responded to being pushed. So, we had a beautiful plan in place to continue to expand that vision and expand in such a way that we could hopefully bring on people in terms of allies. Then COVID happened and nobody knew what to do. We were inspired by what could be considered the gender pay gap, but it’s very hard to talk openly about the gender pay gap at this time when people are dying in the country and when racial injustice is to such a degree that people are dying. I am so happy that our country is waking up to this, and at the same time, it provides us with an opportunity to sort of expand and shift our vision to be able to say, OK, now Equal Play suddenly has even more resonance and has a more expanded vision.
LF: I think that also during this pandemic, what we have found with our viewers at CMT, and I think that this could also relate to radio, is that fans want comfort food, and a lot of that is familiarity. This would be a great time to bring back those female voices they’re familiar with like Jennifer Nettles and Sugarland, Carrie Underwood, Miranda, Sara Evans. It’s very easy to put those female voices back in—not saying you have to play five brand-new females in an hour but bring those voices back in and equal it out a little bit.
JN: It’s the best of times and the worst of times. Doesn’t mean that it’s an easy time, but I think it’s an important time. There are a lot of reasons to be outraged right now. The good thing is we have more time at the very least to inform people of what is happening. People are listening differently than they ever have before because they have the time, and they’re tuned in in a different way. In these moments where all this sediment is stirred up, that is an opportunity to put it together in a new way before it settles to the bottom again.