Women Who Rock

Sugar, spice, everything nice--the notion that girls in bands have to be sexed-up brats with guitars might sound fine and dandy to some, but there is much more to music that punky posing. More important than simply playing music is the idea of pioneering music, and that is exactly what the following artists have done in the realm of punk.

Be forewarned: These violent vixens are uncompromising. If you can't stomach their forward-thinking ideas look to the Spice Girls for your "girl power" fix. Everybody else, listen to the revolution:

Nico

Velvet Underground - "Femme Fatale"

The Ice Queen. Nico famously started her career as the Velvet Underground's vampy chanteuse on their seminal 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico. After a "falling out" with Lou Reed Nico parted ways with the group, focusing on her own solo material.

With a little help from her friends (Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jackson Browne etc.) the German siren released her solo debut Chelsea Girl just months after her VU stint in '67. Chamber-folk had become somewhat of a du jour genre around that time, but Nico's harrowing masterpiece added a whole new dimension to the style. Her unmistakable voice, delicate and pained, inspired such modern singers as Bjork, Cat Power and even Morrissey of The Smiths.

A complex, highly-misunderstood woman, Nico paved the way for women to stop skimming the surface of emotion and to sing from the inner depths of it.