5 Female SingersYou’d Never KnowI Love

Kasey Chambers is probably the biggest curveball on this list. If you were trying to guess female singers I love, I seriously doubt anyone is starting with Australian country-folk. It's not usually the first lane people assign to me, and I get it. I don't exactly walk into a room giving off “put on some heartfelt outback sadness” energy.

But Kasey Chambers has one of those voices that sounds like it has lived through the song before she even starts singing it. There is something cracked, honest, and completely unpolished about her in the best possible way. She doesn’t sound like someone trying to impress you. She sounds like someone telling you the truth and letting you deal with it on your own.

That’s what gets me. There's no fake shine on it. No big performance tricks. Just a voice with dust on its boots and feelings it probably should have dealt with a hell of a long time ago.

The first time I ever heard “Barricades and Brickwalls,” I walked away with the heartache of knowing that no one has ever felt that way about me, and no one may ever.

Natalie Merchant is a weird one for me, because I can’t even fully explain why her voice works on me the way it does. It just does. It’s not the biggest voice. It’s not the loudest voice. It’s not the voice people usually put on those bullshit “greatest singers ever” lists.

But there is nothing else like it.

She has this way of singing where it feels like she is three steps calmer than the song should allow. Like everyone else would be trying to make it bigger, louder, sadder, angrier, whatever. Natalie Merchant just stands there and lets the song do the damage. The closest feeling I can compare her voice to is sitting in a beanbag in a corner while your favorite librarian reads you a children’s book about how the world needs to wake up.

“Jealousy” is one of my favorites because it gets how ugly that feeling actually is. Not movie jealousy. Not sexy jealousy. Real jealousy. The small, embarrassing, pathetic kind where you know you’re being ridiculous and still can’t stop your brain from being an asshole. The last line is just begging to know if you still care.

On the other side of the coin is “What’s the Matter Here?” which is a completely different punch to the face. That song is dark as shit, but she doesn’t sing it like she is trying to win an award for caring. She just tells you what is happening and begs for someone to make sense of it all. Somehow that makes it worse.

That’s what gets me about Natalie Merchant. She doesn’t have to attack you with the song. She just stands in front of you, cuts you to the core, and leaves you open to the world.

Liz Phair is not on this list because she has some perfect, crystal-clear, angel-from-the-clouds voice coming out of a pop-princess package. That's not the deal here. Liz Phair is on this list because she sounds like a real woman who got tired of pretending she was supposed to be polite about bullshit.

There is something about her voice that feels half-sung, half-confessed, and all “go ahead and judge me, I don’t give a fuck.”

For me, it is all about Exile in Guyville. That album sounds like someone handed her a guitar, a notebook, and the complete list of shit women were not supposed to say out loud, and she decided to run through the whole fucking thing just to see who flinched first. It sure as hell was not going to be her.

“Fuck and Run” is the one that gets me because underneath the title and the attitude, it is just sad as hell. It is not trying to make loneliness pretty. It is not trying to dress it up in some big romantic tragedy. It is just that awful feeling of wanting something real and knowing you keep ending up with something far less. That song sounds like confidence and regret got drunk together and made a couple of terrible decisions.

Then there is “6'1",” which has that perfect Liz Phair bite to it. Cool, sharp, and just pissed-off enough to let you know she is not asking permission to be heard. She doesn't sound like she is begging anyone to understand her. She sounds like she already understands you, and honestly, that is worse.

And “Divorce Song” might be the best example of what she does when she really wants to make it hurt. It is not some screaming breakup anthem. It is smaller and meaner than that. The kind of fight where every tiny detail suddenly becomes evidence. Every sentence has history behind it and every little complaint is actually ten bigger complaints holding machetes behind their backs. Even when you no longer have love for someone, sometimes it still hurts to lose them. I’ve been there and I still wasn’t close to being prepared.

That is the thing with Liz Phair. She is not trying to float above the mess. She is down in it, kicking beer cans around, saying the ugly part out loud, and just making it sound like freedom.

Fiona Apple isn’t background music or house-cleaning music. She isn’t “put this on while I answer emails” music. Fiona Apple is sit your ass down and listen music.

And I mean that as the highest of praise.

Listen to the first few bars of “Shadowboxer” and tell me I’m wrong. That song doesn’t start. It stalks into the room and crawls across the floor to you. The piano has this smoky, late-night, bad-decision feel to it. Like somebody has been sitting in the corner all night waiting to say the thing they should’ve said to someone six months ago. Then Fiona opens her mouth and all they can do is sit and listen.

Then there’s “Criminal,” which is pure sex and longing wrapped around a guilty conscience. That song is basically, “I did you wrong, but I’m kinda sorry, and I’ll burn the fucking world to make it up to you.” It’s dirty, sad, desperate, and somehow still in complete control of itself. That’s not easy. Most songs that try to be sexy just end up sounding like somebody dry-humping a burnt-out candle. “Criminal” actually earns it.

That’s what I love about her. She doesn’t sing like she’s trying to make you comfortable. She sings like she’s trying to drag the truth out of the room by its hair. Ugly truth. Petty truth. Damaged truth. Sexual truth. The kind of truth everyone knows but nobody wants to say out loud because then it becomes your problem.

Her voice can be gorgeous, but it’s never just pretty. Pretty is too easy. Fiona Apple sounds like the pretty part got jumped in an alley by the honest part, and the song is better for it.

She’s the kind of singer who makes you feel like the song knows something about you that you weren’t planning to talk about today. By the end, you’re the one stuck trying to figure out how to apologize for what you did.

Sarah McLachlan is number one because she didn’t just sneak onto this list. She owns the whole thing.

I first discovered her one morning before school, watching VH1, back when you could accidentally find something that would rewire your brain before you even had to pretend to care about school. The song was “Possession,” and it took me right by the balls.

I had never heard anything like it. Not just someone wanting someone else. Songs are full of that. Everybody wants somebody. Everybody misses somebody. Everybody has a song about needing someone so bad they can’t sleep. But “Possession” felt different. It felt like wanting someone so badly it stopped being romantic and started being scary. It is a lyrical warning.

Then you find out it was inspired by obsessive fan letters and the very real experience of being stalked, and the whole thing changes shape. The pain grows worse. The fear becomes sharper. Because now it isn’t just some dark little love song with pretty piano and haunted vocals. It’s real. Someone out there feels that way. Someone out there means it. Someone out there is ready to do something about it.

Fuck, it doesn't get much more real than that.

And that is what Sarah McLachlan can do better than almost anyone. She can make something sound beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Her voice doesn’t need to punch you in the face. It wraps around your body first and you realize it has already started squeezing.

Then there is “Good Enough,” which is a completely different kind of wrecking ball. That song is softer, but it isn’t weaker. Not by a long shot. It’s one of those songs that sounds like someone trying to convince themselves they deserve more than they’ve been given. She might be the only woman I know who can swear in a song and make it sound just as beautiful as every other word.

That’s the thing with Sarah. She can take pain, fear, longing, shame, love, regret, and all the other shit we try to bury under the noise, and make it sound like it belongs in a cathedral.

“Fallen” has that haunted, crawling-out-of-your-own-bad-decisions feeling. It sounds like someone looking back at the mess they made and still trying to find a little grace in the wreckage and trying to stand straight for the first time again. It's not fake or easy forgiveness. “The bitter taste of losing everything I held so dear.” I've been there, I know. It still hurts every day.

And “Full of Grace” is just devastating. That song doesn’t even feel like it’s trying to win you over. It feels like the last light in the room going out slowly. It’s quiet. It’s tired. It’s beautiful in that way that makes you wish it wasn’t so beautiful, because if it wasn’t beautiful maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. “Oh darkness, I feel like letting go.” I've been there more times than feels right.

That is why Sarah McLachlan is number one.

Not because of the sad animal commercials. Not because of the soft lighting. Not because she is easy to make jokes about. She is number one because her voice can make longing feel dangerous, sadness feel holy, and one quiet line feel like it just cracked something open in your chest.

That’s not guilty pleasure music.

That’s kneel down and admit she got you music.