Being of her generation, I’ve known Diane Tell since her professional early beginnings, and started interviewing her and talking music a long time ago. Even today, four decades later, I still enjoy keeping in touch with this exceptional artist now based in Switzerland, with whom I fully share this anti-nostalgia for the good old days. Indeed, for Diane Tell, today and tomorrow far outweigh yesterday, and that’s something to be admired! Above and beyond her creative achievements, she remains fiercely independent, inquisitive, attuned to current production, on the lookout for every creative pop, without denying what must be remembered from the past. In 2025, she’s still on the ball when it comes to spotting coolness! Yet, even among her fans, her qualities as a researcher and assertive feminist are much less well known, which is precisely why PAN M 360 is giving her author status on International Women’s Rights Day. Here’s the preamble inspired by her list of 100 women to listen to, below! (Alain Brunet)
“Here’s my checkers list. My six hours of rare gems. My top 100 list of 100% female songs. Meticulously chosen firstly for my own pleasure, that of scouring the web for music I don’t yet know, that I like so I don’t have to search for it, then that I listen to thoroughly once, ten times, on a loop, in my car or at home on my Jean Maurer speakers.
We owe International Women’s Day, as the UN officially calls it, to the daring heroines of the early 20th century. On this March 8, 2025, the battle is far from won, as we face the dawn of the dark days we are urged to prepare for. This promised land of the va-t-en-guerre will inevitably relegate women’s rights, not to say rights in general, to the dustbin of history. If it’s impossible to cut off these tireless, inaudible talkers, we can always agree to turn up the volume, to sing louder than they do for the duration of a playlist.
My 100 women of the day do it passionately. Priority to the new, with a few exceptions. You won’t find any radio-worn classics here. I couldn’t resist including an excerpt from the repertoires of Nina Simone or Joni Mitchell. They have their place among all these talented musicians. More or less famous, 50 or 5 million listeners per month on the platforms, they have in common that I like them. That’s all they have in common. Dominique, Crystal, Matilda, Ada, Suki, Jeanne, Marie, Ruby, Rachel, Zella, Rozi… don’t all share the same language, the same universe or the same way of expressing their moods or their heartstrings. They create, they publish, they have to get it out there. And it’s all to our delight.
Allow me to draw your attention to a few. Forgive me for not mentioning them all. Carolina Eyck, a German Sorbian musician, has mastered one of the oldest electronic musical instruments, the theremin. Her playing and compositions are out of the ordinary. The poet Kae Tempest, a rapper who doesn’t rap, moves me with her magnificent texts and their sumptuous musical backdrops. In our jargon, we speak of “image music” when we associate one with the other. For me, Kae embodies “music with poetry”. Arooj Aftab, عروج آفتاب, born in Riyadh, originally from Lahore in Pakistan, artist with Verve Records, never ceases to seduce, to cross geographical and cultural borders, to gather around her music peoples and audiences who don’t usually listen to each other.
I could talk about them for hours. I end, because I must, with this short but affectionate message to my little Quebec sisters, present or absent from this list. “For some of you, I may have been a pioneer in this industry, mistress of my life, my independence, my freedom, my art and my right to exist not in the shadow of men but with them. Yes, I’ve worked a lot with men. I still share the stage, the writing and the studio production with them. I’ve received a lot of love and respect from the men I’ve met along the way. Sometimes a she-wolf, sometimes a muse, I’ve preferred to be creative rather than a creature. Today, it’s you girls who inspire me to write the final chapters of my life. Be strong, be beautiful and continue to shed your tears of desire for the love of art and of those who love your music. You sublimate our lives.”
