Lollapalooza's Woman-Heavy Lineup Is Really Only 20% Women

This year’s Lollapalooza is being lauded for featuring a surprising amount of female musicians. Yaaaaaaaaaay! I love female musicians and I love it even more when they finally get the same touring opportunities as their male musician friends!

“It’s women who are making most of the adventurous music in alternative rock today,” Perry Farrell, Lollapalooza founder and front man of Jane’s Addiction, told CBS News. “At this year’s Lolla, we offer a bouquet of modern songstresses.”

A bouquet of modern songstresses? That sounds lovely, only — wait — it turns out that this bouquet of female musicians is actually a part of a much larger bouquet that’s made up of mostly male musicians. Yes, the festival that CBS is treating like the third coming of Lilith Fair actually features nearly 80% male performers.

Unfortunately, making up just over 20% of the talent at a festival as big as Lollapalooza is a huge improvement for women so credit where credit’s due. Interesting to note, however, that of the female performers playing Lolla (which include Azealia Banks, Ellie Goulding and Lana Del Rey ), not a single one of them make top billing. In other words, we’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long-ass way to go. As Sara Quin of Teagan and Sara (who are also playing the festival) points out, we can do better: “Hopefully things will continue to diversify,” she told CBS. “I always love seeing female headliners.”

Finally, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves patting Lolla on the back. Like Farrell said, women are the ones making most of the adventurous music in alternative rock today. Predominantly featuring them in alt rock music festival shouldn’t be an act of charity, it should be a given.