History: All-female Bands

The 1980s, for the first time, saw all-female bands and female-fronted rock bands reach Billboards charts. When Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n' Roll became the number 3 single on the Billboard Hot 100 year end charts for 1982 along with the Go-Go's We Got the Beat at number 25 it sent a strong message out to many industry heads that females who could play could bring in money. While Joan Jett played "no-frills, glam-rock anthems, sung with her tough-as-nails snarl and sneer", the Go-Go's were seen as playful girls, an image that even Rolling Stone magazine poked fun at when they put the band on their cover in their underwear along with the caption "Go-Go's Put out!". However musician magazines were starting to show respect to female musicians, putting Bonnie Raitt and Tina Weymouth on their covers. While The Go-Go's and The Bangles, both from the LA club scene, were the first all-female rock bands to find sustained success, it was individual musicians who helped pave the way for the industry to seek out bands that had female musicians and allow them to be part of the recording process.
While the 1980s helped pave the way for female musicians to get taken more seriously it was still considered a novelty of sorts for several years, and it was very much a male-dominated world. In 1984 when film maker Dave Markey, along with Jeff and Steve McDonald from Redd Kross, put together the mocumentary Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, a comically punky version of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, it also spawned a real band. While the Lovedolls could barely play at first, because of the film, and because they were an "all-female band", they received press and gigs.
Klymaxx became the first all-female band in the R&B style of music to all play an instrument; several of their singles have charted successfully in both R&B and pop countdowns.
Leading into the 1990s the surge of Heavy Metal in the 1980s helped to shed another light on the role of females in music. Because of the success of The Go-Go's and The Bangles many females were frustrated at not being taken seriously or only thought of as "cute chicks playing music" and either joined rock bands or formed all-female metal bands. One such band that was playing harder music in San Francisco was Rude Girl. Originally signed to CBS records the band splintered before an album would be released and the remaining members released a 12-inch single in 1987 under the name Malibu Barbi. When Cara Crash and Wanda Day left 4 Non Blondes and joined the band their sound shifted from heavy metal to a sound described as combining a "driving beat with Johnny Rottenesque vocal and post-punk riffs". Around the same time in the Midwest, Madam X was signed to an offshoot of Columbia Records, Jet Records. In 1984 the Rick Derringer-produced album We Reserve The Right was released along with the single "High in High School". The Petrucci sisters were a focal point of the band – Max, the lead guitarist, and Roxy, the drummer. However, based on management decisions, it was decided that it would be better if only one of the sisters were in the band and Roxy was placed in another band, the all-female, Los Angeles based Vixen.