The USA Today's Elysa Gardner has a good article on the decline of "serious" women musicians. She writes that the beginning of the decade brought "a fresh crop of more independent-minded, creatively engaged role models" -- Dido, Norah Jones, Pink, Alicia Keys -- but recent years have proven more difficult for such artists. This year the top of the singles chart has seen a lot of Pussycat Dolls, Beyonce, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson and Cassie.

Gardner differentiates between women who at least share songwriting credit for their hits and women, like Beyonce and Gwen Stefani, who are part of collaborative machinations. Though Nelly Furtado is currently atop the singles chart and Dixie Chicks were recently atop the album chart, "the current Hot 100 boasts fewer women in the top 10, especially women who play dominant roles in crafting their tunes, than the July 20, 1996, top 10, which was led by Alanis Morissette and Tracy Chapman and included other songs by Morissette, Jewel and Mariah Carey."

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