We knew many bands particularly those rock or alternative ones has been led by male singers. Even solo rockers are often men, but there are female singers out there who had proved women can rock the music industry too. Of course, we've had a lot of women who did pop rock tunes but their just trying to shadow another female pop/rock artist.

After playing the new album of Ed Sheeran, I listened to the old albums of two female singers who did alternative rock tunes. Here's my list:

Alanis Morissette

If you're a 1990s kid, you might have heard of Alanis Morissette who's been the biggest selling artist of mid-90s through her album "Jagged Little Pill". That album became one of the biggest selling of all time, and you might've been familiar with the hits such as "Ironic", "Hand in My Pocket", "You Oughta Know", etc. Alanis Morissette took a break after a tiring success of her album that it took quite a while to release a follow up which came in 1998 with "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie". My favorite song from her though is "Uninvited" which was part of the soundtrack of "City of Angels" because of its haunting sound and great vocals from her.

Avril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne came out during the time when Britney Spears is the queen of music, thus her arrival seemed revolutionary which brought the anti-Britney movement being labelled by entertainment media. Due to her style and fashion statement, she became iconic. Her music was mimicked by tamed trying hard rockers such as Hillary Duff, Ashley Simpson, and others.

Amy Lee

Amy Lee is the vocalist of Evanescence, and to be honest, I waited for her to go solo someday. With her beautiful voice as heard from her hits such as "Bring Me to Life", "My Immortal", and "Call Me When You're Sober", she's almost ready to go solo. In fact, she recorded as Amy Lee with the band Seether for the song "Broken". The band has gone hiatus and Lee finally gone solo in 2014 but she didn't reached the heights of her band.

Michelle Branch

Michelle Branch may not have the angst like Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette but she did rock during her time with her albums "The Spirit Room" and "Hotel Paper". In fact, she even came first than Avril for a year. Avril just had the style hence she became more popular. My favorite song from her was "All I Wanted".

Sheryl Crow

Just like Michelle Branch, Sheryl Crow came to music industry ahead of Alanis Morissette, and had her own success through her debut album. However, her sound is tamer and I think when she released "If It Makes You Happy", there's an influence from Alanis since she's dominating the music scene at that time.

Dolores O'Riordan

I had mentioned on my recent post that she's the lead singer of The Cranberries. What I liked about Dolores is her voice, songwriting, and the Irish folk sound despite being an alternative rock band.

Shirley Manson

Shirley Manson became popular not just the vocalist of the band Garbage, but also as an individual. However, before Garbage, she's also part of the Scottish band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie but not as the lead singer. Being part of Garbage, they achieved fame from mid-1990s until early 2000s.

Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Imbruglia became popular in 1998 including her hit "Torn" from the multimillion selling album "Left of the Middle". With pop-rock tune, she had influenced a lot of female artists including Britney Spears. She may not have written her biggest hit (Torn) but it will be forever linked to her. Nobody cared in the 1990s even she didn't write that song anyway, and she didn't even claimed she owned the authorship.

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