In terms of consumption and emotional language, the pop song occupies a similar status to the sonnet. Well, not exactly, but certainly for the purpose of romance or desire, pop lyrics are an absolute boon for the tongue-tied (a group which includes “most of the English population”). They’re used to express whatever happens to be lurking unformed in the minds of the listener, and as a point of identification when the lurking stuff has been given a concrete identity.

Reams have been written about the depiction of women in pop music by male songwriters and the presentation of women by the music industry, but recently I was having a wee listen to PJ Harvey (while drunk in someone’s living room in Portsmouth on a Saturday night, because I am very cool) and it occurred to me that I’d not seen as much on the subject of how female desire’s presented in pop songs BY WOMEN.

This thought came up because This Is Love felt like an anomaly: it presented desire as active on the part of the female narrator. PJ Harvey’s persona for the song has sexual agency, and longings that do not centre around waiting for someone else to make a move. She uses the phrase “I want” and backs it up with action: “to chase you round the table, wanna touch your head”, and in that “wanna touch your” she rather casually and without fuss flips the entire common model of heterosexual desire on its head by pointing out that women also want to touch, as well as being touched.

It shouldn’t sound unusual, and yet at the time of listening it was borderline revolutionary, at least to me. There are other lines from the song which imply action: “I can’t believe that the axis turns on suffering when you taste so good”; suggestive of all kinds of sexual acts, instigated by and controlled by the narrator, but nothing else is quite as direct as that seemingly harmless “wanna touch your head”.

This Is Love is not unique, but on examination it becomes harder to find other songs which inhabit the same active, instigating desire.

I Just Wanna Make Love To You does, but even the Divinyls’ famously salacious anthem to female masturbation and banned song I Touch Myself is self-contained sexuality; the desire is there, but it is self-directed. The narrator says nothing of what she wants to do to the object of the song, only what the thought of him makes her do to herself!

Interestingly, when the object of desire is no longer male, the desire becomes more active in its expression: contentious and open to a variety of interpretations, Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl does at least carry the flow of action from the narrator to her object of desire: Katy KISSED a girl, rather than being kissed BY a girl, as so many heroines of pop songs are kissed BY a boy rather than kissing him.

In a song of the same name, Jill Sobule’s narrator makes the same distinction: Jill KISSES Jenny, the narrator as the actor rather than the acted-upon.

This is a small sample to draw a conclusion from, but it is intriguing that female desire is more acceptable as active, instigating, and potentially dominant when the object of the woman’s desire is also female. The repurposing of songs originally intended for male singers often underscores this, as in Patti Smith’s cover of Gloria.

There are songs with male narrators in which the instigation of action is undertaken by the female half of the heterosexual proto-couple (usually because the narrator is far too shy or lacking in confidence, rather than because of any societal prohibition on his asking her out): the main contender in this category is Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus. A casual glance over popular music seems to reveal far more male references to female desire (“she wants me”) than female references to female desire (“I want him”).

PJ Harvey is not, of course, the first or only female artist to sing about desire. Ani Difranco has filled several albums with heartfelt songs cataloging the effects of desire on the psyche: primarily in the aftermath. Ani writes about regret or lack thereof, but rarely if at all about the white-hot moment of simple wanting.

By now there’s a good chance you’re wondering how anyone could skip over Bikini Kill on this subject: they have a song entitled I Like Fucking – surely this must qualify for a candid and unabashed demonstration of naked female desire?

Well, yes and no. Riot Grrrl has an agenda which is unshy of communicating, and sexuality is, as all other aspects of feminine experience, politicised. The song itself discusses internal obstacles to feeling and acting upon desire, the ubquity of rape, and the “radical possibilities of pleasure”, which while a notable feminist sentiment on the reclamation of sexuality, is a far cry from Harvey’s “I just want to sit here and watch you undress”. Politicised recognition of the rightness of female desire and its value is highly important, but isn’t quite the same thing as an unselfconscious expression of that desire.

Someone else who believes in the radical possibilities of pleasure, even if she doesn’t phrase it that way, is Rihanna. In Shut Up And Drive, she creates a shallow but effective metaphor in which she is a car to be driven: it is potent, referencing power and femininity, but ultimately it is – no matter how transparent and brazen – a metaphor and rerouting of desire through the stalking-horse of car culture, rather than the bald, outright statement of This Is Love.

I could go on, but I’m sure the general idea is clear. That was my little radio revolution, thanks to Polly Harvey, and with any luck I’ve given you something to think about too.

• Delilah Des Anges is given to unnecessarily close examination of song lyrics, but excuses it by writing poems. She also writes novels, for which she has rather less excuse.

“The whole message with [Adele] is that it’s just music, it’s just really good music,” said Russell. “There is nothing else. There are no gimmicks, no selling of sexuality. I think in the American market, particularly, they have come to the conclusion that is what you have to do.”

The main reason why Russell’s claims about Adele should be regarded with scepticism is that Russell is the head of Adele’s record label. Even leaving aside such vested interests, his argument that she represents some kind of paradigm shift has been ably deconstructed here by Laura Snapes.

The Guardian article linked to above has a few frustrating facets of its own. I’m not sure why Rihanna’s ‘S&M’ should be hoicked in to illustrate Russell’s point: there’s a difference between having a sexualised image – usually, when it’s the subject of criticism, one that’s been externally imposed on an artist – and singing about sex and sexuality. Especially when ‘S&M’ is a more complex song than that framework allows for – arguably one in which Rihanna presents non-mainstream sexuality in terms of female agency. Finally, the idea of good-girl, sexless Adele vs bad-girl, sexualised Rihanna is a false dichotomy with problems in abundance.

Adele’s own image is hardly free of contrivance, harking back as it does to the blue-eyed soul divas of the 1960s – classily sexualised, perhaps, but sexualised nonetheless. In her chosen brand of popular music, a degree of sex in your self-presentation is, as Russell correctly identifies, inextricably linked to commercial success. It’s even arguable, unfortunately, that it’s Adele’s very distance from the currently acceptable aesthetic norms of her genre that has necessitated she be marketed with a different, ‘desexualised’ focus. Had Adele possessed her own voice but the body of, oh, let’s say Katy Perry, would her image have been sexed-up business as usual?

Russell is taking issue, of course, not with the marketing and self-presentation of all women in music, but with a particular branch of commercial pop, and the marketing therein of female artists by predominantly male management, which was ever thus. If his comments do kickstart a new way of measuring the money-making potential of women in music, then great, but it’s going to be an uphill struggle in view of the constant and increasing pressures on female performers – as well as male – to conform to a blandly beautiful industry standard.

Is Adele’s refusal to bow to that standard, as Russell claims, as radical today as the Prodigy were in the early 1990s? Let’s face it, mainstream acts are so limp and colourless right now, and popular culture so devoid of ideas, experiments and imagination, that yeah, it probably is. Never mind that the Prodigy were highly politicised and engaged with a wider oppositional culture, while Adele is outspoken in bemoaning her tax burden.

While no one can begrudge Adele her success, or deny that it’s refreshing to witness, the fact that she can be said to occupy a radical position is more an indictment of contemporary music than it is a compliment to her. The most positive thing about Russell’s remarks is the opportunity they offer to reiterate a greater truth: that commercial profit-driven pap purely designed to generate a profit is more than socio-culturally damaging for women, it’s dull.

*

Rhian Jones also blogs at Velvet Coalmine.

But it seems we’re all in the pink plastic grip of fantasy princesshood, so I’ve decided to give in for a moment and take a look at some fairytale-themed pop music – but with a little bit of smarts and sass thrown in. Songs that turn tropes upside down or inside out, or give the princesses unexpected vigourous voice. In this post-Shrek epoch we’re living in, it’s a pretty well-travelled road, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

The reliably-entertaining folks over at Comics Alliance are also having a Princess Moment, which this post is intended as a sort of humorous companion to. It’s not really an Order of Preference so much as a Pile of Stuff, because I’m not in the mood today to be ranking things in a heirarchy. A Pile of Stuff is way better.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This isn’t, of course, the be-all and end-all of anything – just a personal take – so I’d love to hear your own suggestions in the comments, with no rules on style! The only rules were 1) fairytale themed; and 2) attempting (if not always succeeding) to do something interesting.

PART ONE OF MIRANDA’S PILE OF POP PRINCESSERY, FROM 10 to 6!

10. Janelle Monae: Sir Greendown

I throw up my hands here – this is a flagrant excuse for me to talk about Janelle Monae. Her image is more robot warrior rock star than princess. This track is one of her dreamier moments, and I admit that aside from a faintly Angela Carter-esque meet me at the tower/the dragon wants a bite/of our love moment, it’s actually pretty straightforward prince-awaitin’ fare – but actually that makes it a funny little island in the context of the rest of her work (check out the bolshy Motown-tinged slice of pure aural glory that is Violet Stars Happy Hunting! and you’ll see what I mean). Monae is fond of her concept albums, and combines a sci-fi android alter-ego with a deep- seated love for The Wizard of Oz. But the forbidden love of her android persona Cyndi Mayweather and the human millionaire Greendown (the storyline of her album and EPs) kinda is a space-age fairytale. (Oh, and go and listen to Wondaland, too.)

9. Kate Bush: The Red Shoes

Because it’s good to be obvious. For the unfamiliar, Kate made an entire album based on both the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale of the same name (as well as the 1948 film, which also drew on the same text). The story itself is unrivalled, if nightmarish, lecturing Victoriana is your thing – read Anderson’s text here and cringe! – but for Bush it proved fertile songwriting ground. The story’s about a girl whose vain attraction to a pair of red shoes (RED! IN CHURCH! SCANDAL) is punished by an angel – she finds she is unable to take the shoes off, or stop dancing, and ends up having to ask the local executioner to cut off her feet. Which then chase her around. Yeah, her disembodied feet, still dancing, follow her around and haunt her. In the end she repents thoroughly …and dies. As you do. Kate Bush’s version, on the other hand, is a hymn to dancing the dream and making the dream come true and enjoying your desires, even so-called dangerous ones. Or as Prof Bonnie Gordon puts it in this essay, “by singing and reclaiming this story meant to constrain women’s bodies and their erotic potential, Bush confronts and overturns its original inherent violence.”

8. Emilie Autumn: Shallott

Ah, Madame Autumn. Prone to self-indulgence on occasion she may be (The Art of Suicide just bores me, for example) but when she’s on form, she’s good fun. I much prefer her when she’s interacting with a story or old folk tale trope that already exists, like, say, with Rose Red from her debut album Enchant, as opposed to when she’s languidly drawling about how Dead Is The New Alive on far less ethereal later LP Opheliac. Here’s Shallott, in which the famous tragic lady of Arthurian legend and Tennyson’s poem gets a soapbox of her own. Driven to distraction by sheer boredom, preternaturally aware that her life story’s already been written for her, archly quoting her own poem, and almost determined to die as flamboyantly as possible, Autumn’s take on the Lady may be angsty, but she’s also deliciously sarcastic – now some drama queen is gonna write a song for me!, she spits. Worth braving the gothic-girl-lost frills and flounces for.

7. CocoRosie: Werewolf

When I saw CocoRosie live a year or two ago, they took the stage in fake moustaches and proceeded to blow me away. Lyrically, only they know what Werewolf is really about, but I love the sudden changes of direction, the stream-of-consciousness narratives, and the thoughtful melancholy that hangs around my speakers in clouds after the music’s stopped playing. Corny movies make me reminisce / They break me down easy on this generic love shit / First kiss frog and princess … I’m-a shake you off though, get up on that horse and / Ride into the sunset, look back with no remorse…

6. Skye Sweetnam: Part Of Your World

I wanted to include a Disney cover- something done as a pop-punk number with a gutsy, bouncy female vocal. In my head, with a change of context, some spit and elbow grease, the song might come out kinda like the Disney Princess version of No Doubt’s Just A Girl.

A survey of YouTube’s trove of punk/rock Disney covers reveals a really male-heavy bunch of bands. (Ladies, where are you? Where’s my hardcore cover of Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, eh?) This was the closest match for a female-voxed attempt at this song (Ariel’s big ballady number from The Little Mermaid) that YouTube could offer me – I’d have preferred something rougher round the edges, but it’s still good fun. Avril-esque Skye Sweetnam, then: she’s supported Britney live, provided Barbie’s singing voice on a Mattel DVD, fronts metal band Sumo Cyco – VARIED CAREER TRAJECTORY – and overall sounds like Bif Naked on a sugar high (no bad thing in my book). Album B-side Wolves and Witches is also sugary fun, if lyrically a bit join-the-dots.

Haters should note that Miley Cyrus has also had a crack at this song, and by God, she phones it in like nobody’s business, making Skye’s effort sound edgier than Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring by comparison.

SO! Readers. Could you do better than Skye? Dust off your Fender. Record it. Get in touch. And I will lavish THE FAME OF BADREP upon you. Provided you don’t sound like a cat in a tumble dryer. (Possibly even if you do.) Extra points if you do Gaston from Beauty and the Beast as a B-side. No wildly feminism-relevant reason. I just like it. (I use antlers in all of my DECCCC-o-rating…)

On that note, come back tomorrow morning for Part Two, in which we discover why Nicki Minaj, Paramore, and … Benjamin Zephaniah (trust me, he’s relevant) are rubbing shoulders.