It’s almost 2001 – and, in the last few years, things have changed for women in the world of pop and rock music. For many years, there were always more men than women at the top of the charts. In 1997, for the first time in the US, there were more women than men in the charts by seven to one! Since then, there have been as many women in the US and UK charts as men.

It’s a big change. And things have changed for women singers in other ways too. In the past, female singers couldn’t always make the kind of music they wanted to make. In the 1960s, for example, the record companies told great singers like Dusty Springfield and Diana Ross what to sing. The companies believed that people wanted easy-listening pop music and this is what the girls had to sing. Many girl pop singers succeeded because they were sex kittens – like Kylie Minogue. Very original female artists like Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, and Tracey Chapman were never able to stay at the top for long.

But now things are different for female singers. Alanis Morisette, Sheryl Crowe and Tori Amos write original albums that sell millions. Singers like Madonna have shown people that women can be as good as men at making great, exciting music. Even girl groups like The Spice Girls and All Saints have helped change people’s ideas about women in pop music. Girlpower has arrived – Female singers can do what they want to do.

The Icelandic singer Bjork is a good example. Everything about Bjork is unusual. She looks like a sixteen-year-old but she’s thirty-five. She made her first album at the age of eleven. When she was very young, Bjork decided that she wasn’t interested in writing ‘hits’. She wanted to write to express herself. Her music is very strange, very different. And she’s still a big success. Today, Iceland’s second most important export is the music of Bjork!

Bjork first became known in the UK and the US in 1988 as part of a rock band called KUKL. KUKL’s 1988 album, Life’s Too Good, had great success in England and the U.S. Then Bjork decided to become a solo singer. Debut, Bjork’s first solo album came out in 1993. People loved the originality of its dance music and it became very successful in America. Her second and third albums, Post, 1995, and Telegram, 1997, weren’t quite as successful, but music lovers everywhere knew that Bjork was here to stay.

Bjork’s latest success is in the world of acting. A few months ago, the Icelandic pop star won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, in France, for her part in the film Dancer in the Dark. This week she again won Best Actress at the European Film Academy. Who knows what Bjork will do next?

Like other successful female singers today, Bjork is a woman who does the things that she wants to do. Women write and sing the music they want to and are successful. Things have changed a lot since the 1960s.