thank heaven for the ladies

Just a quick follow-up to my post of earlier today: I have a crackpot theory for you, and it goes a little something like this: bands who have attractive guitar-playing (lead, rhythm or bass, it doesn't matter) ladies as members but who aren't the lead singer, just "one of the boys", as it were, are inherently cool.

So otherwise splendid people such as Debbie Harry, Grace Slick and Polly Harvey are ineligible thanks to their front-person status, but the following qualify:

• Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads
• Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth
• Kim Deal of The Pixies
• Bilinda Butcher of My Bloody Valentine
• Charlotte Hatherley of Ash
• D'Arcy Wretzky and later Melissa Auf der Maur of Smashing Pumpkins
• Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups (pictured above)

Supplementary rules: all-girl bands are cheating, so while I bow to no man in my admiration for Susannah Hoffs of the Bangles, she's out of the running. I exclude the lovely Miki Berenyi of Lush as well, as I deem her to be a co-lead singer, and the fact that Lush were a bit rubbish spoils my theory a bit. Both are pictured in this earlier post, if you must.

An alternative view of the whole Ladies Who Rock subject can be found in this Blender article.