The three female voices (and guitars) that will fill the Cruïlla

BarcelonaWhile a few years ago, the lineups for major music festivals struggled to include female representation, the situation has now reversed, or at least begun to balance out. After the Primavera Sound of the Supergirls of pop It's time for Cruïlla (July 9-12 at the Parc del Fòrum), where the highlights are three top-notch soloists: a promising young artist who's already a reality, a rocker who never tires of experimenting, and a true '90s icon (and not only that). Now, more than ever, female voices are on the rise, and those participating in Cruïlla 2025 are absolutely unique.

Gracie Abrams

Taylor Swift's spiritual heir

Using pop culture jargon, the headliner of the first day of the Cruïlla Festival is a nepobaby by the book, a title given to her by the fact that she is the daughter of director JJ Abrams, co-creator of the series Lost and director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and television producer Katie McGratch. Removing this variable from her biography, Gracie Abrams (Los Angeles, 1999) can also be defined as a child of the internet and one of Taylor Swift's most obvious heirs. In 2018, she began to attract attention online following the videos she posted on Instagram with snippets of songs she was writing on the fly. It was thanks to this that the American media dubbed her "Instagram's favorite singer-songwriter." Her songs, intimate and full of the anxieties and doubts typical of her age, connected with an audience that felt reflected in her tribulations, especially in the year of the pandemic.

After a brief stint at university, she dropped out of international relations studies to pursue a professional career in music and begin building a sound universe from her parents' bedroom. Her career has been relatively rapid: a record deal in 2019, two EPs, and two albums. —Good riddance (2023) and The secret of us (2024) – which have catapulted her worldwide. In the meantime, she's opened for two of her favorite artists, as well as good friends: Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift. The Californian opened several concerts in the United States for Swift's Eras Tour and they have recorded together You, one of Abrams' achievements. Swift's mark is evident in the singer-songwriter's compositions, to the point that some of her songs, such as I love you, I'm sorry, could easily be signed by the Pennsylvania singer.

Abrams says that, as an introverted child, writing has always been the tool she has used to process her feelings (in fact, she often keeps a diary where she records everything that happens to her) and to communicate it," she said in an interview on Billboard. With a collection of songs full of stories of broken hearts and that move between languor and epic, she mentions Joni Mitchell among her main influences – she has the word tattooed River in honor of the song by the Canadian singer– and Phoebe Bridgers, whose ability to incorporate humor into her songs is notable. With two albums, the American singer has already achieved the status ofit girl, thanks in part to her highly publicized relationship with actor Paul Mescal, who, curiously, is Bridgers' ex-partner.

St. Vincent

A prodigious guitarist always in transformation

St. Vincent (artist alias Annie Clark) changes shape and universe cyclically without paying much attention to current fashions. dandy from the 70s. Being unclassifiable is one of its distinctive features. As is mystery. David Byrne, with whom he made the album Love this giant (2012), he says that despite having been on tour with her for a year, he couldn't say he knew her deeply. "Mystery isn't a bad thing in a young, beautiful, and talented woman (or man). And she has it without seeming distant or indifferent," the former Talking Heads singer explained in an interview with Village Voice. What's not a mystery, but rather a fact, is that she's a prodigious guitarist who dropped out of Berklee College of Music to pursue noise rock.

Her protection of her privacy is surely at the root of her distaste for the confessional style that now seems to be the trademark of every pop singer. A tendency that has fans searching for clues to biographical secrets among song lyrics. "I don't think songs have to be autobiographical puzzles for people to solve. [The songs] are for other people, not me. I've worked on them, I love them, I've put my heart into them, and the record's sound is the sound of my reworked brain, but who cares about the specifics?" Guardian.

Following this strategy, St. Vincent, born in Tulsa in 1982, has managed to maintain her own character. She only broke the norm with the album Daddy's home (2021) inspired by his father's release from prison and considered by critics to be a misstep in his career. After that obstacle, he has rebuilt himself with All born screaming (2024), the first album she has produced entirely alone and of which she has also recorded a Spanish version that includes a duet with Mon Laferte. queer"I know how to change. I've been aware that gender is a performance since I was little. This album isn't about any character or anything, it's just about life and death, and life is impossible, but we must live it. And it's remarkably short, and the people we love are all we have," she explained in the magazine. Nylon.

Despite her experimental nature, the Texas singer occasionally steps into the more pop mainstream. He collaborated with Olivia Rodrigo on the song Obsessed, one of the most daring songs in the young star's repertoire. And since in today's pop world it seems that all roads lead to Taylor Swift, she is the co-writer of Cruel Summer, of Lover, considered by Rolling Stone One of the 500 greatest songs of all time, a success she says she's genuinely surprised by.

Alanis Morissette

The singer who empowered 90s teenagers

Catharsis, rage and empowerment are three words that come to mind when thinking about Jagged little pill, the album that marks thirty years this year and that turned a then very young Alanis Morissette (Ottawa, 1974) into one of the most influential female voices of the 90s. The Canadian was 20 years old when it was released and, in fact, had already had two more albums under her belt as a star. Faced with the evidence that the Canadian industry wasn't interested in her adult version, she moved to the United States to write an album that is still today a pinnacle of breakups set to music. Morissette didn't sing from melancholy or sadness, but from anger, demanding that her ex-partners take responsibility, an attitude that current stars like Olivia Rodrigo have later taken up.

Many years before women's empowerment was talked about, she became a living example through her songs. In You oughta know, a generational anthem, gave a lesson to an older ex-partner who had quickly rebuilt his life – the actor Dave Coulier, from Full House and fifteen years her senior, has admitted that the song was probably about him. The lyrics were raw and sexually charged with lines like "A bigger version of me / Is she kinky like me / Would you eat her out in a theater?" The media quickly turned Morissette into the standard-bearer of "girl rage" and 90s teenagers were belting out her songs locked in their rooms or cars (as Alanis Morissette herself does in the video clip ofIronic). The album, which sold 33 million copies worldwide and won five Grammy Awards, captured the spirit of the moment and is the seed of other cultural products, such as one hit wonder by Meredith Brooks Bitch or the cult series My so-called life.

The Shadow of the Disc Jagged little pill is elongated – the documentary Jagged (Max) explains her impact very well - but the Canadian has not stopped working in all these years, although she has never again experienced the popularity she reached in the mid-90s. With her career already established and with the status of a rock icon, she allows herself to carry out experiments such as The storm before the calm (2022), a meditation music album. Morissette, who has already passed the age of 50, has put anger aside and is seeking salvation through more spiritual paths, a path that began with Supposed to form infatuation junkie (1998), influenced by Buddhism and yoga, but without abandoning rock. However, the singer, who has done much work raising awareness about sexual abuse and postpartum depression, advocates keeping a certain feminine rage alive: "As a person and as a feminist, if you're not angry, maybe you're not paying enough attention."