Do You Love All-Girl Bands? We’ve Got the 10 Best

All-Girl bands started in the 1920s and although the music and the look has changed, they have always been engaging.

There is something appealing about an all-girl band; I’m not quite sure what. Maybe it’s the sex appeal of women on their own, demonstrating their determined self-reliance, or maybe it’s the outfits. In any event, they are fabulous. Well, maybe not all of them are fabulous, but that’s why we have lists.

All-girl bands are to be distinguished from all-girl groups, such as the Supremes or the Pointer Sisters; girl leads such as Sheryl Crow, Janis Joplin or Bonnie Raitt, partly-girl groups such as Fleetwood Mac, the B-52s or Heart. All-girl bands play their own instruments (although each member need not play an instrument), as opposed to all-girl groups that sing and harmonize and are typically backed-up by bands of varying sorts.

So, here, without further adieu, are the most fabulous of the fabulous, the all-time top 10 all-girl bands:

1.  Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators. Started in the jazz age of the 1920s, this was the first all-girl band to become widely-known and to clearly demonstrate that a woman could play any instrument as well as a man.

2.  The Runaways. They gave us Joan Jett, Micki Steele and Lita Ford and helped establish the genre of the all-girl punk-rock band.

3.  Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers and Amy Ray each play their own guitar as a duo. They use back-up musicians but those musicians are not part of a “band”. In any event, they are way too good to leave off this list.

4.  Klymaxx. The first all-girl R&B band in which each member played an instrument.

5.  4 Non Blonds. Originally formed as an all-girl band, Roger Rocha joined in 1992, prior to the release of their first album.

6.  Go-Go’s. The first all-girl American rock band to write their own songs, play their own instruments and reach the top of the Billboard charts.

7.  Dixie Chicks. Good music and plenty of controversy, what’s better than that?

8. Bangles. How can you not love “Walk Like an Egyptian”? Well, even so, they should be on the list.

9.  Bananarama. If nothing else, they are prolific. They are still in the Guinness World Book of Records as the all-girl band with the most chart entries in history.

10.  Spice Girls. On the list because one of them can actually sing.

And honorable mention, in no particular order, must go to Babes in Toyland and the Pussycat Dolls.

Certain historical and band-specific information for this article was provided by Wikipedia.