Summary: Move over, Miley and Katy. There's a new pack of female pop artists on the rise -- and together, they just set a new all-time Billboard record. For the first time in Billboard's 56-year history, female solo artists -- led by young singer Meghan Trainor, whose debut single "All About That Bass" has topped singles charts from New Zealand to Croatia -- have occupied the top five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking seven weeks. "The last time that there were this many women in the top five for more than one week was in 1999," says music writer Melinda Newman, who recently covered the trend for Billboard magazine. "And that string only lasted four weeks." In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Newman talks about whether this female singles chart domination signifies a shift in the typically male-dominated music industry -- and about the relative newcomers (with the exception of pop star Taylor Swift, whose new album 1989 comes out on Monday) who are holding down the top of the chart. The (Current) Top Five Lineup: 1. Meghan Trainor, "All About That Bass" 2. Taylor Swift, “Shake it Off” 3. Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, “Bang Bang” 4. Iggy Azalea feat. Rita Ora, “Black Widow” 5. Tove Lo, “Habits (Stay High)” Interview Highlights Melinda Newman, on Meghan Trainor's single "All About That Bass," the lead single off of her upcoming debut album: As we all know, when someone comes out of the box with this huge of a hit, it can be a blessing and a curse. This instantly becomes what they're always known for. It's really hard for someone when they have this big of an impression to keep the momentum going. On the commonalities between the five songs in the top five: Well, Tove Lo kind of ruined it for our theories. When Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" was in the top five, all of these songs were fairly female-empowering. None of them were traditional love songs in that "I'm nothing without my man." You look at "Shake It Off," "All About That Bass," [it was] very much "I'm an independent woman, take me as I am." With "Bang Bang" and "Black Widow," they were very much, "Hey, you come near me, you get what you get." Tove Lo kind of ruins it with "Stay High," because it's about a woman who is trying to find anything she can do to keep her mind off her man. On whether this record-breaking trend signifies something about women in the U.S.: Only in hindsight will we be able to look back and see what's going on. When I did my piece, there's certain people that thought this was actually a movement -- that it parallels women being powerful in the country, and that women are really standing up and taking their claim. Someone even took the throughline all the way to Hillary Clinton potentially running for president. Other people feel that this is cyclical -- that it's wonderful that this is happening, that we have new voices out there -- Taylor Swift's the only one we would have known about a few years ago -- but that it is just a cyclical phenomenon. Two years from now, the chart will look completely different. We're in a very rhythmic pop stage right now at Top 40 radio, and that tends to favor females.
