It’s good to hear all the talk and love for Lilith Fair in 2025 over 25 years after it originally ended. The all-female touring festival is the subject of a new documentary, Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, which chronicles the history and impact it had over the course of its three-year run from 1997 to 1999.
The festivals had some serious star power: The festival’s main figures Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole reached their career heights while the tour was a going concern, and it also featured performances by huge stars like Sheryl Crow, Jewel, and Missy Elliott. There were so many great and important artists on those tours that it’s a shame that so few are or will be recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when there’s a good case to be made for many of them.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame could improve itself by welcoming more women.
I write a lot about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and one of the most striking things about the many omissions is how few women are inducted. Case in point, there are currently five Lilith Fair performers in the Hall: Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Pat Benatar, and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. A sixth and seventh, the Wilson sisters of Heart, joined the tour for its 2010 revival. That’s not very many, and only two (Crow and Elliott) were contemporary new stars on the tours that hadn’t already been established decades prior like the others. That’s a shame, given how women have been part of rock from the start with Wanda Jackson in the 1950s, and the women on Lilith were some of the biggest rock stars of the 1990s.
I’ll be giving a list of 20 Lilith Fair performers who I think have a good argument for the Hall. As much as I love Shawn Colvin, Lisa Loeb, and Sixpence None the Richer, I don’t think they will be raising the Hall’s attention any time soon considering the 20 names here that aren’t in yet. The great Sinead O’Connor has already been nominated and I won’t be including her here. I’ve also already talked about Natalie Merchant and her former band 10,000 Maniacs in my previous piece on women who should be in the Hall.
Christina Aguilera
The Rock Hall seems to have a real tough time with mainstream pop music, and the classic rock fans that love to criticize the Rock Hall really do. Madonna got in the Hall right away(?) but not without plenty of (unfair) complaints about what her induction means to the “rock” part of the Hall. Whitney Houston got in too, but Mariah Carey has not despite her many accomplishments. If Mariah can’t get in, that really leaves Christina Aguilera in a tough place because the Hall is eventually going to have to deal with the 00s pop scene.
Christina Aguilera performed on the small Village Stage at the 1999 Lilith Fair, a modest start for someone who would soon become one of the biggest pop stars of the next decade. She had a great run of hits that included an acclaimed debut album that netted her a coveted Best New Artist Grammy, and those hits are still ubiquitous today. You can hear her influence on many artists, including Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter. While Aguilera’s peak of popularity is in the rear view unless there’s a comeback on the way, she’s absolutely worth a look in if the Hall wants to cover the late 90s pop scene.
Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple didn’t have the hits that Aguilera did, but she makes up in critical acclaim. Apple has released five albums over the last 30 years and all of them have been among the most highly regarded records of their year. She remains someone for whom the music world stops when she announces a new album. Her continued acclaim for her new work, plus her influence on later musicians, makes her a compelling figure for a Hall nomination despite her comparatively small discography.
Erykah Badu
One of the leading lights of the ’90s neo-soul movement along with Maxwell and the recently departed D’Angelo, Erykah Badu broke through in 1997 with her debut album Baduizm and her Live album. Badu proved to be a unique voice in ’90s R&B, at times defiant, funny, and wry while adding jazz and funk into her sound. She’s also continued to be a major live act and a boundary pushing recording artist, and you can see her influence on a ton of artists that came after her. For instance, Alicia Keys will soon be eligible for the Hall, and there’s a lot of Badu’s influence in Keys’ early work to the point where I can see one of their inductions help the other.
Tracy Chapman
Of course, “Fast Car” is the crown jewel of Tracy Chapman’s catalog, but she’s more than that one perfect song. Her debut was also studded with great songs like “Baby Can I Hold You” and “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution”. Having one of the most exalted debut albums of the 80s may have been enough to get her a Hall nomination, but her next couple albums continued her streak of success. That includes her 1995 comeback album New Beginning and the big hit “Give Me One Reason”, which actually outpeaked “Fast Car”. Luke Combs’ hit cover of “Fast Car” from a few years ago proves how vital Chapman’s songwriting is decades after she first recorded her songs. She’s likely to be on the cusp of a nomination within the next few years.
Emmylou Harris
There’s a few country musicians who performed the Lilith Fair whose musical style or influence on Americana make them an interesting prospect for the Hall like Mary Chapin Carpenter and The Chicks.
However, the Lilith country star who is the likeliest to make the Hall is Emmylou Harris, who was right there at the beginning of alternative country as a duet partner with Gram Parsons. She followed those albums with her own run of successful and consistently great ’70s and ’80s records. In the late 80s, Harris found stardom with the Trio album with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton and again in 1995 with her acclaimed disc Wrecking Ball. Harris remains a well known name with a vaunted voice. There might be a few other names from alt-country that will get in before her, but she remains with an outside chance as long as she’s on the table
Indigo Girls
“Closer to Fine” and “Galileo” aside, the Indigo Girls are another group where their significant influence is their primary argument for the Hall. They were leading lights in the folk scene in the 80s and 90s, and a fixture on the festival circuit, which resulted in them being widely seen by anyone who was into singer-songwriter music. They were also role models and inspirations, as both members were out in an era where that was still not universally accepted. Their long history of activism for causes like environmentalism and LGBTQ+ rights are as much part of their legacy and influence as entertainers as their music is. They might be a longshot on an actual Hall ballot, but I could absolutely see someone who was impacted by their music bringing them up in the room.
Sarah McLachlan
Out of all the artists profiled in the Building a Mystery documentary, the one it indirectly makes the best argument for a Hall induction is Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan. That’s something the great music writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine also wrote about in his own piece following the film’s release. The documentary charts McLachlan’s career before Lilith, and recounts her rise as a singer and songwriter of ethereal alt rock classics like “Into the Fire” and “Possession” before she even became the sad dog lady. She released a string of great albums, including Surfacing during the run of Lilith. “Angel” is a beautiful song and very touching tribute to River Phoenix. But I worry that song turning her reputation into a piano balladeer may have hurt her rock credentials with people who don’t care to dig deeper. Shame on then, them.
If you’re an artist that a definitive history of rock and roll cannot avoid if it wants to be thorough and accurate, you most likely belong in the Hall. Given MacLachlan’s creation of Lilith Fair and her own solo success in the 90s that made her about as big as inductee Sheryl Crow, I think she reaches that standard.
Liz Phair
The Rock Hall has not really covered indie rock yet, which is a surprise considering how influential, and yes, popular this underground style of rock has been since the 1990s. No solo artist better exemplifies the indie spirit of the ’90s than Liz Phair, who burst on the scene in 1993 with her classic debut album Exile in Guyville. The album became critically exalted for Phair’s raw and confessional songwriting that put her at the forefront of the decade’s indie rock movement.
If Phair just released that album and then disappeared, she’d still have a sizable influence on lots of singer-songwriters that came after her, including recent artists like Soccer Mommy, Mitski, Clairo, and Phoebe Bridgers. Phair released two more records in the ’90s before she put out her divisive 2003 self-titled album. Phair was accused of selling out for making pop songs like her sole Top 40 hit “Why Can’t I?”, and the self-titled album received scathing reviews. In the decades that have followed, the idea of an indie artist playing around with mainstream pop tropes and vice versa proved to be a very prescient one. Phair continues be a major influence point, and her albums like Guyville continue to show up on greatest of all time lists. If the Hall wants to start inducting indie rock artists, which they should, Phair is a great artist to start with.
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega has a similar case to Tracy Chapman – a few beloved hit songs (“Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” in her case), a series of acclaimed albums, and lots of influence on the songwriters who came after her. Vega broke through as part of the vaunted scene revolving around Fast Folk, a combination magazine and record series that spotlighted a burgeoning 80s singer-songwriter scene that also included Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, and Chapman.
Vega became one of the first new folk stars of the 80s, paving the way for the success of Chapman and the Indigo Girls later in the decade. As the ’90s dawned, Vega experimented with alternative rock and dance, and reached number one on Billboard’s alternative chart with the industrial “Blood Makes Noise”. She was also one of the most famous names attached as a headliner to Lilith when it began. Vega checks a lot of boxes when it comes the Hall, but she and 80s songwriters of her era have not been well represented by the institution. Perhaps having her be one of the first (after the likelier Chapman) would break that trend
Lucinda Williams
Alternative country is a style that the Rock Hall has completely ignored despite it being one of the most popular and influential genres of music of the last 20 years. There’s several artists on this list already who were influences or fellow travellers to the Americana scene like the Indigo Girls and Emmylou Harris. But no Lilith act represented the core of the style more than Lucinda Williams, whose long career has made her an icon of the mixture of country and folk traditions.
Williams released her first album in the late 70s, but she really came into prominence in the late 80s with her classic song “Passionate Kisses”. Her 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was the most acclaimed record of that year. WIlliams has maintained an exalted spot in the world of Americana, and she’s a more likely Hall nominee than many of the men in the genre like Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett.
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