Watched: 09/28/2025
Format: Hulu
Viewing: First
Director: Ally Pankiw
First - it's remarkable how messed up the music industry was in the 1990's that I realize I kind of disliked some of the music from the artists in Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025) not because of the music, but because if a song was any good in the 1990's, you kind of couldn't escape it for months at a time. I think half of why I got weird about music in college and decided "I'm gonna go listen to Cole Porter standards" was because if I heard Hootie and the Blowfish one more time, I was going to shove pencils through my ear drums. On the whole, radio, Muzak and MTV had a real "you like ice cream? Great. We're force feeding you a gallon of mint chocolate chip every hour for the next two months" sort of vibe.
It did not help that I was working in a Camelot Records during the period when the artists who would become the headliners at Lilith Fair in the first years were releasing their music. (So tired were we of Paula Cole's "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" that, behind the counter we would whisper to each other in response to Cole's query, "Up my butt". But almost 30 years later, that song is a-ok, Paula Cole.)
The documentary of Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery charts the origins, rise, challenges to, and eventual final wrap-up of the initial go at Lilith Fair, and its place in culture in the 1990's. It shows how the very suddenly popular Sarah McLachlan parlayed both her position and organization into recruiting other female artists and playing multiple summers of tours from the mid-90's to 1999. Along the way, luminaries like Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, Emmylou Harris, Suzanne Vega and countless others joined McLachlan on the road to help change perceptions of how women fit into the music industry.
And, it's impressive who was willing to show up and speak on camera about the festival. All of the women listed above, minus Smith. Jewel. Joan Osborne. Cole. Natalie Merchant. Liz Phair. Sheryl Crow. Indigo Girls. And plenty more.
To be honest, I very much remember the cultural touchstones referred to in the film - including the misogyny and the absolute weird shit you'd hear about "common wisdom" of the music industry or in film and TV at the time. And I remember the "ha ha, a women's music tour" jokes from time to time as well as the way the press could be completely out of hand if they thought a target was soft. And all of that is absolutely part of the documentary.
The tour paralleled the rise of the dude bro's who wound up making Woodstock '99 an absolutely terrible idea. And what's weirder is how far off the perceptions industry "experts" had about women in rock/ popular/ alternative music. The notion people couldn't tolerate hearing two female artists back-to-back on the radio made no sense to me then or now. And how male audiences responded to many female musicians makes the "wisdom" seem completely out of touch. Mayeb I was in a bubble, but I remember in the 90's the absolute enthusiasm for Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Sarah McLachlan, Liz Phair and countless others. Maybe less so some one-hit-wonders, but if you had a solid album (see PJ Harvey in the mid-90's) the fan-ish-ness was there with no consideration of gender. But what is explained about the way the industry was working also explains maybe why so few of those artists seemed accessible live.
The festival was never going to be all things to all people. Treating "women" as a genre is... it's stupid, y'all. That they were focused on a sort of singer/ songwriter category was never... bad. No one was criticizing Monsters of Rock for not having Cumbia in the line-up. But somehow Lilith Fair, by virtue of being by and for women suddenly had to represent all women?
Anyway, I *remember* Lilith Fair existing, but by the time it came to Austin, I was fully not paying attention. Jamie tells me it came to Southpark Meadows in 1999, so I was out of school and working, but I have no recollection of ever hearing they were in town. But if you want to know what I was doing in July of 1999, buddy, so do I.
I am sure people will have opinions that are unflattering about the doc - it's a doc by women about a music fest by women, and so it might as well be sporting a lightning rod. But as a snapshot of the mid-90's music and cultural scene that was running parallel to the pop scene, and represented very popular music of the day - it's a nostalgic look back. And a reminder of what was happening in the world. And if your memory of the 90's is all cool Gen-X vibes, it's also a bellwether for coming cultural forces.
Looking forward, the music industry did change drastically going into the 00's, and the doc acknowledges that. But also that women are now leading popular music in the era of Chappell Roan and Dua Lipa - even if it tilts more towards pop than the folks earnestness associated with Lilith Fair.
Anyway, worth a look, Gen-X'ers. And for The Youths, it's a great snapshot of a time and place in music. And maybe you'll find some good stuff you never heard before. The doc is not a comprehensive view and is very much a sweet, nostalgic look that may or may not be accurate in its takeaways for how the world felt at the time or in the years following regarding Lilith Fair and its cultural impact. But it's a phenomenal reminder of what was, could be again, and the value in the effort.
Also, Sarah McLachlan's albums Touch and Fumbling Toward Ecstacy were faves at one point, but I haven't listened to them in years so I'mmafix that.
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