Have you ever read one of those 'Women in Rock' lists and felt, like, embarrassed? Not only at the need to make those lists —to treat females as a gender in need of tokenism— but the people they're populated with. Joan Jett? Melissa Etheridge? Alanis Morrissette?

If we're going to at least make these lists, why do so in celebration of artistic mediocrity? As antidote to every awful, insulting gender-based countdown ever tallied up, let us do it right. By honoring the lives and work of a crew of true musical pioneers: individual, idiosyncratic artists who took music into new realms. And just happened to be women.

Of course, that shouldn't suggest that their gender was incidental: many of these musicians were women who were out to challenge accepted ideas about femininity, or gender, or social roles.

When she was 22, Delia Derbyshire (pictured!) was denied a recording-engineer post by Decca Records on account that they didn't employ women. Marianne Elliott-Said adopted the stage name 'Poly Styrene' to reduce herself to a product, in protest of the consumer culture that used female sexuality to sell goods. And Patti Smith proved that the one human could be both uncompromising androgynous rocker and wife and mother.

So, in celebration of those at the cultural/pop-cultural front-lines, here are 10 Trailblazing Female Musicians...

Name: Hospital Ships
From: Lawrence, Kansas
Story: Ex-Minus Story bro hits career high notes (in creaky, Coyne-like voice)
Sound: "Midwestern existential fuzz-pop"

Jordan Geiger is one of the leading practitioners of The Coyne, the mimicking vocal style —oh so heavily in debt to the cracked, creaky croon of Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne— that is to psychedelic-leaning indie-pop what The Vedder was to turgid '90s commercial rock. But Geiger isn't merely artlessly aping his hero, but employing that (borrowed) voice brilliantly: his seemingly-brittle singing filled with feeling, meaning, melody, and humanity.

Geiger's been wailing away in this nasal voice for years. He fronted Kansas band Minus Story across four albums that accomplished that rarest of trends: getting better as they went. His first 'solo' record, as Hospital Ships, was 2008's Oh, Ramona, and it flew so under-the-radar that I'm presuming to be 'introducing' the project to you, now, three years on.

The freshly-pressed second Hospital Ships set, Lonely Twin, is a bright, bold re-introduction to a songwriter —and a creaky voice— that's been doing good things for years. The album is Geiger at his best: densely-layered songs built on anthemic piano chords and laced with fuzzed-out bass, droning guitar tone, and crashing drums. There's church organ, woodwinds, and strings, too; pop-songs treated like minor symphonies.

It's an album not by some young upstart —I promise I'll write about, like, some 17-year-old kid from New Zealand next week to make up for it— but one that shows the wisdom of time, and comes filled with the existential angst of someone creeping towards middle-age.

On back-to-back songs, "Carry On" and "Anyone Everyone," Geiger essentially sings odes to live on after his death; tunes challenging both songwriter and listener to take stock of their existence and weigh up all they've done. It's profound stuff; Geiger only half-joking when he dubs Hospital Ships "Midwestern existential fuzz-pop."

• Listen: Hospital Ships, "Love or Death"
• Watch: Hospital Ships, "Walking the Cow" (Daniel Johnston cover)
• Visit: Hospital Ships on Myspace

The Year: 1993
The Album: Archers of Loaf, Icky Mettle
Who it Influenced: Modest Mouse, Brand New, Cursive, Health, Yuck, Surfer Blood

Original alt-rock bros Archers of Loaf never technically broke up, but a 13-year hiatus —from 1998 to 2011— served the same purpose. Now, the Chapel hill combo are back together and touring, with their four LPs due for imminent reissue on Merge.

It felt like Archers of Loaf dodged the obligatory reunion longer than most, there few broken-up bands of their stature, from that era, who hadn't gotten back on the horse, even if only for a show or two. I have no idea if their return will strictly be a cynical cash-in (á la The Pixies) or will result in a new era of undeniably impressive material (like Dinosaur Jr), but here's what I do know: Icky Mettle is just as good as you remember it. Or better. Or, y'know, if you've never heard it, it really is really good; not one of these LPs whose reputation exceeds its actual contents (see: Slanted and Enchanted).

Its rep is as rough-house and bullocking, built on brash, coiled-up, klanging guitars and the boisterous, braying vocals of Eric Bachmann. It comes on in waves of energy, kick-started by the Side 1/Track 1 classic "Web in Front." But this is no four-to-the-floor punk-rock, but angular and emotional, melody shining amidst the dissonance, Bachmann dealing out deft lyrics, strong vocal hooks, and unalloyed heartache.

• Full review: Archers of Loaf, Icky Mettle

Classic indie-rockers Archers of Loaf are in the middle of a full-blown reunion tour. Though Archers of Loaf never officially broke up, they'd lain dormant since 1998, before playing a secret comeback show in January, then scheduling a full back-in-town tour. Now, Merge Records are adding to the AOL comeback, reissuing the band's four studio albums.

First cab off the rank will be Archers of Loaf's classic debut LP, 1993's Icky Mettle. Merge will reissue the record on August 2, with the host of attendant extras in tow: the Vs. The Greatest of All Time EP, singles, and B-sides.

The band's three subsequent albums —1995's Vee Vee, 1996's All the Nations Airports, and 1998's White Trash Heroes— will be released by Merge throughout the remainder of 2012.

Photo © Sandlin Gaither