Nightwish, Arch Enemy, and Amaranthe only have one thing in common: all three are fronted by a woman. That's it; they have way more differences. Nightwish is in the subgenre of symphonic metal; Arch Enemy is melodic death metal; and Amaranthe is power metal band. Nightwish's first singer Tarja Turunen was classically trained, and sang mostly operatic. Second singer, Anette Olzon, wasn't classically trained and brought more of a rock feel to Nightwish. Current singer Floor Jansen is able to do both, along with singing harsh vocals. On the other hand, former singer of Arch Enemy, Angela Gossow, and current lead singer, Alissa White-Gluz, are two of the few females who are capable of doing death growls. Elize Ryd is one of the three singers of Amaranthe. While her male companions, Jake E. and Henrik Englund, perform rock-sounding and harsh vocals, respectively, Elize adds a pop-like element to the band. The lyric content is different too. Nightwish's lyrics focus on the joys of life and the mourning of innocence. Arch Enemy's lyrics focus on anarchy and war. Amaranthe, on the other hand, focus on love and being true to yourself.
So why on earth on are these three bands grouped into the same category?
In articles, these bands- and other bands with a frontwoman- are called "female-fronted." Grouping them into one category ignores the uniqueness of each band. Even bands in the same subgenre have their differences. Epica and Delain are both symphonic metal bands. However, Epica has more of an operatic style, while also incorporating death growls. Delain is less operatic, and mostly uses death growls on backing vocals.
The frontwomen of these bands are pretty tired of being grouped into one category, too. Says Floor Jansen during a Blabbermouth interview, "There seems to sometimes be an entire genre called 'female-fronted metal.' 'Oh, so you're in a female-fronted metal band?' 'Oh, yeah? Am I?' What on earth does that say? Because then Revamp is a female-fronted metal band, and so is Nightwish. But those bands don't sound alike at all. Arch Enemy is a female-fronted metal band, but so is Delain. They don't sound alike at all. The only thing they both are are metal bands, but the style within metal is so massively different that it doesn't really say much whether there's a girl singing or not." Says Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil in another Blabbermouth interview, "I'm not very happy about the 'female-fronted' term, just because, for me, it's very natural to think about a female in a band as a person like any other in the band. So I don't do the separation in between guys and girls."
Metal bands with frontwomen have been around have been around since, well, almost since the rise of metal bands. Probably the most famous, Warlock (with frontwoman Doro) has been around since 1982. What I'm trying to say is: it's not new.
Grouping all of these diverse bands into one category is disrespectful. It erases their identities. If you wouldn't group Kamelot (power metal band) and Cradle of Filth (extreme metal band) together, why would you do it with Arch Enemy and Nightwish? They're not female fronted bands; they're metal bands.
