I don’t think that any of us judge how successful a singer is by her place on the Billboard chart. In fact, most of us don’t know how hot someone is until they go platinum (or we’ve heard their single a million times and its repeats in our head over and over). But I was surprised when I took a look at Billboard’s list of the top 100 songs of the last 50 years and found only six sisters listed among all those slots. Sadder still, not one of our girls were among the top 20 album list by the magazine for the same time frame.

So who made the list? No icons Billie Holiday, or Dinah Washington or even Diana Ross & The Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. In fact, Mariah Carey was the first to grace the list and that wasn’t until 1990 when her first single “Vision of Love” permeated the airwaves. Two years later, Whitney Houston’s mega-hit “I Will Always Love You,” earned her a spot. And the only girl group to garner a place was TLC because of their 1995 hit “Waterfalls”. Lauryn Hill (oh how we miss her) got her well-deserved place with “Doo Wop (That Thing)” a few years later. And in this decade Janet Jackson and Beyonce round out the list with “All For You”, in 2001, and “Irreplaceable,” last year. 

Clearly this list was based totally on sales, not the impact the song has had over the years. But perusing the list got me to thinking that it seems much harder for black women in the music industry to have sustained success. Sure we have musical forces like Tina Turner (who’s coming out of retirement), Patti LaBelle (who is reuniting with Nona and Sara with a new album and tour) and Gladys Knight. But there are so many more sisters like Cheryl “Pepsi” Riley, Alyson Williams, Me’lissa Morgan, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Stacy Lattisaw, and Mikki Howard who come and go like that depending on the decade. Seriously, do we think that Rihanna (as cute as she is) will be entertaining audiences 30 years from now?

But the brothers can put together their “old school”  concert and go out on tour. Whether its New Edition, Boys II Men, Keith Sweat or even Dougie Fresh (who are the new jack answers to the originalt touring groups The Temptation Review and Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes) and we’ll fill the stadium. Why couldn’t SWV and En Vogue have ridden the wave of excitement from their BET Award appearance earlier this year and teamed up with some other girl groups and gotten their own tour? 

Here’s some throwback evidence of the girls who we don’t see anymore…