Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is no such thing as a beautiful minefield, there is only the dream of utopia, but it comes with a cost that some are happy to wash away, almost cleanse, how they got to that situation in the first place, when history is written, invariably it has been from a point of view that has determined the loudest voices have had their say first, and to the detriment of others, to the subjugation, a certain view point has been lost, been allowed to have been censured and erased.

Such perhaps is the way that humanity has been dominated throughout history by the voice and the actions of the male gender, the different eras that have pillaged, sacrificed and injured the planet have come from a place where the male need for destruction and conquest has led to a point where you cannot blame the female half of the species for wondering out loud what life would be without man.

It is International Women’s Day that brings out the very idea of how life might have turned out if man had simply never existed, it too the stirring one-off single by Natalie McCool, Women’s World, that sees the reflection, arm in arm and sensationally, musically, upbeat, of a world where men simply had never been, no glass ceiling, no gender shackles, no discrimination due to a matter of sex, where a girl can become anything they want because there has been no man to insist that they hold their hand, no man to sway a woman’s life.

The sentiment is understandable, the frustration that comes with dealing with men has long since vexed, even angered the female of the species, we don’t share, we don’t play nice, and when we do it always seems to be done as a favour, with indulgence, in some cases, with the ring of tolerance; no wonder that Women’s World rings out with absolute conviction and truth.

There is no beautiful mine-field, no such thing as an indiscriminate blast that will necessitate the wiping away of a culture, something always survives, and whilst even if man had never existed, the world would be a poorer place without the works of some of the more enlightened minds that have embraced the arts, Da Vinci for example, but perhaps that is the point, it is woman’s world, man has just been fortunate to express themselves so far.

Ian D. Hall