Mclachlan & Loeb They Are Certainly Women, But Rockers Lisa Loeb And Sarah Mclachlan Aren’t ‘Women Musicians’

Their voices set the standard for the current state of rock and roll.

Elegant and introspective, beautiful and biting.

Female.

Sarah McLachlan and Lisa Loeb — they are two women who’ve forged their way through the testosterone-fest that is the music industry, making not only good music in the process but clearing a path for women artists to come. Both will be in Spokane for a concert Thursday night.

Currently the reigning queen of women in rock (or at least among the top divas), McLachlan has become an artistic force to be reckoned with. On Wednesday she was awarded Grammys for best female pop vocal performance and best pop instrumental performance.

And last summer McLachlan did what no one had done before her. She created a multi-artist music festival booked entirely with female acts. The Lilith Fair toured the country and — to put it indelicately — kicked the butts of its male-dominated rivals.

As for Loeb, back when she was first prying her way into the music world, she became the first artist to have a No. 1 song without being signed to a label.

Her latest album, “Firecracker” (Geffen Records), crackles with intimate stories and personal struggles set to Loeb’s skillful acoustic strumming and fingerpicking.

They are women. They are musicians. They are successful.

But in truth, it is the gender designation that rankles, that makes them sigh with resignation. It’s like telling a kid who has just accomplished a great feat … “You’re not bad for a girl.”

“Most of the women musicians I know, we all consider ourselves musicians,” Loeb said in a recent interview. “We don’t think ‘Oh, I’m a woman in music.’ I’m just a musician. I’m proud to be a woman and I’m a feminist, but that’s not what my music is about.”

So what is their music about?

Both Loeb and McLachlan are sophisticated songwriters with tunes that peek and prod at relationships both good and bad. Theirs is acoustically driven rock, swathed in voices whose beauty does not diminish its strength.

McLachlan, a pixie-faced sprite with a voice at times so good it’s otherworldly, was bent on making music from a young age.

“I was 4 and I wanted to be Joan Baez so my mother got me a ukulele because I was too small for a guitar,” she recently told an audience on the VH1 show “Storytellers.”

Living in Vancouver, B.C., she got her start fronting a new wave band. Her first solo album, “Touch,” released in 1988, went gold in Canada. But it was the 1991 follow-up, “Solace,” that first brought her mainstream recognition, and it was “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” that brought her to America’s attention in 1994.

Her latest album, “Surfacing,” offers up the song “Building a Mystery,” for which McLachlan was awarded the Grammy for best female pop vocal performance.

“I love it because it came out very quickly and easily,” McLachlan says. “It’s about the fact we all wear masks at some point in our lives and have insecurities we want to hide.

“And often we hide them by putting on a facade that appears to be more interesting, when if we would all just be who we are, that’s a much more attractive and beautiful thing.”

McLachlan, whose drummer/ husband joins her on the stage and album, says “Surfacing” “is about me finally growing up and facing ugly things about myself. We all have a dark side.”

It is such candor and introspection that is also a mark of Loeb’s work.

The song “How,” off her latest album, is about life under the microscope, about letting people (rock-and-roll critics in part) examine her up close only to be disappointed. The title song “Firecracker” is about a relationship she had that turned hurtful.

Loeb, who grew up in Dallas, learned to play guitar as a teenager. While attending Brown University, she performed in a duo called Liz and Lisa.

Her song “Stay (I Missed You),” off the “Reality Bites” soundtrack, was the breakthrough followed by her 1995 debut album “Tails.”

For her latest release, “Firecracker,” Loeb focused on creating an intimate sound, backing off on electric guitars for songs like “I Do” and instead letting her voice shine through.

And, as is her forte, she filled her album with songs about relationships - her own and those of people she’s observed.

“The thing I’m really interested in is relationships and telling stories about them,” she says.

“The things I relate to the best are the heartbreak and downfall of relationships. Which is funny, because when I wrote those songs, I was in the middle of a great relationship.

“I think it’s just natural. It’s the kind of thing you talk on the phone to your friends about.”

So would you consider yourself a romantic?

“Oh yeah. I’m a romantic, but I’m also pragmatic,” she says. “You want to be able to go to the depths of love and passion and heartbreak, but also, at a certain point, there’s reality. You have to get in touch with that as well.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IN CONCERT Sarah McLachlan and Lisa Loeb will perform Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Spokane Opera House. The show is sold out.