They say if you're going to hit the king, make sure you kill the king; and producer Beth Yen has delivered a fatal blow with her ARIA Club Chart #1 smash hit 'Ocean' featuring The Baroness.
Beth has become only the fourth ever solo female artist to achieve the coveted top spot, knocking former king Calvin Harris off his perch like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall.
“You know, that made me smile just to know I dethroned him, the king of dance music,” Beth laughs.
“It's a huge achievement and it's one I'm absolutely proud of. I'm also really proud everyone in the industry is jumping on board and celebrating what I've achieved being a woman in the music industry.
“It makes me and women more visible so that the next generation of music lovers and girls can go 'hey, I can do music too'. It's for everyone, not just for the boys, so to speak.”
It's a momentous win not just for Beth but for female musicians and producers across the EDM spectrum, as it represents the first time a woman has earned the ARIA Club Chart #1 spot since 2012.
For Beth, such an egregious oversight is symptomatic of the 'boys club' that permeates electronic music and the music industry at large. “It feels tremendous and it's an incredible achievement, but I [was] a little shocked when I was told that I was the first for almost a decade, the last being Helena in 2012 ['Girl From The Sky']; that's seven years, so it's shocking.
“When you take a moment to think about it you realise that [women] are still misrepresented and the industry is quite lopsided in terms of gender parity. I think there's only a third of women who get into the music industry and get paid for it, whether it's electronic dance music or music as a whole, and that's too small. We need to have conversations about it and work on it.”
Relocating from England to Australia in 2008, it's often reported that Beth grew up in Leeds. Though that's not the case and Beth takes the opportunity to correct the record. “I grew up in Nottingham and moved to Leeds to go to university, and I was there for about five years.
“I started to really get into the club and music scene in Leeds, so that was my formal education on house music and opened me up to that world.”
Raised on her father's collection of classic soul, funk and disco, Beth says her musical identity as a purveyor of tasty house music was largely shaped during her youth in England. “We have [BBC] Radio 1 and Pete Tong has his show, 'The Essential Mix', and when I was old enough I was like 'hey, this is cool',” Beth recalls.
“This dance music thing, which I later learnt was house music, just resonated with me deeply and I connected with it. So every weekend and Friday I'd run home from school and tune into that, and that's how I started to get into that sound – by loving it and understanding where it comes from.”
