CONTROL

CONTROL: @dj_softskills @nonbinaryicon have created a fantastic radio documentary on RTE 2FM. Tune in at 8:20pm from the 15-18th June to hear the four episodes.

In Control, narrator Renn Miano explores women’s work in the recording studio: women working as producers, engineers and using technology to make music.

Control takes listeners back to the 1980s, when synthesizers and drum machines went mainstream. That decade saw a proliferation of women using technology to make hit records.

Yet, in 2024, just 5.9% of the top charting hits in the US were produced by women (USC Annenberg, 2025). Control asks, why is this statistic so low today, given that so many women were producing hit records in the 1980s?

In episodes 1-3, Renn tells the story of four incredible artists in the studio, Irish women and women with Irish heritage - Mariah Carey, Kate Bush, Enya and Sinéad O’Connor - women who were producing hit records in the 1980s and beyond.

In episode 4, Renn looks at the industry myth that women are singers only and that technology is the exclusive domain of men. Time and again, women producers have demonstrated that the myth is a fallacy - with their hit records!

Despite this, the industry continues to prioritise women as singers and men as technologists. Contributor Emma Dabiri calls this “the binary trap”.

Control assesses the damaging impact of this myth and the work activists and allies have done to try and give women equal opportunity in the recording studio.

And when we say ‘women’ in this series, we mean anyone whose work has been left out of the count, including trans women, femmes, and genderqueer people.

This is a story about Control. Are you ready?