Although heavy metal has long been a dude-dominated genre, plenty of women have formed and fronted metal bands over the years. One zealous librarian/metal fan named Nate has taken it upon himself to put together a hearty 12-disc boxset of the best female-fronted metal recorded between 1976 and 1989. He has created a blog for the project, Female Fronted Heavy Metal: 1976-1989, that includes notes of the exhaustive research he and his cohorts have made, track lists and download links to the individual discs. It's an ambitious project that culls from bands all around the world, some of which have only released singles (there are quite a few in there he has little information about). Weeding out the bands that fall in the gray areas of metal (the new wave/punk/hair/glam crossovers), this is to date the most comprehensive set of metal songs performed by women. Fuck yeah!
h/t: John Darnielle