The cover of boygenius, the debut EP from the supergroup of the same name, seems unassuming at first glance. Band members Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus sit together on a couch; Bridgers is perched up on the left side, Baker is sprawled in the middle with her guitar, and Dacus sits on the right with one leg up. The poses bear a striking resemblance to Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s 1969 self-titled debut—a nod that is as intentionally tongue in cheek as calling a band of young women “boygenius.” You could consider it a remark on the very idea of the supergroup, and the direction it is moving.

With boygenius, Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus crash a canon that, until this decade, has been overwhelmingly bro-y. Rock supergroups date back to the 1960s, with bands like Cream and Blind Faith starting as side projects for members of already established bands. In that era and scene, few female musicians were welcomed into bands, let alone respected enough to be encouraged to form their own. The number of women allowed access to the elite echelons of rock‘n’roll was so small for so long, together they could have comprised just a handful of (likely brilliant) supergroups. Over time, the gender divide in rock has eased up, but the challenges faced by female-identifying musicians remain in mutated form. As Bridgers said in Pitchfork’s new interview with boygenius, “Before this project, as the youngest and the only woman in the room, I have ended up deferring to people who seem like they know what they’re doing because they fuck with a knob and it does a thing.”

A rise in the number of woman-powered supergroups feels like a natural evolution of the growing community of female musicians fighting patriarchal rock norms. In an effort to show just how few have been able to break through this particular glass ceiling, we put together a brief history of supergroups comprised overwhelmingly of women. May there be many more to come.

Honey Cone

Though members of girl groups had a tendency to switch acts during the 1960s, R&B trio Honey Cone is often considered the first all-female supergroup. In 1969, Edna Wright, Carolyn Willis, and Shelly Clark—former members of the Blossoms, the Girlfriends, and the Ikettes, respectively—combined their soulful three-part harmonies to create a sound that was part funk, part bubblegum. The group scored a No. 1 hit with the bouncy “Want Ads” in 1971 and released three LPs together before splitting in 1973. They briefly reunited in 2014 for the Soul Train Cruise.

Trio

Despite their long history as friends and collaborators, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt took nearly decade to come together as Trio in 1987. “We were all at different labels, different management, different everything at that time, different schedules, but it was just one of those things we thought, ‘No matter what, we have got to make a record,’” Parton said of the recording process, which dated back to the mid-’70s. Their self-titled LP, a mix of traditional-leaning country originals and covers of Southern gospel standards and ’50s jukebox pop, garnered four hits on the country charts and led to a follow-up, Trio II, more than a decade later.

The Breeders/The Amps

In 1989, after hitting an impasse with frontman Frank Black over the Pixies’ musical direction, bassist Kim Deal decided to put her songwriting talents elsewhere for a little while. She recruited Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly, violinist Carrie Bradley, and bassist Josephine Wiggs from the Perfect Disaster for a side project that eventually became much more than that. The Breeders released their noisy debut Pod in 1990 and two years later, Deal’s twin sister Kelley joined. The band’s raw but still pop-flecked sound expanded from flat bass riffs to sewing machines fed through Marshall amps on 1993’s iconic Last Splash.

Though originally envisioned as a solo project for Kim Deal while the Breeders were on hiatus, the Amps soon became Deal’s second supergroup. She pulled in her sister again, as well as bassist Luis Lerma and guitarist Nate Farley from the Tasties. The Amps released one album, Pacer, in 1995 before Deal merged the two acts under the Breeders name, only without Wiggs and her sister. Following multiple members changes and a long hiatus, the Breeders’ Last Splash-era lineup reunited to tour and release All Nerve earlier this year.

Free Kitten

Free Kitten, Kim Gordon’s 1992 project with Pusssy Galore’s Julie Cafritz and the Boredoms’ Yoshimi P-We (and later Pavement’s Mark Ibold), started as a joke. In her 2015 memoir Girl in a Band, Gordon described Free Kitten as an attempt to “make fun of the CBGB improv scene of experimental, free noise, and jazz, where people played abstract music for very long stretches of time.” Few people seemed to get the meta humor driving the endeavor, but the band stuck anyway: Free Kitten released three albums of freeform post-punk between 1994 and 1997, with a fourth reunion album in 2008.

Wild Flag

In 2010, Carrie Brownstein brought together old friends Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney drummer), Mary Timony (Helium honcho), and Rebecca Cole (from Elephant 6 band the Minders) to form the punk supergroup Wild Flag. “I think we all realized that we could be greater than the sum of our parts, not four disparate puzzle pieces tryouts ing to make sense of the other, but a cohesive and dynamic whole,” Brownstein said. In 2011, the band released its self-titled debut, an explosive combination of wiry post-punk, danceable new wave, and harmony-driven indie rock. They split in 2014 because, as Weiss said, “it’s hard to have a band when you live five hours apart by plane.”

Pistol Annies

Platinum-selling country heroine Miranda Lambert had such a good time writing with burgeoning Nashville star Ashley Monroe and relative newcomer Angaleena Presley for her album Four the Record, the trio decided to make it official in 2011. “It makes me more brave, because when there’s three of us, we can say whatever we want,” Lambert said of the group’s feisty songs about struggling to pay rent, popping pills, and warning men that they could hit back if provoked. Pistol Annies released two LPs in 2011 and 2013, with a third expected later this year.

I’m With Her

I’m With Her began as a one-off performance of covers by Americana artists Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan at the 2014 Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but they quickly bonded over the revelation that they were no longer the only girls in the room. “It felt like a first date to me. I remember texting them and saying, ‘That was fun, right?’” Watkins said. The trio toured throughout 2015, performing harmony-driven folk covers of Nina Simone, Adele, and Bob Dylan songs, before releasing an LP of original material, See You Around, earlier this year.

Les Amazones d’Afrique

A collective of 10 West African performers including Angélique Kidjo, Nneka, and Mariam Doumbia (of Amadou and Mariam) came together in 2015 as Les Amazones d’Afrique, delivering activist songs under the veil of upbeat funk and dub. “For the first time on tour, I felt there was no competition and that everybody is unique and has her own voice,” Nneka said. The group’s 2017 debut LP, République Amazone, benefited a foundation that helps sexual violence survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

case/lang/veirs

In 2014, k.d. lang sent Neko Case and Laura Veirs an email on a whim, proposing that they all work together sometime. “At first we wanted to make kind of a punk-rock girl record from the ’60s,” Case said. But the songs took on lives of their own, with each singer bringing something distinct to the table while still making space for seamless folk harmonies as a group. Case/lang/veirs released a gorgeous self-titled LP in 2016, with no confirmed plans for a follow-up.

Nice as Fuck

Jenny Lewis is no stranger to a side project, whether segueing from Rilo Kiley to a solo career, joining the Postal Service, or teaming up with Jonathan Rice. Her most recent band, Nice as Fuck, began “completely freeform and off the cuff” while jamming with friends Erika Spring (of Au Revoir Simone) and Tennessee Thomas of (the Like) in an East Village storefront. Within two days, the group had written an album’s worth of DIY punk songs about breakups and Bernie Sanders. NAF dropped the surprise LP in 2016 and toured briefly, before members moved on to new projects.

Bermuda Triangle

“NEW BAND ALERT: BERMUDA TRIANGLE,” read the caption on social media, accompanying a photo of three friends hanging out at a bar’s patio. With that, Alabama Shakes’ formidable leader Brittany Howard had launched another project, this time with Nashville roots musicians Jesse Lafser and Becca Mancari. Making warm and wistful honky-tonk music with intricate harmonies, the group released three singles and mounted a short tour this year while recording a forthcoming LP.