Sharleen Spiteri - Sharleen Spiteri: 'The Music Industry Is Sexist'

The Say What You Want hitmakers are gearing up to release their first new album, The Conversation, in eight years, but Spiteri is stunned by how much the pop landscape has changed in recent times.

The star is convinced female singers who flaunt their looks are now given preferential treatment, and she fears many impressionable young stars are ordered to strip off to sell more records.

She tells Scotland's Daily Record newspaper, "Women sell massive amounts of records, but the business is still ruled by men. It is completely sexist. If you get into it, you have to be tough as nails to survive...

"The decision-makers behind the budgets are all men. Those budgets are based on whether the woman is skinny, what she looks like and whether she is going to show t**s and a**e. Some people do the whole booty thing and are scantily clad. It is what they want to do... But many are guided down that route instead of what they really want to be. Women are pushed into those areas to get them on the cover of men's magazines. They are made to show a bit of skin.

"These days, I sometimes think the music industry is a total farce."