Word: grrrl
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Dates: during 1993-1993
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...records from all over the globe, with bizarre slogans Jenny Holzer would kill to have coined liberally "mixed in" (in the ice-cream sense of the phrase "mixed in"). Nirvana and Sonic Youth were in here early on; the latest issue has the most articulate, most convincing (pro-) "Riot Grrrl" think-piece/manifesto I've seen, plus interviews with Moonshake, Sugar, Tsunami, Nation of Ulysses, Huggy Bear, several unheard-of British bands, and that guy who used to sing for the Pixies. Tower and Newbury Comics stock it, or send f3.90 to Karren Ablaze! at 17 Wetherby Grove, Leeds...
...record, or records (if you want the two singles), keeps the layers and layers of superb, crisp hooks while ditching the Lewis Carroll ideology: perhaps in reaction to the Riot Grrrl thing, Heavenly has written songs about female self-reliance, gender-based intimidation and, yes, date rape. "P.U.N.K. Girl" is about a supercool but rather repressed "girl" (no age given) who, Amelia Fletcher wishes, would act as "punk" as she makes Fletcher feel: "P is for the painful way/You make me feel some days/U is for you turn me on..." "Atta Girl" gives a disco-flavored backbeat to congratulations...
BIKINI KILLPussy Whipped (Kill Rock Stars CD/LP) Ever heard of "Riot Grrrl"? Probably. And if you have, you've probably also heard of Bikini Kill, the band whose members ran the fanzine whose title, "Riot Grrrl," was almost certainly the first use of the phrase. Along with other similarly-minded bands and zines, Bikini Kill let thousands of teenaged-or-slightly-older grrrls know that punk rock styles and punk rock music could be, not just about them, but by them and for them. "Riot Grrrl" got lots of misguided (and sometimes hostile) publicity as a mass movement...
...little-girl sound in Hanna's singing (and in her frequent screaming) has, I think, a political function: like the term "grrrl" (and the little-girl photo on the cover), it seems to me to be reclaiming girlhood as a time of empowerment, before the heterosex drive kicks in and spoils everything. (If I'm right, it's a strategy psychologists have validated: Carol Gilligan and others have shown that girls in America have much more self-esteem before puberty than after...
...generation of Americans in their 20s sometimes seems to have an image but no impact. They have plenty of cultural signifiers: rave parties, Lollapalooza, the underground Riot Grrrl feminist movement, that annoying guy in the Burger King ads that you just want to slap. But the connections seem to be missing; what does it all add up to? The search is on for those who would give real meaning to this Virtual Generation...