Word: punk
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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, but if the term means anything specific (besides Bikini Kill's fanzine) it's the relatively small community...
What you probably haven't heard is Bikini Kill's music. Mostly, it's first-rate, gut-level punk rock, linked in the slow songs to the immortal Stooges, and in the fast ones to the staticy, brittle, emotive rocking of other bands you've never heard, like Some Velvet Sidewalk. (Check them out, too, by the way.) There's a bit more syncopation, and a bit more distortion, than in this band's former outings, but the new songs aren't that different from the inspiring, loud old ones...
...childlike, anguished, angry, bracing and sometimes bracingly variable, Hanna's isn't the "voice of a generation"--it's the voice of an individual woman/girl/grrrl, singing, mostly, this time, about the women/girls/grrrls around her: the traitors, the cool ones, the ones she hates and the ones she loves. The punk rock, while always simple and loud, varies enough with the lyrical mood to make songs of love ("For Tammy Rae") and of resentment ("Alien She," which taunts "She wants me to be like her, she wants me to be like her") equally convincing...
...appeal is universal; observe the diversity--yardlings' arms' laden with corn tortillas, salsa and soda; an older gentleman carrying a quart of milk and cereal; a German couple juggling "gourmet" deli sandwiches (chicken salad and ham and cheese); a semi-punk, white-faced crowd waiting on a pack of Marlboros and Lindt chocolate bars...
...only one of the lines on Lois Maffeo's new record that you're likely to remember after you've heard the whole thing through a few times. It's also a good summary of Strumpet, Lois' second LP/CD, whose hushed strums and muttered frustrations will satisfy neither the punk-by-numbers crowd (who've always hated her--she's too wimpy), nor the people whose idea of authentic "folkrock" is, say, the Indigo Girls...