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May 3, 2019 · “Rebel Girl,” from the same record, is known as the definitive riot grrrl anthem, the ultimate snapshot of the genre’s power-punk music and feminist heroism.
Mar 27, 2020 · Rob Sheffield surveys the best of the riot grrrl revolution, from classics like by Sleater-Kinney to overlooked gSp gems.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington, and the greater Pacific Northwest, and has expanded to at least 26 other countries.
- X-Ray Spex – “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”
- Bikini Kill – “Carnival”
- Bratmobile – “Girl Germs”
- Huggy Bear – “Her Jazz”
- Bikini Kill – “Thurston Hearts The Who”
- Heavens to Betsy – “Axemen”
- Excuse 17 – “I’d Rather Eat Glass”
- Emily’s Sassy Lime – “Bait and Switch”
- Skinned Teen – “Pillowcase Kisser”
- Skinned Teen – “Ex-Boyfriend Beat”
Though not riot grrrl according to the framework I just established, X-Ray Spex are at the top of the list simply because they’re the beginning. In 1977, Poly Styrene was the proto-riot grrrl, just barely 20 years old and baring her braces as she shouted about how “some people think little girls should be seen and not heard.” One of the movement’s ...
In 1989, as the story goes, a teenage Kathleen Hanna went to a workshop led by postmodernist writer Kathy Acker. There, she told Acker that she’d started performing spoken word poetry, because she’d spent her life not being listened to and had so much she wanted to say. Acker’s response: Forget that, because no one goes to see spoken word poetry, a...
Bratmobile was no less angry than Bikini Kill, though their songs tended to sound more like “Miss Mary Mack” by-way-of K Records than the gut-punching political screeds of their peers. “Girl Germs” (which shared a title with singer Allison Wolfe and drummer Molly Neuman’s zine) taunts the “superior boyness” of the Olympia, WA punk scene — bopping a...
Across the Atlantic, the “boy-girl revolutionaries” of Huggy Bear led the charge in the U.K. In 1993, the co-ed quintet gave an instantly legendary performance of their anthemic single “Her Jazz” on the British TV show The Word. In a hot pink wig and a pair of probably the chunkiest creepers to have stomped across this Earth, singer Niki Eliot anno...
One part spoken word, one part playground taunt, one part blood-curdling screaming, “Thurston Hearts the Who” is the sound of riot grrrl distilled to its purest (and, at moments, most cartoonish) essence. Swapping positions, Kathleen Hanna keeps a rudimentary drum beat while Tobi Vail sings on loop, “if Sonic Youth thinks you’re cool, does that mea...
Despite the hostile reception riot grrrl faced from the start, its message still found its way to the girls who needed it. One of them was Corin Tucker — who would eventually be known for Sleater-Kinney, but in the early ’90s was still only a student at Evergreen State College, where she found kinship in the scene’s early days. After bluffing her w...
Meanwhile, Carrie Brownstein was also getting her start in Olympia, sharing guitar and vocal duties with Becca Albee in the queercore band Excuse 17. The trio — Curtis James was recruited from Seattle to play drums — lasted only a couple years; “I’d Rather Eat Glass” is off their second and final record, Such Friends Are Dangerous. They frequently ...
After sneaking out to see a Bikini Kill and Bratmobile show in L.A., teenage sisters Wendy and Amy Yao started the band Emily’s Sassy Lime with their friend Emily Ryan. Scattered throughout the SoCal suburbs — Amy went to art school in Pasadena while Wendy, still in high school, lived with their parents in Irvine, and Emily in Calabasas — the trio ...
Inspired by Huggy Bear and the American riot grrrls, teenage trio Skinned Teen led a hot and fast existence, lasting only a year. But in their wake they left behind the 1994 masterwork Bazooka Smooth!Standout “Pillowcase Kisser” is snappy, snotty, and often rhythmically out of time: “You know you’ll never get far / Living your life like some super ...
Part of what set Skinned Teen apart from their influences was their prescient use of samples. “Ex-Boyfriend Beat” sounds like a prediction of Kathleen Hanna’s post-Bikini Kill project Julie Ruin, its poppy beat overlaid with punky spoken-word vocals. In that sense, the short-lived band proved more sonically nuanced than most of the riot grrrl acts ...
Riot Grrrl United Feminism and Punk. Here’s an Essential Listening Guide. Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Tribe 8 and More: Hear 25 Songs That Fueled a Rock Revolution. by Evelyn McDonnell and Elisabeth Vincentelli (2019)
Apr 9, 2024 · Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement. It began in the early 1990s. By Angel Zhang. By Lauren E. Mei, Contributing Writer. April 9, 2024. Overwhelming hardcore sounds reverberate...
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Jun 3, 2011 · An article on June 5 about the riot grrrl musical movement and its legacy misidentified the original song containing the lyrics “boy girl revolution.”
