GRRRLZ GRRRLZ GRRRLZ
This is an article that I wrote for the newest issue of everything you touch turns to gold (which you can and should buy here - by trade it’s an incredibly well informed music zine but this is a bumper edition which means that it also features opinion pieces, recipes and a CROSSWORD: for all of these reasons it is seriously well worth your time!) about girl groups of the past and present that I dig. Hopefully y’all can consider this a really massive version of this blog’s GOOD GRRRL BANDS feature and forgive my recent absence (I’ll be back with a vengeance after my exams I swear).
There is something very special and particular about girl groups. It’s something that is difficult to put your finger on, but it’s always there: it lives inside the delicate harmonies and melodies to which only female voices and musicianship can do justice; it’s wrapped up inside that singular kind of anger – earnest and all consuming – that can only be heard in the screams of a woman scorned or frustrated or just plain fed up. You can see it too – it’s that achingly cool image of a woman positioned nonchalantly behind a guitar or a drum set or a microphone and looking five thousand times more glamorous and unattainable than any mere, non-musical mortal ever has. What has always made girl groups great amidst the scores of inevitably male dominated bands alongside whom they perform is really that they do offer that unknowable quality; an innate “femaleness” that alone, when it’s cultivated properly, lifts them above and beyond the competition.
The great girl group tradition really began in the 1960’s with all female vocal groups like The Supremes and The Ronettes (whose influence can still be heard every time you put on a Best Coast record – listen to Our Deal and I Want To and then listen to Be My Baby by The Ronettes and you’ll see) – pretty quickly guitar music picked up on the phenomenon and midway into the 1970’s emerged The Runaways, trailblazers of lady rock and, on their second album (“Queens of Noise”), purveyors of possibly one of the best teen rebellion songs ever, Cherry Bomb (I defy anyone who was once a raging adolescent not to feel weirdly excited when Cherie Currie drawls HELLO DAAAADY HELLO MOOOOOOM I’M YA ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB). Fast forward to the ‘90s, when things really exploded with the genesis of the riot grrrl movement, which spawned seminal bands like the generally acknowledged scene queens Bikini Kill (strictly not all-girl – they had one male guitarist – but they were too great for me to really care about that; their 1991 self titled EP on Kill Rock Stars in particular is as resonant and urgent now as it must have been when it was first released), Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy and my personal favourites of the lot, Sleater-Kinney. All of these groups – harking back to the 1960s right up to the 2000s – gave a new dimension to music and called generations upon generations of girls and women to arms, challenging and inspiring them to pick up microphones, guitars, drumsticks and 8-track recorders for themselves and start creating.
Their call was apparently answered. Right now there is a ridiculous amount of female talent in genres of all kinds; from sisters making music together to pro-woman hardcore, it’s all happening and it’s all very exciting. Here are a few of my current favourite projects, bands and female-led genres:
SISTERZ DOIN IT 4 THEMSELVEZ!!!
(Please excuse this lazy subtitle)
For some reason, when sisters make music together, something very beautiful happens: there is so much great music created by sisters out there at the minute that I get excited just thinking about it all – the obvious pair is of course Australia’s most adorable twins, Tegan and Sara, who everyone already knows are awesome but get a mention just because I love them and want to join the band (Tegan and Sara and Lauren has a certain ring to it, no?), but also wonderful are Heathers, everything Allison and Katie Crutchfield have ever done (especially Bad Banana’s upbeat, lo-fi pop and the throwback melodies of P.S. Eliot) and most of all, Mika Miko (freewheelin’ punk n roll, like be your own PET but less bratty) and Bleached (the best pop music you will hear all year. Or like, ever), both the brainchildren of California’s Jennifer and Jessica Clavin.
HARDCORE AND PUNK
Women are notoriously under represented in these genres, but bands like Foul Crux (now apparently disbanded but leaving behind a demo which can only be described as gloriously liberating in its no holds barred approach to women’s issues), The Coathangers (less hardcore, more punk but still stupidly cool; the members swap instruments and vocal duties on most songs) and London’s Good Throb all seem to be making sure that the female capacity for both rage and musical skill isn’t forgotten anytime soon.
BEACHWAVE
Yeah I’m making genres up at this point, sorry about that. You know the kind of thing I mean though – lazy daze melodies and gentle harmonies that evoke memories of sunny days and eating ice creams on the beach – and you also know that girls do this stuff best. American Sun, Beachcombers (apparently the name of this act has now changed? Either way, the demo that was put out under the Beachcombers moniker consists of four of the catchiest, chillest songs you will ever have the pleasure of hearing and is highly recommended if you can find it online) and the consistently brilliant Vivian Girls are my pick of the beachwave bunch.
And so this musing on the phenomenon known as the girl group comes to an end. As you can see, there are tons of girl bands currently working and all of those I have mentioned – along with a great deal more – are completely worthy of your time as an undoubtedly discerning music fan. Sometimes girl groups get pigeonholed into a category of their own (exemplified by last.fm’s “female vocals” genre tag – there isn’t one for “male vocals”), but I think this article, along with the wealth of writing elsewhere (far better than this, I might add) about women making music prove that it’s a widely accepted fact that all-female bands can hold their own in any genre and, on sheer talent alone, will continue to do so for years to come.
- words by Lauren :3 xo
