WHO DOESN’T WANT to be in a girl group? It seems like the ideal job to me.
That is, until one of the girls wants to make a solo album (Beyoncé’s career certainly hasn’t suffered). Or until some members realise they aren’t getting paid as much because they’re not writing the songs (see Go-Go’s) or catty infighting spoils all the fun (see Bangles). Many all-girl bands have had to fight to be taken seriously, though they don’t always deserve to be.
In the old days they often had Svengalis behind them (the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, the Run.aways). Since the underground feminist punk thing called riot grrrl (Bratmobile, Bikini Kill) and the female-led rock bands of the early Nineties (Hole, Babes in Toyland), more ladies have been forming bands and even all-girl record labels (Mr Lady, Chainsaw, Candy Ass).
New York City has produced tons of girl groups, from the Brill Building days to the punk and new wave era, to electroclash. Back when the Spice Girls were still in nappies, such acts as ESG, Salem 66, Ut and the Shams were tearing it up on the East Coast. The past few years have been fruitful, with Le Tigre at the top of the heap. Their fun, fabulous mix of feminism, punk, soul and electro-pop combines video images, .political rants, shambly sound collages, customised fashion and girl-power energy. andIt gets the room sweaty, dancing and even thinking. The group’s leader is founding riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna, whose charisma alone fills the stage.
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The latest girl groups to cause a ruckus are Northern State and FannyPack (though the latter does technically have two male producer/songwriters, Matt Goias and Keith “Fancy” Grady, who appear in the photos but not on the album cover). They don’t have much in common, apart from adjacent area codes and big media hype. Northern State are three white girl rappers from Long Island, NY; FannyPack are three young multiracial chicks and two white worldly club-scenester dudes from Brooklyn and New York. Northern State wear sweatshirts; FannyPack wear short shorts. Northern State are intellectual, feminist and political; FannyPack just want to have some fun - they are high-school girls singing lyrics filled with references they probably don’t get, written by older men (“On the block puffin/ Stuff/ Like H&R”). But both acts will make you want to put your hands in the air.
The fireballs in Northern State, whose new album, Dying in Stereo (Wichita), should be heard, answer to Hesta Prynn, Guinea Love and DJ Sprout (and with all the kids growing up on hip hop in America, where are all the other white-girl rap acts?). HestaPrynn says she worked on Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign, GuineaLove is a trained audio engineer and Sprout is the environmentalist/hippie., natch. The self-described “trinity” has been dubbed “the girl Beastie Boys”, which might be offensive if it weren’t so dead-on.
The girls rail against GWBBush (“The country’s getting ugly and there’s more in store/ Don’t blame me cause I voted for Gore”) and are un.afraid to lash out at New York’sthe former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. They rhyme “psychiatrist” with “archdiocese” while spitting out wisdom likesuch as “I’m like Dorothy Parker when I run with the boys”.
They may not be breaking new musical ground, but their words are fresh, smart and sassy.
The world of FannyPack, aka Belinda, Jessibel and Cat, is not new either; it’s mindless retro summer fun. (You say “bum bag”, we say...) FannyPack hashave had a surprise hit this summer with the extremely silly Cameltoe (as did the all-girl group L7 with a song of the same name back in the 1990s), though there are better songs on their debut LP, So Stylistic (Tommy Boy), such as The Theme from FannyPack and System Booming.
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The Donnas have built their career around the image of being underage hotties aggressively pursuing bad boys. The girls in this four-piece rock band from Palo Alto, California, put out a major-label debut, Spend the Night (Atlantic), earlier this year. The least original of the acts mentioned here, they also happen to be the most popular - the Donnas are currently unavoidable on MTV. There is no indication of them changing their recipe of playing AC/DC, Ramones and Joan Jett-inspired punk-metal pop to an audience of lecherous males, but it will be interesting to see how they maintain their whole teenage shtick while they’re transforming into suburban soccer moms themselves.
Like the Donnas, All Girl Summer Fun Band, from Portland, Oregon, write songs about things girls think about late at night: lust, libidos and boys’ underwear. They’ve AGSFB hasjust released 2 (K Records), which features such inventive, jangly two-minute pop songs as Dear Mr & Mrs Troublemaker (next line: “I wanna marry your son”), Jason Lee (about the small-time movie star: “Never fall in love with a celebrity/ It’s just weird and it’s wrong/ Except for you and me”), and Becky (“I wanna borrow your boyfriend”). Jen, Kim, Ari and Kathy are softer and sweeter than the Donnas, but their boy-crazy songs are not as samey and they’re worshipful of everything from Motown girl pop to the Dolly Mixture.
Pacific Northwest towns likesuch as Portland and Olympia, Washington, are the most fertile breeding ground for girl groups these days. One of the most successful girl bands going is Portland’s Sleater-Kinney, which has managed to release six albums and tour the world while remaining fiercely independent. Plus, they’re one of the most explosive live experiences around. Sleater-Kinney’s guitar hero Carrie Brownstein recently spoke at Portland’s Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls, where 8 to 18-year-olds go to learn how to play instruments, write lyrics and set up a drum kit. The girls also have opportunities to take classes in self-expression, self-motivation and self-reliance - and evendiscuss things likesuch as size oppression. The defunct girl group Team Dresch used to offer self-defence workshops at their gigs, in which women were taught which were an attacker’s vulnerable areas - on one’s attacker:eyes, knees, groin, throat. Which could come in handy when you’re sacking your Svengali.