TV Obsessive
Sleater-Kinney- Sleater-Kinney
by Chris Flackett
“Punk Rock is freedom”, Kurt Cobain once wrote. And although Sleater-Kinney recorded just too late for him to hear, I imagine he would have heard freedom in their 1995 debut.
Some of the best punk records have a sense of urgency and vitality that transcends the precision of playing and musical technicality (which is not to say Sleater-Kinney couldn’t play because they obviously could and can).
Here, the sense of urgency came from main band members Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein who were on vacation in Australia and decided to record their debut on the last night of their stay. That is the ultimate punk rock statement of purpose: it must be done now or not at all.
The rushed circumstances of recording are evident in both the album’s length (22 minutes, 45 seconds) and in the excited and exciting frisson in the recordings themselves. On songs like “A Real Man” and “Her Again” you can hear the band physically speed up as they get into the chorus as if they can barely contain themselves at the sheer exhilaration of the beautiful noise they are conjuring. If punk rock is freedom, then freedom is the ability to get lost in one’s own excitement.
The ten songs here fly by (the track entitled “Slow Song” is a trim two minutes exactly) and while the trademark weaving of vocals isn’t completely present yet, there is at least a distinctiveness to them, a balance between the melodic and monotonous (and I do mean that as a compliment). There’s a litheness to the attack of the instruments: it’s not all muscle and all out assault; the guitars are wiry and trebly, the lines they play foreboding and occasionally ominous. Yet, that joy of the pure punk rush is never diminished. There’s also plenty of spaces and room in the songs for the music to breathe, in a way that reminds me of The Slits without the dub influence. There’s also a shared feeling with The Raincoats’ first album, but filtered through the Riot Grrrl movement.
Yes, I know, it’s a tired old cliché, especially when written by a man, to describe any rock that is not a muscular, bluesy, phallic chunk of cock-thrusting as being a feminine approach to rock – why can’t women make as muscular a noise as men? Often they do, as Girlschool or L7 can attest – but with Sleater-Kinney, I can hear the links to those strong female post-punk groups. Also, as the group is known for its feminist politics, it feels relevant to hear their sound through these same politics. The lyrics themselves, as on songs like “A Real Man” and “How To Play Dead,” challenge the idea that all women should not only adhere to the hetero-normative versions of sex and love but that they should find it natural and desirable. When Tucker manically wails “I don’t want your kind of love” on “A Real Man,” it feels bracing and exhilarating, even for a heterosexual man like myself: adults should be able to fall in love with whomever other adults they like regardless of gender and without fear of criticism or violence.
Sleater-Kinney is an excellent debut, the real deal, the freedom of punk rock laid out in 22 minutes. And it would only get better from there!
Gotham City’s First MixTape: the Batman Forever Soundtrack
by Rachel Stewart
The further and further we get away from the 1990s, the more clearly I’m able to see when things were truly awesome. Take for instance, the Batman Forever soundtrack. The film itself hasn’t aged too well; a kaleidoscopic comic Mardi Gras with A-list actors chewing scenery and pivoting campy dialogue. The dark art deco days of Tim Burton’s era were truly gone for good, and from that, a new musical approach emerged.
Up until this point, the new Batman films had given us Danny Elfman’s iconic and soaring score. Batman inspired Prince to write a whole album, with songs taking on different characters’ personas (with dialogue sound bites to boot). While the album is an amazing effort, only two songs – “Partyman” and “Trust” – ended up making the cut. Batman Returns featured just one additional theme by goth music legends Souixsie and the Banshees.
The Batman Forever soundtrack encapsulates the mid-’90s music scene brilliantly with its mix of alternative, pop, and R&B cuts, with the likes of Brandy following PJ Harvey. Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” acted as the love theme (and was played at many a school dance since), while U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” with its whirling guitar riff and tight strings was literally impossible to escape. I remember radio stations playing that cut literally all summer long. And yes, these two tracks were the reason I snagged a copy of this album in the first place, but it’s the deeper cuts that keep me coming back, after all this time. The icy longing of “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game” by Massive Attack with Tracey Thorn is followed by Eddi Reader’s haunting synth- filled “Nobody Lives Without Love.” The angst and longing of this section of the soundtrack is rounded out by everyone’s favorite shoegaze band, Mazzy Star.
The last leg of the album gets a bit spotty, shifting back and forth between rock and rap, including the likes of The Offspring and Method Man, but the really important personal bit is the fact that this album introduced me to the incomparable Nick Cave, with “There is a Light that Shines.” I was super obsessed with this song, because lyrically it pulled me back to the world of Burton’s Gotham, dark and seedy, with the Bat Signal as the only light:
“O Mr High Roller where ya gonna go?
Where the real high-rollin rollers roll real dough Hey Mr Killer Man what ya gonna do?
Me and Mr Death are going downtown too
Ain’t there one God-fearing citizen about? They’re all holed up and they ain’t comin’ out What about Mr. Preacher to forgive us our sins? Not that carrion crow with blood on his chin
And Mr. Politician can’t he lend a hand?
He’s too busy sucking on the guts of this town And what about God and this Armageddon?
He’s all blissed out, man, up in Heaven”
The trip-hop and techno vibes laid down in the earlier part of the album return with Michael Hutchence’s fantastic cover of Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger,” which melds into The Devlins’ drum- looped and piano-punctuated “Crossing the River.” Sunny Day Real Estate and The Flaming Lips close the album out with a lot of fun noisy jams.
Later on, Warner Bros. would try to capture the same lighting in a bottle with the Batman & Robin soundtrack, featuring the likes of Jewel and Smashing Pumpkins (whose cut works much better as an unofficial theme to the Watchmen film) but it wasn’t to be, and the Batman franchise effectively went off the rails until Christopher Nolan resurrected it in 2005. But like any good mixtape passed from friend to friend, the Batman Forever soundtrack expanded my musical horizons and remains a sonic memento of a summer long gone.
Keep looking to the sky, Daddy-O.
