As a classic Gen-Xer (oh Winona! Why did you have to turn 40?? Weren't we supposed to go off, form a grunge band and live a nihilistic existence basing our personalities on a weird mix between Trainspotting, Clerks and Grosse Pointe Blank together? And when the F**$**%*()#&(#()%$*@#_$*#@(%(*%(%CK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! did being a lazy pointless ambitionless bumb STOP being cool dammit! When I grew up, Fry and Homer were the kings of TV!).
Oops, went on a rant there.
But as a classic Gen-Xer, I'd like to say MAJOR props to PJ Harvey and Garbage (though they contined way past the X years). Props to L7, a bit one-note if you know what I mean, but they did tough metal in an era when that was 'guys' music. And they did with the whole pride opf the Gen X movement: in response to the moral majority crusades about banning rock music that were storming america at the time, from 'Pretend that we're dead': 'They're neither moral nor majority'. I remember great times rocking out to that riff as a teenager.
Also, whilst she's crap now, in the Gen X days, Courtney Love (or should I say, Hole) were fucking awesome, and anyone who denies is is either judging her by her post-2000 work, or for image. I'm not saying that there aren't better grunge tracks than 'Doll Parts', 'Violet' or 'Miss World'. Go on - look up the 'great grunge bands': Soundguarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam (not my favourite, but if you were a teen in the 90s you'd understand why I'm listing themm and the Pilots), Smashing Pumpkins or of course, Nirvana. Not saying Hole were better than those bands, but what proportion of those bands tracks were better than hole's at their height. Hell, some of them never even had a single song better than Doll Parts or Violet. I'd say, maybe 5% max. The very greatest of the great - no dishonour in being surpassed by Today (Smashing Pumpkins) or The Jesus Christ Pose (Soundguarden). But they rocked it harder than 99% of the guy bands out there at that time.
If anything, female music has gotten worse. Who writes songs with the vulnerability of Doll Parts or the feminine rage 'you've taken what's mine and I'm going to rip your goddamn balls off to take it back'. Comparing that stuff to the modern female 'pop-punk' makes me shed very unmanly tears.
The Breeders - another GenX band, with a frontwoman from yet another Xer legend (The Pixies - not a singer for that one, but definitely half of the writing duties).
Hell, then I hear some of the 60s stuff: Janis Joplin, OH MY GOD she rocked!!!
I know most of the bands posted so far, and worship most of them - after all, most ARE from my formative years. What I would like is someone to post some female bands of a similar quality AFTER that time. NOT Amanda Palmer, or anything to do with the Dresden Dolls - Yes they are AWESOME, and have been my favourite band for about the last 5 years (a very long run for me). But are they a lone voice in a sea of crap these days. Or are there floods just waiting to be discovered.
I almost wonder whether the easy indie access of the internet has backfired. Not just because indies get hurt more by piracy than big players (not going to get into an argument about it, I've done the maths and seen the maths, and seen the opposing arguments to have formed a reasonable view - I'll respect your reasponable view and lets just keep them at safe distance), but because with an overflow of content the 'big marketed' products might stand out further. I remember the days when you had to physically trawl through the one or two indie record stores in town to find good music. 95% of music was even crapper than now - it's the 5% that people remember. So you'd go along to Dadas or 78s (our only real choices in a 1.5 million person city) and go through the 'what's new' catalogues. Each store would have a setup where you could listen to the album through headphones and decide whether you liked it. The stores were all staffed by music junkies, so you'd ask them to point them to the staffer into a particular style of music 'hey, which one's your 'funk guy', or 'can I get some help from your punk girl' and they'd tell you of great bands that the 'indie' radio had never even heard of yet.
You'd walk in there and they'd say: 'hey, I went to this AWESOME gig last night, often the indie albums suck in comparison, but this one absolutely ROCKS - here take a listen'.
There was that personal touch. For me, that's how I imported Nirvana 12 months before they were released in Australia (or before they hit the charts anyway - not sure what the gap between release and charting was, but I would expect it to be small). I remember walking into the store after hearing 'Been Caught Stealing' on late night tv and asking the guy at 78s about it. He goes 'man, I envy you for the fact you are about to hear all this brilliant stuff for the first time' - I listened to and bought the entire Jane's Addiction Collection that very day.
The stores still exist, but the culture doesn't - no need, with the internet, and so that kind of staff doesn't either. And if they do, I'm not sure that they or their manager would have the time to have such an impact on a kids life by pointing out so many bands (and going out of their way to point out awesome girl bands too, to prove that it's the radio stations that suck, not the girls strumming the guitars).
Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, and next generation folks will be talking about how great internet forums were. But you know what? I think each generation is RIGHTLY nostalgic. That there IS something there, magical, magestic and never to be experienced again. Other generations might have something else that could be equally wonderful (though the world is not so fair that all generations have it the same) but wonderful to that generation nonetheless. And that means that each generation LOSES what came before.
My generation lost the idealism of the baby boomers that proceeded us. It wasn't til we hit our mid 30s, realised jobs mattered and that basing our lives on Fry from Futurama and the characters from Clerks might not be a wise idea, and with whole pro/anti war political divide, we might have been a bit harsh in so nihilistically deriding the babyboomers for their political idealism.
We certainly lost the magic of Janis Joplin, free love and Woodstock
.
And I can't help but feel that the kids who came after us lost something too. The idea that youth is a great time for nihilism, for not caring about your career or anything better than witty t-shirts. It's a great time to be ultra-cynical of those who came before you - you might not know better than them, but you damn well BETTER know (better than them) someday soon if the world is ever going to be a better place to live. And one of the things, I fear that they have lost, is just how goddamn awesome it is to hear a girl rock out.
