Critics' Choice, Feb. 1995.

The popularity of alternative music has created an abundance of interesting
female musicians. With quirkiness now a virtue, musicians like Victoria
Williams or the Breeders suddenly seem more in touch with popular culture.
Meanwhile, the outspokenness of Liz Phair and Courtney Love are more
acceptable. No doubt feeling liberated, these women are recording records
that sound more fresh and inspired then most of their male alternative
cohorts. P.J. Harvey's follow up to her astoundingly brazen "Rid of Me"
titled "To Bring You My Love" (Island) and Elastica's long-awaited debut on
DGC are due within the next few weeks. And, with the year still young, three
other female dominated alternative groups have released albums that are
already garnering much radio air play. If none match the best work of Harvey,
Phair, Williams or Love, they benefit from having a viewpoint that's rarely
heard in male dominated radio formats.

The most interesting of these three releases is Throwing Muses' "University"
(Sire). Led by Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses has long had a reputation for a
love-'em-or-hate-'em peculiarity. Hersh takes medication to ease the
hallucinations she's been having since a teen, and she admits that many of
her lyrics are inspired by these hallucinations or her therapy. As one would
expect, the resulting music was pretty indulgent--even Hersh's acclaimed 1994
acoustic solo album suffers from an insular quality typical of a head-case's
musings. Yet, as with Victoria Williams, sometimes acceptance is all a quirky
artist needs to take a step forward in quality, as the acceptance makes the
artist more open. That's certainly true of Hersh.

"University" is still quirky, still insular, but it's also excellent in a
weird sorta' way. Opening with the hit single, "Bright Yellow Gun," Hersh's
hallucinatory lyrics are the sound of prozac nation trying to keep its head
together: "With your bright yellow gun, you own the sun/And I think I need a
little poison. To keep me tame, keep me awake/I have nothing to offer but
confusion." Earlier Hersh would marry such lyrics to insular music, rendering
her song obscure. Here the sheer catchiness of the band's strum-drone runs
the listener over like a Corvette.

If, as with Cobain's lyrics on "In Utero," this is the haiku of the
psychotic, Hersh has developed Cobain's knack of rendering the craziness
interesting by backing it up with catchy melodies and out-front vocals. Thus
a simple number like "Hazing" gains greater meaning and interest. Most female
singers would sing a song about being hazed from a victim's perspective.
Hersh sings it from the perspective of someone easily unbalanced: shifting
violently from withdrawn melancholia to impassioned aggression.

Reading the lyric sheet, almost every track on "University" is equally
insular. "Calm Down, Come Down" is a sketch of circular drumming and
atmospheric guitar, yet Hersh's vocal (not lyric) signifies. The romantic
languor of "That's All You Wanted" is heightened by Hersh's dreamy lyrics,
multi-tracked vocals and mournful strings. The seething anger of "No Way In
Hell" is heightened by Hersh's biting singing and guitar work. As with much
of Hersh's music one hears a delicate person struggling against her defeatist
impulses. The struggle itself is interesting, more so because Hersh, for the
first time, is forceful. This combination of fragile beauty and powerful
music and persona makes for the first great album of 1995.

Not quite as interesting though a lot less quirky is Veruca Salt, a Chicago
quartet whose debut album "American Thighs" (Minty Fresh) was recorded by Liz
Phair's producer Brad Wood and was the subject of an intense bidding war
before being picked up by DGC. Named after the rich brat from "Willy Wonka
and the Chocolate Factory," Veruca Salt is led by Nina Gordon and Louise
Post, who sing, play guitars and trade-off songwriting (relegating the two
male members of the group to bass and drums). Coming off as tough, bratty
chicks, much like Courtney Love, Veruca Salt appears primed to appeal to the
Beavis and Butt-head crowd. The opening track, "Get Back" is slow, sludgy
head banger music with jaded singing and long guitar solos. Yet Nina Gordon's
bratty posture renders the song less a hard rock cliche than an ironic twist
on male prerogatives.

Like much alternative, Veruca Salt often defies logical, linear
explanation--often these songs shift viewpoint so haphazardly, one can't tell
if the group is deep or merely sloppy. When Ms. Post sings "So sorry, so
sorry now" on "All Hail Me" she doesn't sound sorry in the least. Is this
because, as she sings, "I'm a bad man, I do what I want"? And does the gender
shift mean she's fantasizing about male prerogative or criticizing it?

Similarly confusing is the band's first single "Seether." When I first heard
it, I assumed it was a piece of sci-fi doggerel about Ms. Gordon's inability
to rid herself of some malignant parasite, like something out of Ridley
Scott's nightmares. Ms. Gordon tries to contain this all consuming Seether,
"keeping it on a short leash," "ramming it into the ground" and "pouring
boiling water" on her. Ms. Gordon notes, "she is not born like other girls,
but I know how to conceive her/oh, she may not look like other girls, but
she's a snarl-tooth seether."

Is this Ms. Gordon singing about her daughter? It sure sounds like it, and,
if so, it's a nasty twist on maternal instinct--the meanest song about
procreation since the Sex Pistols' "Bodies." Yet, by gussying the song up as
a playful pop tune, with its "can't fight the seether" cheer for a chorus,
the effect is either even more subversive or simply stupid.

The rest of the album is equally enigmatic--even insular. Most songs are
catchy/grungy in the Nirvana mold, yet the lyrics and themes are simply
indecipherable, getting by on sheer enthusiasm. Even more than with the
Throwing Muses, I'm not sure why I like the album but I do.

Up until now, Belly has been the biggest of these three groups. Belly is led
by Tanya Donelly who is Kristin Hersh's step-sister and played with Hersh in
Throwing Muses before becoming a founding member of the Breeders. Belly's
catchy but critically overrated first album, "Star," was one of the more
popular alternative albums of 1993. With alternative credentials a given, Ms.
Donelly has taken an odd tack with Belly's second release, "King" (Sire) and
signed-on classic rock board-jockey Glyn Johns as a producer.

While the album opens with a blast of feedback, the basic sound is light
pop--Edie Brickell could make this album. Ms. Donelly has a pretty voice for
an alternative rocker, but not pretty enough that she can get by on vocals
alone. Songs with sufficient melody and momentum, such as "Seal My Fate," are
fine. But other songs sound like 60's L.A. pop-rock (think Byrds or Love)
played by a band with garage-band chops. One can understand why an
alternative group would think it interesting to have Johns produce, hoping to
take what's best from classic rock's sonic clarity and technical facility and
alternative's spirit and drive. But the resulting album merely vitiates
Belly's meager charms.

There're a couple of interesting things about these new female-led
alternative bands. Most (not all) of the resulting albums are more popular
then they deserve to be. Yet the albums are more captivating than one would
expect. Perhaps it's simply that hereto unheard voices are finally coming
forward. Veruca Salt and Belly have yet to make an undeniable album but they
sure are more interesting than 90% of what you hear on radio. Two years ago
the same could've been said about Throwing Muses and they made a great album.
I wouldn't be surprised if Veruca Salt and Belly eventually release a
masterpiece themselves.

Special thanks to John Greene for sending me this file...

Back to the Article Database | Return to MarkWarehouse.com