GrrlBeat @ the Feminist eZine RiotGrrl Archive

Last year at this time, critics were falling all over themselves to herald Beck as the second coming, praise Sonic Youth's Washing Machine and talk about what great strides music was making at getting back on track. In 1996 we felt a couple of women, PJ Harvey with Dance Hall at Louse Point (with John Parish) and Gillian Welch's Revival made us sit up and take notice, and hope this was a sign of things to come - women had started making a dent again in the world of music.

It wasn't.

This year, in fact was so bad, that I'm about say Sleater - Kinney was the closest thing we had to a rock grrl revelation. An all chick trip from Seattle, they put out a good record, have a unique sound, but the fact of the matter is that no ground was broken in the making of this record. All year long I've been waiting to go nuts and love something and when I heard about S-K I thought this would be the gem of the year I would deliver to you Riotgrrls, and was disappointed to say, I just wasn't that impressed. Shrill howling over a nice grungey beat has been done and done better. Still - if this is the top of the food chain for grrl rock in 1997, that should give you some indication of the state of things to come.

The brightest moment of the year was in HipHop, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot's debut solo record, (reviewed previously). She's not a talented "girl" in HipHop, she's a ground breaking producer, consummately skilled rapper and an incredibly savvy businesswoman. In a genre that was threatening to go stale this year, she revitalized it by changing the texture of the music and creating stand out, digable grooves that actually sounded unlike anything else. It gives me some measure of comfort that the best of the year was so multifaceted and admirable.

Unfortunately another disturbing trend is what leaves this inescapable tinny taste in my mouth. I will forever remember 1997 as the year of the Tiny Diva. The music industry is built on lemming like behavior and increasingly so each year. We were blessed this year with a new genre of performer simply because they were deemed saleable. I can picture the meeting that created this monster - "I want PJ Harvey, but less threatening, no swearing on the record, well, maybe on the B side, but not on the single. make her really cute and insure she looks good on television." And the fruits of this collective brain trust netted us, among others the likes of Jewel, Meredith Brooks, Fiona Apple, and Paula Cole. Who's responsible for this?

Sheryl Crow, who ironically, (truly ironically, not Alanis- 'ironically') put out the only Tiny Diva record worth a spin. The success of Tuesday Night Music Club brought record producers who's annual bonuses are contingent on points from record sales to their knees. So, they did their best to recreate - in Sheryl's image super cute teeny tiny girls who would look great in videos. Oddly enough, Sheryl her own baddself out a good record at the end of last year, and gets none of the glory of the Janey come latelys. Making her entree to the world of pop as a manufactured pop star cost her the credibility needed to be taken seriously until record three, so we'll see what happens. Keep your eyes peeled.

The most compelling thing in grrl rock this year was not in the studio, but on the stage. Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair proved grrls could not only sell tickets and draw a crowd, but the diversity of a line up didn't daunt concert goers. From folky Indigo Girls and Tracy Chapman to Lisa Loeb's - whatever it is that she does to Tori Amos, Letters to Cleo, and the baddest genuine Diva ever Emmylou Harris - there was room for everyone. Even the Tiny Divas were on the first leg of the tour. Well received by the audiences around the country and Canada, there are plans for a second tour and Sarah has started a phenomenon that will hopefully bring us next year a venue to showcase the contribution of women to an industry that sees them too much as pop star commodities and not artistic forces to be reckoned with.

Notice I haven?t aid anything about the Spice Girls? that's because my babies, that is not music. That's a pop culture icon. The two are wholly unrelated.

So, 1997 will be the year Metallica went soft, Ozzy made a kickass comeback, Soundgarden broke up and there was precious little worth remembering about grrls in rock. The closest thing to a trend is this was the year it was set in stone hat if you didn't have a chick bass player at signing time, you already had two strikes against you. I can't decide if that makes me happy or makes me sick. But the bass player wave is another story for another column.

The New Madonna

Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a Madonna fan.

Have been since her debut album. I wore all the tacky bracelets, floppy lace bows in my hair (which was, of course, permed within an inch of its life to match Madonna's frizzy 'do) and midriff-baring tees.

My mother, of course, vetoed the BoyToy belt. But that's another story for another time.

Regardless of her many imitators, though, nobody does Madonna like Madonna. This is a woman who has transformed herself and her craft at least a dozen times in as many years, each time touching off a ripple of new trends and outdoing her previous incarnation.

She is a savvy business woman without a doubt, but she has also done what many artists fail to accomplish quite so seamlessly: she has grown up and brought her music along for the ride.

Her latest effort, Ray of Light (click here to listen to a real audio clip of her first single Frozen), is a prime example ... a sophisticated blend of sexy techno-dance throb and intelligent lyrics, the disc is at once both hip and self-reflective.

You don't get that in one package very often. Normally you have to make do with one or the other - either dance music with insipid lyrics put there simply to add vocals no one really cares about anyway (think "Macarena") or syrupy-sweet ballads with the dullest of musical accompaniment (does the name Michael Bolton ring any bells?).

Not that Madonna herself hasn't been guilty of one or both of those things in the past. Hey, I said I was a fan, I didn't say I was blindly obsessed. She's had her share of misses.

One of her biggest hits, "Cherish," always made me feel I should be licking an enormous lollipop and have my hair in pigtails. I'm still seeing a therapist about that one.

Several of the songs on Ray of Light meld acoustical guitar and more modern studio production tricks. The title track begins sweetly enough and then launches into an almost retro disco sound, reminiscent of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love."

Poignant lyrics about the recent birth of her daughter make an appearance on a few tracks, but rather than being the kind of parental syrup that so often makes those of us without children reach for the "next" button on our CD players, most of the songs are nonspecific enough to be about any loved one and not necessarily a child.

"Little Star," though, could easily be a lullabye: "Butterfly, may the angels protect you and sadness forget you ... Little Star, there's no reason to weep, lay your head down to sleep ..."

Well, it would have to be a disco lullabye but maybe those of you with little ones could start a new trend by putting mirrored balls over their cribs.

In contrast to the aforementioned sentimentality, we have the usual sex-driven metaphors in many of the tracks (with song titles like "Skin" is there any doubt?), though the sultry rhythm of several others lends itself to a similar mood even without the words to guide us.

The cover photograph displays yet another "new" Madonna - gone is the previous harshness of black or bleached locks, replaced by flowingly windswept golden-tawny tresses. The complete and total embodiment of chic and the kind of "natural" that only thousands of dollars and a slew of hairdressers could hope to achieve, but gorgeous and charming nonetheless.

Much as I see the progression in Madonna's work from the mid-80s to Ray of Light, there will undoubtedly be those naysayers who feel it's yet another piece of musical fluff from the original material girl. True Madonna fans will love it, but even the casual listener should find it intriguing.

While it may not be an enormous departure, it's an eclectic mix of sounds and textures that only a seasoned veteran of the biz could pull off with such slick results.

Techno-Logic

If I hear one more time that the future of music is techno, my pretty blonde head may fly off. One of the most disturbing trends in popular culture today is the view that the future only has space for answer per category, when a quick glance around you will confirm the opposite is true. The future is wide open with infinite possibility. Music is no different.

Just as Lounge music did not take over the world (as I predicted), Techno also will not. The first myth that needs to be debunked is that techno is anything new. With it?s roots in the late 70s, modern techno-dance-acid house - call it what you will music owes a debt of gratitude to artists like Kraftwerk and Thomas Dolby. Yes, that ?Blinded Me With Science? guy who invented a plug in for the Internet.

Before you send me more of that ?You old geezer!? hate mail, which I so dearly love let?s all take a deep cleansing breath. This isn?t going to be one of those articles where I go on and on about someone who really did something first. Today, I?m talking about phenomenology and music. Mostly music, although the two are very closely tied. Having them tied is a good thing too, since without that I wouldn?t have a column.

Back to my point about Techno and how it's not taking over.