Sleater-Kinney breaks up

"These diamonds in the rough rock hard. A girl's best friend, a guy's best friend, they belong to everyone, unless you, like me, don't want to share."

B+.

Sleater-Kinney

Sleater-Kinney [Chainsaw, 1995] A-
Call the Doctor [Chainsaw, 1996] A
Dig Me Out [Kill Rock Stars, 1997] A
The Hot Rock [Kill Rock Stars, 1999] A
All Hands on the Bad One [Kill Rock Stars, 2000] A-
One Beat [Kill Rock Stars, 2002] A
The Woods [Sub Pop, 2005] A
Consumer Guide Reviews:

Sleater-Kinney [Chainsaw, 1995]
Heavens to Betsy's warbly wailer Corin Tucker joins Excuse 17's solemn screamer Carrie Brownstein for ten songs in twenty-two minutes, and voice-on-voice and guitar-on-guitar they figure out love by learning to hate. Three different lyrics reject the penis soi-même with a fervor that could pass for disgust, and while their same-sex one-on-ones aren't exactly odes to joy, they convey a depth of feeling that could pass for passion. In these times of principled irony and shallowness for its own sake, that's enough to make them heroines and outsiders simultaneously. A-
Call the Doctor [Chainsaw, 1996]
Like the blues, punk is a template that shapes young misfits' sense of themselves, and like the blues it takes many forms. This is a new one, and it's damn blueslike. Powered by riffs that seem unstoppable even though they're not very fast, riding melodies whose irresistibility renders them barely less harsh, Corin Tucker's enormous voice never struggles more inspirationally against the world outside than when it's facing down the dilemmas of the interpersonal--dilemmas neither eased nor defined by her gender preferences, dilemmas as bound up with family as they are with sex. As partner/rival/Other Carrie Brownstein puts it in an eloquently tongue-tied moment: "It's just my stuff." Few if any have played rock's tension-and-release game for such high stakes--revolution as existentialism, electric roar as acne remedy. They wanna be our Joey Ramone, who can resist that one? But squint at the booklet and you'll see they also want to be our Thurston Moore. They want it both ways, every which way. And most of the time they get it. A

Dig Me Out [Kill Rock Stars, 1997]
One reason you know they're young is that they obviously believe they can rock and roll at this pitch forever. Whatever the verbal message of their intricate, deeply uptempo simplicity--less sexual angst, more rock-as-romance--it's overrun by their excited mastery and runaway glee. Like a new good lover the second or third time, they're so confident of their ability to please that they just can't stop. And this confidence is collective: Corin and Carrie chorus-trade like the two-headed girl, dashing and high-stepping around on Janet Weiss's shoulders. What a ride. A

The Hot Rock [Kill Rock Stars, 1999]
What's hard to get used to here, and what's also freshest and perhaps best, is how Corin and Carrie's voices intertwine--even reading the booklet it's hard to keep track of who's saying what to whom about what, as if they'd fallen in love with (or to) the Velvets' "Murder Mystery." Not that meanings would be crystalline in any case, or that they should be. With Cadallaca an outlet for Corin's girlish ways, S-K emerges as a diary of adulthood in all its encroaching intricacy. I mean, the guitars don't crunch like they used to either, and that's the very reason "Get Up" sounds like death and desire at the same time. The reason "The Size of Our Love" sounds like death, on the other hand, is that sometimes love is death. Nobody ever said maturity would be fun and games. A

All Hands on the Bad One [Kill Rock Stars, 2000]
Locked into a visceral style and sound that always maximizes their considerable and highly specific gifts, they could no more make a bad album than the Rolling Stones in 1967. Unfortunately, that doesn't render them immune to the experiential droughts that afflict all touring musicians, or to the media-studies clichés they fall back into when they get hung up on the meaning of their careers. So everything that's right with the three-part synergy and herky-jerk dynamics of "Was It a Lie?" doesn't convince me that the media victim it bemoans died so vainly or so significantly, and in general I prefer these songs as songs when they adduce the musicians' separate lives rather then their collective mission. But play "You're No Rock n' Roll Fun" on your broadcast medium of choice and I'll whoop and holler like I'd requested it myself. A-

One Beat [Kill Rock Stars, 2002]
Sleater-Kinney is one of three unapologetically political bands to respond to September 2001's world-change with August 2002 albums, and it's remarkable how different they are. The Mekons are cynical and defiant; Springsteen is spiritual and uplifting. Yet both seem worn out, as if neither defiance nor uplift can get them out of bed in the morning. Sleater-Kinney, on the other hand, go for defiant uplift and seem energized by the challenge. Probably it isn't the stance that energizes them--it's their energy that powers the stance. Not only are they a generation younger, they're riding the crest of a wild success burdened by neither the Mekons' quarter-century of subsistence nor Springsteen's felt responsibility to 10 million consumers--not to mention that Corin spent 2001 with her new baby, who plays a suitably small and crucial role in her September 11 song. Throughout they bubble and shriek--literally in the opener, where Corin's "bubble in a sound wave" is the secret of both social and nuclear fusion, and in the career guitar line Carrie lays under "Oh!" Let "Step Aside" do its thing and you'll "shake a tail feather for peace and love" no matter what your weary self thinks of protest songs. A

The Woods [Sub Pop, 2005]
Corin Tucker's abrasive warble is made for a Zeppelin move that seems inevitable now that it's here, and when the lyrics fail to mesh, or veer toward the sociologically corny, her proven ability to plow such quibbles is beefed up from the backup muscle. Nevertheless, the metal affinities are basically spiritual. Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev hand Dave Fridmann ain't John David Kalodner. Although the album is definitely loud, it's also raw, with no hint of the symphonic, yet at the same time it's a melodic highlight of an honorably tuneful catalog. And come down to it, the words are pretty good. I like the one about the boho losers. And the hungry-so-angry one. And the one that disses Interpol. A

"Words and Guitar" popped up on satellite radio, and my daughter, 7, in the backseat, chimed in that it sounded like the same people who sing "Rock Lobster."

She's right, of course.

Was there really an Interpol dis song on The Woods?

Interpol Suck My Cock iirc

AKA "Entertain":

That’s why I think the White Stripes are a million times better than Interpol. The White Stripes made it feel brand new, even though it was blues riffs, you know? But Interpol just makes me think that Ian Curtis should be getting royalties. There’s that line [on The Woods’ "Entertain"] ‘You come around sounding 1972/Where’s the black and blue?’ Where’s the essence of it?

http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/top/documents/04711386.asp

1972? Black and blue? Why 1972? What does that have to do with Interpol? If anything, it scans like a White Stripes dis.

what if they'd written a happy song about the white stripes making rock new again instead

drums + guitar, they got it

Maybe she meant 1982?

I don't know JD's timeline so nm.

Nothing rhymes well with JD's timeline ('77-'80).

"you come around sounding so masturbatey/ I wish it was you that died in 1980"

Xgau has always been skeptical of repackaging of product, including in live form, but I would understand that tweet as a typically-barbed request, and not, it should already be completely obvious, any sort of attack on the band's prior output.

"1972? Black and blue? Why 1972? What does that have to do with Interpol? If anything, it scans like a White Stripes dis."

I always think Strokes, but that's probably not who they meant.

""Words and Guitar" popped up on satellite radio, and my daughter, 7, in the backseat, chimed in that it sounded like the same people who sing "Rock Lobster.""

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIAA2bl1OI

Xgau has always been skeptical of repackaging of product, including in live form,

He's always been pretty lukewarm about live albums, for some reason.

And on the subject of live albums, remastering, shmemastering -- S-K should've put out a live record!

typically-barbed request? Haven't seen these. Examples?
Just took it as curiosity x seeking stimulating useful responses (might incl. barbed)

And on the subject of live albums, remastering, shmemastering -- S-K should've put out a live record!

The last gig would've been nice.

uh..

http://pitchfork.com/news/57126-sleater-kinney-possibly-releasing-new-music-box-set-includes-mysterious-7/

Vinyl boxset only?

Long lost rarity or newly recorded????

oh dammmmmmmmmmmmmm!

https://www.clearvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-the-what.gif

it'll be on youtube in 24 hours

Cover art for No Cities To Love, the new something, is up: http://www.wonderingsound.com/news/sleater-kinney-release-new-music/

Again I say oh dammmmmmmmmmmmmm!

If this is a new ~album~, how was news of such a reunion not already leaked???

Portlandia exists solely as a method of distraction.

THAT TIME CORIN GUEST-STARRED! IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

a whole new album would be insane

If Beyoncé could pull it off, so could S-K.

could def imagine them covering 'pretty hurts'

http://wp-images.emusic.com/assets/2014/10/photo-1.jpg

If you go back to the Pitchfork link now, they've embedded an instagram video from Stereogum with an audio clip of "Bury Your Friends" and it sounds like a good song in as much as you can tell from just a few seconds of it.

can I just? AAAAAAAH

Head explode.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/641/298/448.jpg

^^ It's full of a whole bucket of stars.

rxgau again:

OK, that email address for Sleater-Kinney now is: Rxgau_Billbo✧✧✧@ya✧✧✧.c✧✧. Any purchaser want to chat about the box, it's my next Pop Art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7flldNGy34

full version of the new song uploaded! :D

Sounds great. Please, someone, keep them away from Danger Mouse.

Sounds pretty solid to me

New alb, tour, can dl single:
http://pitchfork.com/news/57108-sleater-kinney-return-new-album-no-cities-to-love-2015-tour-bury-our-friends-lyric-video/

!

Oh snap. I watched their penultimate show from the side of the stage here and my feeling then was, man, this band has so much more to offer. Belated, but I'll take the return.

Seriously. . . does the world need ONE MORE S-K album?

If the other nine songs are as good as Bury Your Friends, then the answer is yes.

Tracklist and tour dates from P-fork:

No Cities to Love:
01 Price Tag
02 Fangless
03 Surface Envy
04 No Cities to Love
05 A New Wave
06 No Anthems
07 Gimme Love
08 Bury Our Friends
09 Hey Darling
10 Fade
Sleater-Kinney:
02-08 Spokane, WA - Knitting Factory Spokane
02-09 Boise, ID - Knitting Factory Boise
02-10 Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
02-12 Denver, CO - Ogden Theater
02-13 Omaha, NE - Slowdown
02-14 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
02-15 Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall
02-17 Chicago, IL - Riviera
02-22 Boston, MA - House of Blues
02-24 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
02-26 New York, NY - Terminal 5
02-28 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
03-01 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
03-18 Berlin, Germany - Postbahnhof
03-19 Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Paradiso
03-20 Paris, France - Cigale
03-21 Antwerp, Belgium - Trix
03-23 London, England - Roundhouse
03-24 Manchester, England - Albert Hall
03-25 Glasgow, Scotland - O2 ABC
03-26 Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street

fuck you S-K for making me want to go to Terminal 5

Who said it's just going to be one more album? The fact that they bothered to record another album when they could have just reunited and toured indicates the creative juices are flowing. I dunno if we'll get another tour/record/tour cycle, but I bet/hope they keep releasing new stuff, in some form.