Sleater-Kinney breaks up

is being a crossover act the same as being the band "for" people who "missed" the other thing?

this is just my crusty aging hipster obsession-with-lineage crankiness but when people who "missed" the other thing claim the crossover act was groundbreaking (for whatever reason) while ignoring those who came before yeah I get annoyed. Like, just be honest and maybe say that you liked that they packaged something you hadn't heard before in a way that slotted into familiar rock conventions (as opposed to being too abrasive or challenging or hard to find or shittily recorded); but let's not pretend they were the first angry women to play guitars and write about lesbian relationships or whatever because they weren't. They might have been the first to do that in a way that incorporated classic rock sonics and traditionalist pop songwriting structures, hell maybe they are just better songwriters than Team Dresch period, but that is a different thing.

xp

the other caveat with rereading this thread, get ready for a long though sometimes entertaining derail concerning whether indie bands are understood canonically as progressing from greatness to decadent irrelevance or the other way around...oof....

angry women, grr

just b/c sk came out of riot doesn't mean that from DMO onwards they stuck anything close to what you might consider a riot sound, nor that when they moved it was by incorporating "classic rock sonics and traditionalist pop songwriting structures"

but maybe if you listened to DMO or THR or whatever you could figure though out eh?

the shit one could throw at s-k re being a little more mainstream-rock-minded than their peers and immediate elders you could throw at husker du and nirvana

the thing is that at the time I never, not once, met anyone who would say "you know, Sleater-Kinney just writes better hooks than Bikini Kill, and that's why I love them." (And that was the real difference between, say, Nirvana and Mudhoney - Nirvana had hooks). It was always about a) how they were women and b) how they could really rock. which just seemed ahistorical, reductionist, sexist etc. idk maybe every local fan I knew at the time in this town was a moron (entirely possible).

xp

I guess I don't get the obsession with "first-ness," as if the reason why people liked them is because they thought they were first to something. "I've been such a fool, I love this band, but if I had known they were second, I would hate them!" And again, very little of what I heard around Sleater-Kinney was "they're groundbreaking," or "they're women...but they rock!," it was "they're awesome!" My points above about them hitting different notes than other bands wasn't to celebrate them for being pioneers but to just point out that people might like them more than other bands because they... were different from those other bands. But again maybe this makes more sense if you're dealing with some kind of "poseur/late-adopter" character where we assume their interest in the band is somehow insincere.... I dunno, this is why I think it's not charitable to those listeners, maybe they even said "groundbreaking" but meant "I love them," who knows.

I do think that trying to evaluate the band's achievement based on where they rank in being "angry women to play guitars and write about lesbian relationships" is kinda the exact thing you're getting slammed for a few posts back - because they come from riot grrl they can only get evaluated according to a one-dimensional version of what riot grrl is, and can be written off as not-different-enough-to-justify-getting-attention. But maybe I'm really misreading you.

"rebel girl" 7-inch aside, sleater-kinney wrote better hooks than bikini kill

now let the healing begin

"they're groundbreaking," or "they're women...but they rock!," it was "they're awesome!"

do you never ask people why...?

I scrolled upthread a bit but so far it's just a lot of kind of generic adulation ("best live band ever!"), which is fair, this is just an internet thread, not everything's got to have a detailed critical response. The only other points of reference I have are actual conversations I recall at the time. And this terrible Charles Taylor piece.

Firstness doesn't actually interest me, tbh. Real firsts are pretty rare, and not always great music in and of themselves (although sometimes they are). But when people claim groundbreaking I automatically think "what ground are you referring to".

gonna load the rest of the messages in this thread now

xp

It was always about a) how they were women and b) how they could really rock. which just seemed ahistorical, reductionist, sexist etc. idk maybe every local fan I knew at the time in this town was a moron (entirely possible).

The guys in front of us at the Pearl Jam show in 2003 when S-K opened who said "Who are the dikes?" were prob Bratmobile fans.

haha funnily enough I see the first in-depth post is actually from... Dr. Casino

xp

The only other points of reference I have are actual conversations I recall at the time. And this terrible Charles Taylor piece.

dude were you in a coma for 15 years?

i'm glad with your few points of reference that you didn't feel ashamed about forming a strong opinion nonetheless and generously sharing it with this thread

why is sleater-kinney notable for being 'angry', they seem pretty ecstatic and joyous to me most of the time.

yeah one of the things Taylor gets right is how transporting and fucking fun they were, esp live

sorry croup was paying attention to other stuff

xp

I did see some episodes of Portlandia. that one where Carrie is mad that the librarian doesn't know about Neu! is funny

i'd gone so long without thinking about those horrible, ahistorical sleater-kinney enthusiasts...and then that charles taylor essay...it brought it all back. how can you blame me for saying their fans were ding-a-lings who'd never heard bikini kill. HOW?

actually you know what only now remembering that in those 15 years I also saw them play some free show in Dolores Park during the Dubya years. they covered "Fortunate Son", which is always nice to hear people trot out.

wait memory fragments of the '00s are coming back? somebody call the doctor!

I'm old get me my pills

actually you know what only now remembering that in those 15 years I also saw them play some free show in Dolores Park during the Dubya years. they covered "Fortunate Son", which is always nice to hear people trot out.

words + guitar

some xposts - Yah it's a big thread I admit, maybe the commentary isn't as precise as I was reading it as, I dunno. I didn't know those people who claimed "groundbreaking" so I can't really respond to them, my only point was always "different from other things I might otherwise be listening to" not "groundbreaking." Another good reference might be "I'm The Queen of Rock and POLL!!!!!!"_ILM Artist Poll #51_SLEATER-KINNEY_ RESULTS THREAD which produced results not really reducible to "riot grrl for those who missed it" or "riot grrl but totally different b/c added indie and classic rock." I dunno, they're a band, they had a sound, they had songs, people dug the sound and dug the songs, for reasons which have been articulated elsewhere.

They also were fucking tight as shit live, btw, and that tightness in turn let them attempt really cool things in the songwriting - the criss-crossing guitar and vocal parts, the two-guitars, no-bass thing in general, this sense that the songs could be continually spiralling down (or up) without getting there, really great for songs about emotional tension whether about a long ugly breakup or the sad vigil by a hospital bed. Janet Weiss's drumming obviously a huge part of this. I actually don't think they sound like many other bands and if anything I'd say your later math-rocky types owe them something (in addition to the usual post-punk and post-rock sources), though here I venture into territories of indie that I don't have a full grasp on, and anyway my point is that it doesn't matter whether they were first to anything. Blah blah blah, sorry, kinda talking in circles at this point. I like this band.

omg beloved band inspires critics / fans to react hyperbolically, another S-K first!

why is sleater-kinney notable for being 'angry', they seem pretty ecstatic and joyous to me most of the time.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Thursday, November 13, 2014 4:48 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why Sleater-Kinney when we already had The Go-Gos?

http://www.youtube.com/v/IiRJ64dscko%26fs=1%26hl=en

how can you blame me for saying their fans were ding-a-lings who'd never heard bikini kill. HOW?

Given the disparity in sales between Bikini Kill and S-K, definitely fair to say that a good number of S-K fans had never heard Bikini Kill. On the other hand, given that S-K themselves never really sold that many records, I think reducing their non-Bikini-Kill-hearing fans to ding-a-lings is less fair. They were a cult band even at their biggest, not something you just wandered into while looking for a Sheryl Crow CD.

Also, fwiw, I had heard Bikini Kill before I heard Sleater-Kinney, and I still liked Sleater-Kinney a lot more.

On Reddit in just under 90 minutes...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1901986_799306576795375_5327093098123334434_n.jpg?oh=97ba2703f9b6bbbac51b58862d17c804&oe=55153B98&__gda__=1426118565_4d58c9a39b812fafd99fca1d54d2d5e2

New song:

https://soundcloud.com/sleater-kinney/surface-envy

Sounds like S-K. Thumbs up.

Getting (more) excited!

Here's the reddit session: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2o26rc/we_are_sleaterkinney_aua/?limit=500

[–]-Bathtub-Gin- 7 points an hour ago
What is an artist you've always wanted to cover, but haven't gotten the chance to?
permalink
[–]Sleater-Kinney[S] 15 points an hour ago
Devo.

Wow, the new song. Like they never left.

Half hour interview on NPR from a week or two ago: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/11/20/365464686/sleater-kinney-2-0-the-band-talks-about-its-first-album-in-10-years

haha Trapt - The Acoustic Collection is a real doozy from that AV Club least essential list

wrong thread! But yes, you are correct.

lol sorry sleater-kinney!

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2o26rc/we_are_sleaterkinney_aua/cmj1i17

^_^

SK will be on The Chris Gethard Show tonight. 11pm EST, streaming live here:

http://thechrisgethardshow.com/

New song rocks. It's like Judas Priest or something.

Got tickets for the Chicago show, totally psyched.

So two authorized preview tracks now, also

http://cdn2.pitchfork.com/blog/581/bf116bd2.jpg

if won't show cover, it's a mixtape

a stupid fake mixtape

i guess it kind of makes sense for pitchfork to celebrate the return of a band gone for nearly a decade by doing some "lol what if indie rockers were rappers" humor from more than a decade ago

This new track is a lot better than the first one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onrHBN1cNFc#t=42

love the band for being such good sports about this show. taken me a long time, but i think i'm finally "getting" this band.

also, wrong to say, i guess, but i think i have a crush on all three members of sleater-kinney.

I'm 7 minutes into that and Tom Scharpling has been not paying attention and texting the entire time... What's he doing there?

He makes an awkward and shitty backdrop to the otherwise fun atmosphere.

never heard of the host but his nerdiness is kind of endearing.

I feel like I've seen him more than once but the one place I can remember him being in was a Real Estate video.

omg i wanna kill scharpling watching this

Dan - Chris Gethard is sort of a mid-level NY comedy institution. V hip. I think someone on the AV Club had mused (impossibly; improbably) that he should have taken over Late Night after Fallon went to Tonight Show

Having seen Seth Meyers' attempt to do that, I'd agree.