Bikini Kill

Bikini Kill are a band hard to define "solely" through their studio output. For the Olympia quartet, the album was just one part of a broader constellation of artistic and cultural production, at the center of which stood performance, fanzines and political actions aimed at building a network in which women could share their own autobiographies and, together, acquire the tools to express their stories and their idea of “girlhood” (“herstory” is an expression Hanna would use).

“Pussy Whipped” comes at the midpoint of Bikini Kill's career and offers the most complete snapshot of that blend of punk, garage, pride & angst, girlhood & fun that ran through their arc, which lasted essentially six years (1990-1996) — a band now reunited for touring from before the Covid-19 pandemic right up to today. The artwork by artist and activist Tammy Rea Carland, to whom the final track is dedicated, frames the record as a medium for making an entire scene visible and tangible: the Olympia riot grrrl movement, which also included Bratmobile, Heavens To Betsy and Excuse 17. Located in the northern Pacific Northwest, not far from Seattle and Portland, Washington State's capital was energized by the activities of community radio station KAOS FM, where Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening) was a DJ, based within the liberal arts college Evergreen State, where Kathleen Hanna, Kathi Wilcox, Tobi Vail, Tammy Rea, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney) studied. The music scene was sustained above all by self-releases from two local labels, K Records and Kill Rock Stars, the latter being Bikini Kill's label of choice.

Before discussing “Pussy Whipped”, it's worth reviewing a few fundamental aspects that describe the milieu in which the quartet operated — namely, the idea of a personal political and cultural stance within the context of the United States in the late '80s and early '90s. For Bikini Kill, this meant foregrounding issues at the heart of public debate and acting as artist-activists through a band situated within the history of North American feminism, drawing inspiration from musicians such as Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, as well as conceptual and appropriationist artists such as Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger.

At college, Hanna had focused mainly on photography and collage, staging entirely self-produced spoken-word poetry performances and fashion shows in which the themes and artistic processes she would later bring to the band were already taking shape: first-person storytelling that wasn't necessarily autobiographical, and the adoption of a collective "I" and "you" that called for interaction and direct action; the practice of appropriation as a critical tool for questioning the image of femininity promoted by mass media; and, not least, the idea of seizing the media themselves and using them to write and share one's own narrative, whether through musical instruments or the photocopier used to make fanzines. Together with Tammy Rae, she founded the art gallery Reko Muse in Olympia, where she created and exhibited her first works of feminist art.

Hanna and her Evergreen classmates carried forward the demands of feminism in a renewed form, in what, thanks to their artistic and cultural activity, came to be defined as The Third Wave of Feminism. Where the "first wave" in the mid-1800s had fought for the abolition of slavery and women's right to vote, and the "second wave" in the 1960s fought for civil rights and gender equality, the "third wave" focused on widespread activism and on building a translocal, solidarity-based community of women of different sexual orientations, one that would expose the power dynamics embedded in male-female relationships — including through the expression of trauma — and challenge the objectification of the female body in society, overturning mass-media discursive devices such as the "male gaze," the idea, already theorized by Laura Mulvey in the second wave, of a "masculine gaze" that constructs the image of femininity. Beyond this, the riot grrrl movement, of which Bikini Kill's music and the album "Pussy Whipped" were paradigmatic, sought to reclaim an idea of girlhood in which, just as concert venues were being reclaimed to re-establish another "safe" place for women outside the mosh pit ("Girls to the front... Boys back"), fashion, make-up and other aspects of femininity that had been commodified for male desire were also being reclaimed ("Revolution Girl Style Now!").

Realizing they could reach more people directly through music, Hanna, Wilcox and Vail decided to form a band as self-taught musicians, later joined by guitarist Bill Karren. At the same time, as an artistic and community-based activity, they self-produced a series of fanzines such as Riot grrrl and Girl Power, DIY mediums of self-narration that anyone could make, a practice shared at community gatherings. A special relationship formed between Olympia and Washington DC, the two most fiercely underground scenes within the indie context of the 1990s, at a time when radio, TV, magazines and record stores were dominated by Seattle's now-mainstream alternative rock and grunge bands. The one true exception was Nirvana, who had shaped their sensibility in Olympia, where Cobain was close to Bikini Kill and part of the feminist punk community. This relationship between the two cities on opposite coasts was also documented by Justin Mitchell in the film "Songs For Cassavetes" (2001), which revealed the distinct identity of each scene, rooted in a geographically situated community that, beyond music, also supported one another socially and politically.

Bikini Kill immediately threw themselves into intense live activity and recorded the demo tape "Revolution Girl Style Now" (self-released, 1991), mixed by Guy Picciotto (Rites of Spring, Fugazi) — featuring anthems such as "Feels Blind" and "Double Dare Ya" — followed by the EPs "Bikini Kill" (Kill Rock Stars, 1992), produced by Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi), and "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah," a split with Huggy Bear (Kill Rock Stars, 1993). With the Dischord label's flagship band, they had also shared the stage at political events such as the Abortion March in DC.

The emergence of the riot grrrl movement was quickly discussed in a biased and provocative way by the US mainstream press, in articles published by USA Today and the Washington Post, which not only spread false claims about Hanna's personal history but also stripped away the cultural context Bikini Kill's music came from and the political demands it addressed. The band responded with a "media blackout," a press silence toward mainstream outlets meant to stop their statements from being manipulated, while they carried on writing music and touring across the US.

This is how "Pussy Whipped" came about, the band's first studio album, produced by Stuart Hallerman — already known for his work behind the desk for Soundgarden — and recorded at Avast! Studios in Seattle: a celebration of the strength of a new, self-aware idea of femininity and, at the same time, an act of rebellion against sexism and misogyny. The production itself is one of the record's most successful elements, abandoning the dry, biting punk-rock edge of earlier releases in favor of a fuller, more full-bodied sound. This greater sonic "fullness" mirrors a songwriting approach that plays across a wider range of moods and emotional tones, less angry and, at times, more knowingly playful. This "change of skin" can already be heard in the opening tracks, the purely punk-rock "Blood One" and "Alien She," spiced with ironic sing-alongs.

The peak of all the angst that defines the band's sound comes in "Magnet," which swings between screams ("You don't own me — fuck") and punk chants ("You hold me down like a/ Magnet/ And this is not the life for me"), merging together in the finale ("Fuck I've got the love that's strong/ And not weak"). The backbone of the lyrics remains the same, built on appropriating and overturning cultural stereotypes, clearly expressed in "Alien She" ("Feminist/ Dyke, whore/ I'm so Pretty/ Alien"), along with a call to grassroots activism rooted in relationships:

These are my ruby red lips

The better to suck you dry

These are my long red nails

The better to scratch out your

Eyes

Beyond punk, the album is shot through with surf ("Lil Red," "Tell Me So") and garage ("Sugar") influences, pushed to the extreme especially in the tracks sung by Wilcox and Vail — the acid garage of "Speed Heart" and the raucous surf sound of "Tell Me So" and "Hamerst Baby," both close to the sound of Beat Happening's "Jamboree" (K/Rough Trade, 1988). Curiously, almost at the album's close, "Star Fish" pops up with Hanna on bass, seeming to foreshadow the sound of Sleater-Kinney's "Dig Me Out" (Kill Rock Stars, 1997).

The album's high point is Bikini Kill's signature anthem, "Rebel Girl," which the band recorded in three different versions: the first by Tim Green for the split, the second by Hallerman for the album, and the third by Joan Jett for the single — recorded last, but released before "Pussy Whipped." Jett, who had also produced the Germs' album "GI" (Slash, 1979), was an early fan of the band and had even joined them on guitar for a few shows.

"Rebel Girl" is about charisma and friendship, self-confidence and responsibility, once again subverting common expressions ("She's a slut"). It's a punk-rock march that turns the restless tension of the verse's vocals into a captivating, persuasive chant in the chorus, channeling all the emotional charge of the band's live performance through some of the quartet's most iconic lines:

That girl thinks she’s the queen

of the neighborhood

I got news for you, she is

They say she's a slut, but I know

She is my best friend, yeah

Rebel girl, rebel girl

Rebel girl, you are the queen of

my world

Rebel girl, rebel girl

I know I wanna take you home,

I wanna try on your clothes

Love you like a sister always

Soul sister, rebel girl

Come and be my best friend

Will you, rebel girl?

I really like you

I really wanna be

Your best friend

Be my rebel girl

The album closes with one of the finest songs in Bikini Kill's whole discography, "For Tammy Rae", a kind of bittersweet ballad close to the sound of fellow townsmen Unwound, a song in which Hanna sings directly to the friend and accomplice of so many actions, ultimately rebuilding that "we" in which their idea of community can be understood, metonymically:

I know it’s cold outside

But when we’re together, I’ve

got nothing to hide

Hold on tight, I will never let

you down

It can’t rain on our side of town

Wipe the sweat from my hair

Tell me we’re not better off

Wipe the tears from my face

The sunny side of the street

Where we are

After the album's release, Hanna would take part in two video productions by director Tamra Davis: the short film "No Alternative Girl" (1994), in which — precisely because of the media blackout — Hanna wears a balaclava (which today might remind us of the way Pussy Riot operated), and the video for Sonic Youth's "Bull In The Heather" (1994), in which the artist is called upon to "embody" the subcultural aspects of her community in a product deliberately at odds with the conventions of traditional television programming, yet designed to be broadcast by those very media outlets.

Bikini Kill would split up in 1996, and Hanna would go on to launch two new artistic projects in which, with new allies (Julie Ruin, Le Tigre), she tackled feminist themes from different angles and in different ways, engaging for instance with bedroom culture — a cornerstone of feminist practice — and with queer culture.

The band represented one of the most significant experiences in rock — not just musically, but artistically and culturally tout-court — calling on girls of every background to find, through a pen, an instrument or a printer, the means to build their own narrative and achieve self-determination in "a man's world".

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11/02/2024