Prior to this week, I had very little knowledge related to punk/indie-girl rock. It has never been a genre that has spoken to me. This probably has to with the fact that any sort of yelling makes me anxious but that is just a little TMI for you to enjoy.
The riot grrrl concept is very new to me. I never knew people created music to not be mainstream. I always thought that selling out was every artists dream so you can imagine my surprise when I read this week’s articles. I had never heard of the “girls to the front” or anything along those lines. I had no idea that Olympia/Seattle played such a large role in the punk scene at all. I had never thought about women in music in 90’s as still not being totally included. I was oblivious to the rage and anger many women felt. I had no idea that there existed a type of rebellion in the music industry, that Punk was a platform to use the difference of being a woman to create a social platform designed around feminism and being anti status-quo. Emily White describes these feelings in her article The Great Indie Debate. White states “But this vow to stay “outside” the mainstream had different implications for women musicians, who had always in some sense been outside, whether that meant outside the culture of patriarchy or the subculture scenes so many men were fiercely guarding, where women stood on the borders of the mosh pit. (White 475-476)”
Thus, to read criticism of the riot grrrl movement really opened my eyes to issues I had never thought about. For one, I had never really seen music as a sort of feminist social movement. In some ways it is truly brilliant and creative while I also find the critiques of the movement compelling. In Mimi Nguyen’s article, It’s (not) a white world: looking for race in punk, she states, ““Riot grrrl critically interrogated how power, and specifically sexism, organized punk. Unfortunately, riot grrrl often reproduced structures of racism, classism, and (less so) heterosexism in privileging a generalized “we” that primarily described the condition of mostly white, mostly middle-class women and girls (Nguyen 1998)”. I find this quote in particular very interesting because it contrasts the progress in feminism that the riot grrrl movement provided with the reinforcement of racism classism, heterosexism, something I would not have picked up on my own but see Nguyen’s point very clearly when I look more closely. I found this a hard concept to grasp… how could a movement that was supposed to be about being anti status-quo be just as racist/classist/heterosexist?
While doing some research on riot grrrl I was curious to see if such music still existed today. If the movement started and ended in the 90’s or if it was one that has continued and evolved. I stumbled across an article about a new young band of high schoolers who had been described as the “riot grrrl of the next generation.” I have therefore included a sample of their music below.
Harsh Crowd "Don't Ask Me" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1lN0u82Fo
In my research, I also came across Speedy Ortiz band that was not all female but was indie-rock and was inspired by the “girls to the front” and created a hotline for audience member to use if they felt unsafe during their shows. Sadie Dupuis fronted this movement and I have included a song of theirs as well.
Speedy Ortiz “Raising the Skate” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdKZDWldEy8
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