Back before there were blogs, Robin and Nicole met through the riot grrrl/feminist zine community back in the ‘90s. Similarly minded writers without big publishing platforms or regular internet access wrote self-published zines and long letters to each other, traded work, and developed friendships. Nicole and Robin met in person at the first ever Bowling Green Zine Conference (which would go on to become the Allied Media Conference) and have remained friends and occasional collaborators ever since.
Given the recent uptick of interest in Sleater-Kinney–a band born out of the riot grrrl movement that both of them loved with a fiery passion back in their zine days–as well the fact that the few recent retrospectives seem to have been written by people who weren’t aware of the band until recently, they decided to shoo them all off their lawn for their own intensive, exhaustive trip down memory lane. They decided to go with 64 classic Sleater-Kinney songs facing off for the chance to win Greatest Sleater-Kinney Song Of All Time (according to Robin and Nicole). Join them as they reflect upon this hugely influential band and attempt to “dance about architecture.”
Region Four Round One
[See Regions one, two, and three here, here, and here.]
Nicole: Oh look, one of my most-loved tracks paired with one of my most-hated. I almost don’t feel qualified to comment on Sleater-Kinney’s 9/11 song, “Far Away,” as I still get upset, perhaps unfairly. Maybe we should discuss “Dig Me Out” first–a song that typifies why I adored that era of the band so much–as tight, desperate and exhilarating a statement on being a needy trainwreck as you could want as a emotional teen.
Robin: We should probably go ahead and make clear that “Dig Me Out” likely will be in this tournament until the bitter end. So many of Sleater-Kinney’s songs stand the test of time, which is a rare feat in and of itself. This one is a classic above most else, though. I remember leaving school to buy this album on the day it came out [along with the Cold Cold Hearts LP: Cold Cold Hearts was a one-album band that consisted of members of Bratmobile, neither of which have stood the test of time for me, sadly], then immediately racing home to listen to it. My first thought was that it sounded “less punk,” but “still pissed.” That’s probably as apt a description as any for the newly polished but familiarly fierce sound that Dig Me Out and its titular track embody.
Nicole: “Less punk, still pissed,” exactly! You brought me back to that brief window of trepidation, where I was like, “Is this too cute and clean for what I want from a new album by my favorite, favorite band?” and the title track definitely was a big part of why I was like: nope.
“Far Away,” on the other hand was so off putting to me when it came out. It put me off of the whole album. I couldn’t listen to it. I recognize how in some ways it’s a good song. It’s written from the perspective of someone being freaked out watching the towers fall on TV from across the country and I recognize now that it probably does a very good job capturing and processing some of how that felt. I guess I still have some unprocessed 9/11 stuff going on (you can read about my experience watching the towers fall on tv from less “far away” here), because I still just feel a little sick, especially when they kick into the signature S-K cathartic rock n roll chorus and ask “why can’t I get along with you?” I just need a better question for that to work for me. Overall it still feels simplistic, though it doesn’t enrage me anymore.
Robin: It’s amazing that there’s a fierce rock and roll song about a mother nursing her baby, so let’s make sure and throw that out there. And on its own, I really like “Far Away.” Carrie’s guitar on the verses always sounded like ambulance sirens to me; the notes wail back and forth in a repetitive, urgent pattern. That said, “Dig Me Out” has to win this one by a landslide.
WINNER: duh
Nicole: We should probably dedicate this bracket to “Anonymous” as certain mainstream media outlets’ bizarre misreading of it helped tip me towards feeling the need to take on this ginormous obsessive project with you. I could not handle Kids These Days thinking a critical song about things like the anonymity afforded by closets and white privilege was an ahead-of-its-time celebration of the right to privacy.
Robin: I’m with you on this. Spin Magazine ranked all Sleater-Kinney songs in order, and they completely missed the meaning of this song. “Anonymous” is a lesson in intersectionality before the term was as popular as it is now. It’s about being forced to live a lie while simultaneously benefitting from privilege, about fearing for your safety as a queer person while knowing that you’re automatically afforded some modicum of it based upon the color of your skin. When I look at “Anonymous” on a broad level, I see it as a song before its time. When I remember what Riot Grrrl and the post-Riot Grrrl world were like, I am reminded how consumed we were by these issues. We shouldn’t pat ourselves on the backs over it, especially because we didn’t solve any of these problems, but I think it’s important, at least for the purpose of understanding what those times were like.
“#1 Must Have” is one of the few songs on All Hands On The Bad One that is feminist in an explicit way. There’s one live video of it ever, apparently, and it’s from some hilarious-looking Oxygen Network show called “Trackers,” which included Pop-Up Video-style facts during their performance of “You’re No Rock ‘n’ Roll Fun.” Viva the 90’s!
Nicole: Wtf is “Trackers”?! I would watch the hell out of that show. I may do that in a minute. There must be more of this on YouTube. This song didn’t do it for me the first time around, and I especially wanted to like it as one of the few overtly political tracks at all on the album. It’s not particularly memorable musically, and the lyrics are awkward. “Watch me make up my mind instead of my face” still makes me cringe, though I appreciate the overall message more now, in my mellowed, old age, than I did at the time. I got a little misty-eyed watching that, in fact.
Jumping back to “Anonymous”–yes to everything you said. And no, we didn’t solve anything and in many ways nothing has changed and the same dynamics and cycles play out again and again.
Winner: Anonymous
“Start Together” vs “Fangless”
Nicole: I’m on record as hating The Hot Rock’s production, even on the remaster. They just got Janet, why aren’t they pushing her to the front? Overall I feel even this song–my favorite on that album–is largely ill-served, though I do like the mood attained, like a gathering storm. The song is pretty killer.
I have no complaints about “Fangless’” production, though, and I bet we have the same favorite lyric on it.
Robin: “Clenched fist on a dangling arm/fight’s over but I’ll fight on?” That’s my favorite line from “Fangless,” and it’s my partner’s favorite, too. I’m a big fan of this song. I also love “Start Together,” and agree with you that the production is lacking. It needs more of everything.
Nicole: Yup, that’s it. And this is a hard match! Lyrically, both songs really work for me in completely different ways. “Start Together” has classic, simple, evocative and resonant pop song lyrics, whereas “Fangless” is thornier, arguably more open to different interpretations.
Robin: It’s a tight race, but I think the build-up on Start Together nudges it ahead.
Winner: Start Together
“The Fox” vs “How To Play Dead”
Robin: It is possibly worth noting that Spin decided that “The Fox” is Sleater Kinney’s greatest song of all time. While It’s a really fucking great song, there’s no way it’s their best ever, or even the best on this album.
Nicole: I was really thrown by Spin’s ranking of “The Fox.” I do not understand why that happened at all. No offense to the song, but I mostly like that it is a weird departure without sucking in the way I feel “Get Up” sucks. Corin’s lungs are impressive. The guitars sound great. It’s not one of my favorites even on The Woods, though.
Robin: I like “The Fox” a lot. The first time I heard it, I was getting really high with a friend of mine, who asked if I was listening to an all-girl Deep Purple cover band. I was not, of course, but maybe I was, in a way? Wait, how high was I? Anyway, “The Fox” appeals to the stoner rock, metalhead side of me more than just about any other song on the record. It’s the kind of song that you listen to at full volume and sing along with the guitar parts only. It’s a fable about wolfish boyfriends, a feminist Led Zeppelin song of sorts. “The Fox” rocks, and was relieving to hear after three albums that didn’t quite do it for me in the way that their first three did.
Nicole: That is the perfect way to be introduced to that song. It’s a fantastic stoner song.
“How To Play Dead” used to be a favorite of mine, because of its ultra riot grrrl-y title and very obvious feminist lyrics. Even if some are a bit…awkward.
Robin: “How To Play Dead” sounds exactly like an Excuse 17 song. I wonder if this was an Excuse 17 song that never saw the light of day, so Carrie threw it on the Sleater-Kinney EP. It’s good, but it sounds very out of place on the rest of the album. It is apparently about blowjobs, yes? And that blowjobs are gross? Is that the conclusion we have come to here? I have to admit that I only figured this out recently, as I was a very intentionally naive teenager and didn’t know a lot about those sorts of things.
Anyway, I don’t feel like talking about blowjobs anymore, so let’s go with “The Fox.”
WINNER: The Fox
“Not What You Want” vs “One Beat”
Nicole: “Not What You Want” was one of my favorite lesser-discussed Dig Me Out side two tracks, a la “It’s Enough”. “Saw Johnny at the store/said ‘get your car, let’s hit the road’/He said “tell me baby, what’s wrong”/HE SAID TELL ME BABY WHAT’S WROOOOOONG” may not quite be Patti Smith’s stunning introduction to the Johnny of “Land”, but it’s a fine way to start off a feminist rock song (of which Johnny is not the star) and evocative in its own right.
“One Beat” has grown on me a lot over the years. At the time I was like Jesus, how many vague emotion/art-trumps-science lyrics do you have in you, Corin? Can you illuminate your resentment a little, if you’re going to keep hitting on this theme? I get it, you and your band make newer, more meaningful sounds than…science. Or something. Maybe I don’t get it. Anyway, I don’t look for the same intellectual rigor in Sleater-Kinney lyrics now as I did as a teenager whose political analysis was heavily influenced by Heavens to Betsy, and thus like the song now. I mean, it sounds awesome, a sonic thesis statement of the best of where the band was musically, at the time.
Robin: I feel the same way about “One Beat” that you do. The vocal production sounds different from a lot of their other songs, like they’re singing back and forth to each other across a long, lonely hallway emptied of everything but picture frames on the walls. The sound their voices make is thematically on point. Dissent is isolating and terrifying; self-professed experts will explain away the worst atrocities while those of us who disagree scream into the ether. On its face, “One Beat” is a fiercely angry song, but it sounds so lonely.
“Not What You Want,” on the other hand, isn’t so much an angry song, but it sounds angry. It’s an angsty adventure song. It’s The Legend Of Billie Jean of adventure songs. Any teenager who listened to this song when it came out and didn’t immediately want to run away from home is really missing out on something.
WINNER: This was a tough call, but: “Not What You Want”
“Words And Guitar” vs “Lora’s Song”
Robin: I know a lot of people are going to be like, “What the fuck? ‘Lora’s Song?’” I am of the opinion that it’s definitely not one of their best 64 songs, but we figured it was worth including because we wanted to acknowledge Lora MacFarlane’s contribution to Sleater-Kinney.
Nicole: I always dug Lora and her song. I dug her skittery, solid drumming, which meshed beautifully with Corin and Carrie’s counterpoint guitar lines and was a big part of instantly establishing The Sleater-Kinney Sound on the self titled ep. And I dug her voice a lot–on this song, where she sings lead, and as another texture as on “Stay Where You Are”. I was sad when she stopped being in the band and sought out her albums under the name Ninety-Nine, which is a band I recommend.
Robin: She used to do this cool anarchist zine with a collective in Australia, where she’s from. I remember there was a lot of drama surrounding her outing from the band. Either she wrote a zine about it or someone else interviewed her for a zine, and she was legitimately upset about the whole thing. Do you remember any of this? It was all so long ago.
Nicole: Yes I do! I remember stuff on the Chainsaw message board [NOTE: The Chainsaw Records Message Board was exactly what it sounds like– a message board on Sleater-Kinney’s record label site– and angsty teens across the world met there to talk about feminism and being queer and bands] about it, people taking sides.
Robin: I hate when people call her “the Pete Best of Sleater-Kinney.” Like, okay, maybe, if Pete Best went on to have a really awesome band that the world slept on only because he lived in Australia and it was super hard to get records from there, that would be fair.
Words And Guitar, though!
Nicole: It’s timeless.
Winner: Words and Guitar
“Dance Song ‘97” vs “Big Big Lights”
Nicole: “Big Big Lights” from the “Free To Fight 7”!” Remember, Free To Fight, Robin? How cool was it to have a music series based around sharing information about self defense for straight women and queers? I don’t know if I’d listen to this song now, but I loved it at the time. It was a continuation of Sleater-Kinney’s embrace of pop music and rock posturing that really took off on Dig Me Out–as well as an increasing number of meta songs about being riot grrrl/indie stars.
If it hadn’t been a split with Cypher in the Snow, “Dance Song ‘97” could have been the “Big Big Lights” B-Side. It’s notable for what I think is the first use of keyboards in a Sleater-Kinney song, but I don’t actually find it that dancey. It’s a nice album cut, but a bit disposable to be apart from nostalgia, at least comparatively speaking. Certain fans loooooved it though!
Robin: Indeed. “Dance Song ‘97” always inspired total dancing mayhem at Sleater-Kinney shows of yore. It’s a very catchy song, and easy to sing along with, but I never thought it was one of their best. If I’m going to listen to keyboards alongside Corin’s voice, I would rather pull out my old Cadallaca record, which was her side project with musician Sarah Dougher. “Big Big Lights” is a better song, and every time I hear it, I wince upon remembering that an ex stole that 7” from me after we broke up. Free To Fight was an incredible project. Sadly, it seemingly fizzled out into nothing, after having all of this momentum. I remember how empowering it was to feel like I could fight back if I had to, especially considering that most of the feminism I’d encountered in my life until Riot Grrrl was very kumbaya, very peace and love. Like, yeah, that’s all wonderful and good, but violence is a real part of women’s lives. No womyn’s syster circle is going to change that.
Winner: Big Big Lights
“Sympathy” vs “What’s Mine Is Yours”
Robin: “What’s Mine Is Yours” may not be my absolute favorite Sleater-Kinney song, but there’s a good chance that objectively speaking, it’s their best. It’s three songs crammed into one: a classic Sleater-Kinney cute-but-intense tune, weird guitar noodling, and– my favorite part– a Jefferson Airplane-esque dirge where Corin’s voice sounds better than it ever has.
Nicole: “What’s Mine Is Yours” is one of my favorites. I love the dirge, dig the reinvention of some classic Sleater-Kinney imagery (“cooking hearts over a stove”) paired with some of their most successful classic RAWK love lyrics, which could feel cliche if they didn’t sell the hell out of it. It was my entry into loving The Woods. It was wonderful to hear such an accomplished but raw love song–age, marriage and kids haven’t mellowed it a bit. The stakes sound more life or death than ever.
Robin: I totally slept on “Sympathy” when it came out, heard it as yet another throwaway bluesy song by white people (what can I say? I’m a socially conscious Mississippi Delta native. I know these songs when I hear them). This is one of those times when I can look back and know that at least thematically speaking, I was just too young to get it. Now I’m a nanny and I’m training to be a postpartum doula. Many of my friends have miscarried, some have had children who’ve gotten frighteningly sick, and a couple have come close to losing their children. The way Corin’s voice sounds on this song is something I’ve heard a few times between when it came out and now, but never musically; it’s the primal sound of maternal despair. Obviously she’s excellent at wailing, but this is different: it’s biological, a woman crying out and begging God to spare her newborn. It is the human artistic expression of the sound a bird makes when a predator attacks her nest. “Sympathy” is the darkest song Sleater-Kinney has ever made, by far, and it’s a topic that I don’t think I’ve heard covered in a rock and roll song before or since. It weirds me out that I was never able to hear this song for what it was until years later. Sympathy is odd that way, which is why the title is so perfect.
Nicole: Wow. Well put. I also slept on this song. I probably listened to it like 3 times and didn’t even get what it was about because I read it as–precisely–a throwaway blusey song by white people on an album that had already thoroughly annoyed and alienated me. It is much more moving to me, now.
Robin: As great of a song as “Sympathy” is, “What’s Mine Is Yours” is close to perfect. It’s undeniable in every way.
Winner: What’s Mine Is Yours
