Metro Pulse/Platters/Sleater-Kinney, Pimpadelic

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Sound Bites

Cadallaca
Out West (Kill Rock Stars)

New EP from garage-band side project of Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. The title track is a gender-reversal frontier murder ballad ("Found him in his lover's bed/And that is where I left him dead"), powered by Sarah Dougher's buzzing organ. As much fun as Cadallaca's 1998 full-length debut.

Pink Floyd
The Wall Live (Sony)

Hmm. A concert album of a rock opera about a band's alienation from its fans. At least it's the real Pink Floyd (circa 1981). Still lots of great songs here, reproduced mostly note for note. My favorite part of it is the liner-note bitchiness between Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour. For hardcore Floydians only—but then, is there any other kind?

Various Artists
Zero Accidents on the Job (Luaka Bop)

A terrific two-CD compilation from the first 10 years of Luaka Bop, the adventurous international pop label started by ex-Talking Head David Byrne. With offerings from Tom Zé, Os Mutantes, Cornershop, Zap Mama, Los Amigos Invisibles, and many more, it's a reminder of how influential the label has been in helping Americans discover (or rediscover) everything from Brazilian Tropicalia to Polynesian funk. Well-selected and gleefully danceable.

The Jayhawks
Smile (Columbia)

As evidenced by the early Jayhawks albums with Mark Olsen and the Golden Smog albums with Jeff Tweedy, Gary Louris is a fine collaborator. As evidenced by Smile, the second non-Olsen Jayhawks release, he's a dull leading man. Not offensive by any means, but since when is that a good thing?

—J.F.M.

Sleater-Kinney keeps rewriting the rock 'n' roll rules

by Jesse Fox Mayshark

Sleater-Kinney
All Hands on the Bad One (Kill Rock Stars)

Pimpadelic
Southern Devils (Tommy Boy)

There's a thing that Sleater-Kinney does on some of their songs where the twin, twined guitars of Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker work against drummer Janet Weiss's downbeat. I don't know how to describe it except that, for a few seconds, it sounds like the music is running backwards, rewinding before it charges headlong forward again. Apart from sounding cool in a disorienting whirligig way, it's a good metaphor for the band's approach to rock 'n' roll.

The women of Sleater-Kinney love the music they play, and they believe in it with an almost fanatical passion. I saw Bruce Springsteen a few weeks ago, and after the show I was trying to think of anyone in the last 10 years who has embraced the transformative power of pop music with as much confidence and as little irony. The only name I could come up with was Sleater-Kinney. From their breakthrough album Call the Doctor, where Tucker howled, "I'm the queen of rock 'n' roll," through last year's The Hot Rock, which had them declaring themselves "The band at the end of the world," their faith has never strayed.

But their creed is problematic, and they know it. Even after Patti Smith and the Raincoats and Joan Jett and Bikini Kill, rock 'n' roll is still mostly a boys' club. Its root noises—the big backbeat, rumbling bass, and chugging guitars—signify masculinity as surely as any Ford pick-up. And past a point, just proving you can drive like a man is pretty constrictive. So it makes sense that even as they cling to the dream of self-determination rock has promised ever since "Johnny B. Goode," Sleater-Kinney pauses now and again to reconsider the beat.

The band's new album, All Hands on the Bad One, is its loosest and brassiest. With four mostly brilliant records already behind them, S-K correctly assumes they've got nothing left to prove. "I'm so sick of tests—go ahead and flunk my ass," Tucker jeers on "Male Model," and then launches into the keynote chorus: "'Cause you don't own the situation, honey/You don't own the stage/We're here to join the conversation/And we're here to raise the stakes." And they do. All Hands on the Bad One is Sleater-Kinney stripped down and amped up, the most straightforward album of their career. After retreating into themselves on The Hot Rock to wrestle with doubts both personal and professional (and with Sleater-Kinney, there's not much difference), they're ready to take on the world and make it dance.

The guitars churn throughout and Weiss—easily one of the best rock drummers working right now—keeps things edgy and rollicking. The first single, a catchy piece of cock-rock baiting called "You're No Rock 'n' Roll Fun," sounds like the Go-Go's in all the best ways, as Tucker taunts the guys who don't wanna "hang out with the girl band." The narrator of the charged-up "Youth Decay" is "rotting out" because of everything she has to keep in ("Was I born to accommodate?/I'm so good at playing dead"). Tucker plays with gender roles on "Milkshake 'n' Honey" ("I've always been a guy with a sweet tooth") and "Ballad of a Ladyman." And the elegiac "Leave You Behind" may be the prettiest thing they've ever recorded. The most telling lines on an album full of them come during "#1 Must Have": "I've been crawling up so long on the Stairway to Heaven/Now I no longer believe that I wanna get in"; "Culture is what we make it, yes it is/Now is the time to invent."

And who's representing the boys these days? Well, there's Southern Devils, the debut from sleazy Fort Worth rap-rockers Pimpadelic. It may be the most testosterone-addled album ever, brazenly copping riffs and attitude from every macho-music fantasian of the past 15 years (early Beasties, LL Cool J, Axl Rose, Ice Cube, Chili Peppers, Blind Melon, etc.). This is a CD that features bare breasts and cheesy girl-girl shots in the liner notes, with song titles like "Caught It From Me," "Nasties Get Up," and "Tits (will be alright)" (as in, "If you don't want to show p—-y baby/Tits'll be alright"). It may sell a million copies, but it's hard not to laugh (at them, not with them). The photo on the back shows lead singer Easy Jesus with one hand on a Lone Star longneck and the other on his velvet-clad crotch. All Hands on the Bad One fer sure.

Girls win.