Post by Dylan on Mar 24, 2005 10:50:15 GMT -5
Babes in Toyland & Kat Bjelland
- The Best of…
By Adrian Cooper
She may have turned herself into a ridiculously easy target, but it's always fun to find new reasons to hate Courtney Love. And for those of you that have never heard Babes in Toyland, here's reason number one for hating Ms Love: Kat Bjelland.
Everything that Courtney Love ever did, Bjelland not only did first but usually did it better. OK, so Kat never stalked Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch, didn't make Nancy Spungen look like the less annoying junkie-blonde in Alex Cox's 'Sid & Nancy' and hasn't committed felony offences so regularly that you wonder how she hasn't been relieved of the custody of her daughter.
But, Bjelland was first to adopt the kindersleeper look of torn baby-doll dresses and zombie hooker make-up, was a major influence on the early 90s riot grrl scene, and was first to record a definitive album of truly brutal screaming femme-rock (1992's 'Fontanelle').
In short, Love is no more than the poor man's Kat Bjelland (as in, Kurt Cobain was married to Courtney Love? Oh, the poor man).
But anyway, enough of the Widow Cranky for now. 'The Best of Babes in Toyland & Kat Bjelland' collects choice cuts from Babes in Toyland's entire career, and also from Bjelland's later bands: Crunt ((ormed with her then husband Stuart Gray of Lubricated Goat, and Russell Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and Katastrophy Wife.
The album starts off with early Babes material, drawn from 'Spanking Machine' and 'To Mother'. 'Dust Cake Boy' and 'Vomit Heart' are all tribal pounding and hellish screaming, the sound of one extremely loud and angry woman drowning in the lake of fire. If PJ Harvey had done grunge, then this is what 'Dry' would have sounded like.
Babes in Toyland were at their visceral best for the Lee Ranaldo-produced 'Fontanelle', and the songs included here from that album are still among the best that Bjelland has ever come out with. As good as the earlier albums were, 'Fontanelle' was basically Babes In Toyland doing it all again, only this time it was one louder, one harder, and one nastier.
The celebratory pregnant dog-feast of 'Handsome & Gretel' is probably what Huggy Bear meant when they sang about shaved-girl thingy poetry, with Bjelland screeching "my name is Gretel, yeah, I've got a crotch that talks / It talks to all the thingys, it's been 12 city blocks, you f**king pregnant dog".
Back to Courtney for a moment – befitting her status of most hated woman in rock, she seems to have been the focus of many a band's songs. Mudhoney never tried to deny that 'Into Your Shtik' was about her, and even Kurt filled 'Heart Shaped Box' with references to man-eating orchids and tumours.
›› www.katbjelland.com
Of all people, Bjelland will always be forgiven for having a grudge to bear and wanting to scratch that itch every now and then. And so we come to 'Bruise Violet', another one of songs allegedly about Love.
Always the pragmatist, Bjelland doesn't bother pissing around as thunderous drums, cacophonous bass and a razor-sharp guitar underpin her hollering "you f**king pregnant dog, well I hope your insides rot / Liar, liar, liar, you've got your stories all muddled up with lies / You've got your stories all twisted up with mine."
After such cathartic vehemence, the songs from 1995's 'Nemesisters' album (recorded after Bjelland's sabbatical in Crunt) sound a bit empty, the raw power and rabid energy being replaced with dirge-like epiphanies full of funereal wailing that sound as if they're being played at the wrong speed.
The sole Crunt track sounds more like the early Babes in Toyland songs, only with Kat singing like Zach de la Rocha. The Katastophy Wife songs are a definite improvement on 'Nemesisters', but the blueprint has been changed.
Where Babes in Toyland took to the studio in the midst of a punishing aural onslaught, Katastrophy Wife are a less frenetic prospect, favouring the garage-speed-blues of bands like Rocket From The Crypt.
While 'Best of' compilations usually serve as a decent introduction to a band that you're not already familiar with, anyone that really wants to get into Babes In Toyland would be better served getting themselves 'Fontanelle', and then working their way backwards through their back catalogue.
The more casual listener would be advised to get 'Fontanelle' and stop there.
'The Best of Babes in Toyland & Kat Bjelland' does enough to prove why Bjelland was always the Bjelle of the ball compared to Courtney's sad scrubber, but it's not really the best place to hear just how much better she is than her more lauded nemesis.
- The Best of…
By Adrian Cooper
She may have turned herself into a ridiculously easy target, but it's always fun to find new reasons to hate Courtney Love. And for those of you that have never heard Babes in Toyland, here's reason number one for hating Ms Love: Kat Bjelland.
Everything that Courtney Love ever did, Bjelland not only did first but usually did it better. OK, so Kat never stalked Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch, didn't make Nancy Spungen look like the less annoying junkie-blonde in Alex Cox's 'Sid & Nancy' and hasn't committed felony offences so regularly that you wonder how she hasn't been relieved of the custody of her daughter.
But, Bjelland was first to adopt the kindersleeper look of torn baby-doll dresses and zombie hooker make-up, was a major influence on the early 90s riot grrl scene, and was first to record a definitive album of truly brutal screaming femme-rock (1992's 'Fontanelle').
In short, Love is no more than the poor man's Kat Bjelland (as in, Kurt Cobain was married to Courtney Love? Oh, the poor man).
But anyway, enough of the Widow Cranky for now. 'The Best of Babes in Toyland & Kat Bjelland' collects choice cuts from Babes in Toyland's entire career, and also from Bjelland's later bands: Crunt ((ormed with her then husband Stuart Gray of Lubricated Goat, and Russell Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and Katastrophy Wife.
The album starts off with early Babes material, drawn from 'Spanking Machine' and 'To Mother'. 'Dust Cake Boy' and 'Vomit Heart' are all tribal pounding and hellish screaming, the sound of one extremely loud and angry woman drowning in the lake of fire. If PJ Harvey had done grunge, then this is what 'Dry' would have sounded like.
Babes in Toyland were at their visceral best for the Lee Ranaldo-produced 'Fontanelle', and the songs included here from that album are still among the best that Bjelland has ever come out with. As good as the earlier albums were, 'Fontanelle' was basically Babes In Toyland doing it all again, only this time it was one louder, one harder, and one nastier.
The celebratory pregnant dog-feast of 'Handsome & Gretel' is probably what Huggy Bear meant when they sang about shaved-girl thingy poetry, with Bjelland screeching "my name is Gretel, yeah, I've got a crotch that talks / It talks to all the thingys, it's been 12 city blocks, you f**king pregnant dog".
Back to Courtney for a moment – befitting her status of most hated woman in rock, she seems to have been the focus of many a band's songs. Mudhoney never tried to deny that 'Into Your Shtik' was about her, and even Kurt filled 'Heart Shaped Box' with references to man-eating orchids and tumours.
›› www.katbjelland.com
Of all people, Bjelland will always be forgiven for having a grudge to bear and wanting to scratch that itch every now and then. And so we come to 'Bruise Violet', another one of songs allegedly about Love.
Always the pragmatist, Bjelland doesn't bother pissing around as thunderous drums, cacophonous bass and a razor-sharp guitar underpin her hollering "you f**king pregnant dog, well I hope your insides rot / Liar, liar, liar, you've got your stories all muddled up with lies / You've got your stories all twisted up with mine."
After such cathartic vehemence, the songs from 1995's 'Nemesisters' album (recorded after Bjelland's sabbatical in Crunt) sound a bit empty, the raw power and rabid energy being replaced with dirge-like epiphanies full of funereal wailing that sound as if they're being played at the wrong speed.
The sole Crunt track sounds more like the early Babes in Toyland songs, only with Kat singing like Zach de la Rocha. The Katastophy Wife songs are a definite improvement on 'Nemesisters', but the blueprint has been changed.
Where Babes in Toyland took to the studio in the midst of a punishing aural onslaught, Katastrophy Wife are a less frenetic prospect, favouring the garage-speed-blues of bands like Rocket From The Crypt.
While 'Best of' compilations usually serve as a decent introduction to a band that you're not already familiar with, anyone that really wants to get into Babes In Toyland would be better served getting themselves 'Fontanelle', and then working their way backwards through their back catalogue.
The more casual listener would be advised to get 'Fontanelle' and stop there.
'The Best of Babes in Toyland & Kat Bjelland' does enough to prove why Bjelland was always the Bjelle of the ball compared to Courtney's sad scrubber, but it's not really the best place to hear just how much better she is than her more lauded nemesis.
