Sleater-Kinney - All Hands on the Bad One
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Sleater-KinneyEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2000-05-02
Music Label: Kill Rock Stars
Soundtracks:
- The Ballad Of A Ladyman
- Ironclad
- All Hands On The Bad One (mp3)
- Youth Decay
- You're No Rock N' Roll Fun
- #1 Must Have
- The Professional
- Was It A Lie?
- Male Model
- Leave You Behind
- Milkshake N' Honey
- Pompeii
- The Swimmer
Free Music Notes for All Hands on the Bad One
Free Music Review: Strident grrl rock that makes no apologies for being catchy.
Hit: 5 Stars
Let's skip the formalities; this album is amazing. If you like female rockers, vocal harmony, or catchy lyrics that also happen to make a statement, All Hands on the Bad One is for you.
The formality we'll skip is the tired history of this band, and we're skipping it because it's a barrier you don't need between you and the music. Just learn the basics: Sleater-Kinney is a three-piece who, at this point in their career, played tight sub-four-minute pop-rock. Guitarist/vocalists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein weave a sometime impenetrable tangle of electric guitars - rarely is a song carried on just one instrument. They're backed by ferocious and inventive drumming from Janet Weiss - her rhythms help maintain a sound that's much larger than you'd expect a two-guitar trio to generate.
Opener "Ballad of a Ladyman" is an amusing jab at gender, maybe making light of the politics woven into being an all-woman three piece that rocks so hard ("I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful, but i gotta rock! I'd rather be a ladyman"). It's a wonderfully self-aware intro to the disc - catchy, and too tongue-in-cheek to be threatening. It leads into the excellent punkish riffing about Civil War battles on "Ironclad," a standout track.
By this point you will surely have noticed one critical sticking point of S-K: their slightly off-putting vocal trademarks. Corin's voice goes from a mid-range purr to a signature yodeled vibrato as she rides the break at the top of her chest voice. Carrie contributes great supporting vocals, but alone her odd open-mouthed delivery seems to melt away at the edges, never as solid as it could be. Both ladies are acquired tastes, and this intense baker's dozen of tunes is the perfect way to acquire them.
The title track is a spicy thesis of tightly coiled riffs and rolling tom drums, throwing in everything the disc has to offer in under three minutes. "Youth Decay" is a scorching commentary on a home fraught with eating disorders and tacit misogyny, rocking hard enough that you might not ever notice its lyrics. "#1 Must Have" is a scathing address of the media's appropriation of the riot grrl image for its own commercial purposes. In a song full of powerful lyrics, each one is a perfect pair of statement and kiss-off, even the simple ones stands out "Watch me make up my mind instead of my face."
If the latter two tunes portray S-K as all self-aware statement making, the song they sandwich says otherwise: they bookend the explosive pop masterpiece "You're No Rock and Roll Fun." A summery rock anthem that sounds lifted from some decade prior, it is absolute minimal perfection - coming off bigger, louder, dancier, and plain old better than any modern pop hit - on top of a mostly two-chord riff and some simple electric guitar work. Supported by a classically simple backing vocal from Janet while she pounds the skins, the song is undeniable.
Admittedly, some of the rock gets a little redundant or repetitive. "The Professional" comes off as fluff after the killer opening sextet, and "Was It A Lie" rides an aggressive riff that's not as catchy as its predecessors. Both are still great, though, as are the steady dischordant guitars on "Male Model." However, your ears might be a little weary by the end of this third triptych.
The failure to mix in some downtempo songs is perhaps this album's only shortcoming - all three are stuffed into the final four tracks, smothering the explosive "Pompeii." One of those three is "Milkshake and Honey," a queer monologue from a foreign musician to their fled French sweety. It can be a hard one to like, with its alternately deadpanned and whined lyrics and non-sequitur title, but it just goes to show the range of S-K - even if it's not evident throughout the album.
Closer "The Swimmer" is slow, and wistful - a format shared by "Leave You Behind" a few tracks earlier, though Brownstein vocally undersells that one. Both are struck from a more reflective mold that the band now leaves to their former albums to represent. A shame; they're pretty, and a nice breather (beautiful, actually, on the reverb-drenched "Swimmer").
All Hands on the Bad One makes no apologies - not for it's intense opening nine-song sprint, not for the gender-politics it puts proudly on display next to its killer riffs, and not for its vocal idiosyncrasies.
All of these elements might be used to keep a casual listener away from this disc by devotees and detractors alike - both screaming, "this is for fanatics only!" You shouldn't believe them; if anything, this near-flawless disc is more surprisingly sublime when you have no idea who Sleater-Kinney are.
All Hands on the Bad One Poster
We didn't make a tape, because you'd wear it out.It has all the blistering guitar work, punk-rock harmonies, and thunderous drumming of their previous efforts. But with All Hands on the Bad One, the Northwest trio of Sleater-Kinney doesn't forget to have fun, too. Their sound has evolved, but the spirit that forged the seminal riot-grrrl threesome animates every anthem here. --Jason Verlinde
"The Ballad of a Ladyman," the opening track on Sleater-Kinney's fifth release, boasts "I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful / But I gotta rock!" And rock they do; All Hands on the Bad One's lineup of twitchy but forceful rock songs bests the band's previous releases. The delicious tri-vocal charges of Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss spider-webs all over their corner of rock, careening in all directions but unifying to make a beautiful design. Most obvious on this release is the band's yearning to slip free of the surly bonds of punk. The seesaw guitar riff in "Ladyman" is arena-ready, and the group's harmonizing reaches new heights of "Hey, cool!" on "The Professional" and "Milkshake and Honey." Or, to put it in stricter terms, All Hands on the Bad One is a whole lotta fun. --Jason Josephes
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