Insider
Music
RIOT GRRRLS: HEAR THEIR
VOICE
If music reflects the spirit of the time, what music will reflect
2019? Mia Murrells investigates the way in which music chal-
lenges politics in these troubled times.
For as long as it has
existed as an art, music has,
invariably, shifted with the
socio-political zeitgeist; how-
ever, not since the seventies
have we witnessed such a
resurgence of anger, caused
by political unfairness and
directed at everything. Punk
is a genre that initially rose to
prominence in the UK, Amer-
ica and Australia in the 1970s,
spurred by the furious angst
of working-class youths to-
wards the Conservative gov-
ernment and the industrial
strife it was causing - a theme
that we see mirrored all too
clearly today, in the turmoil
of the Tory party’s division.
Punk is a subculture in which
the music, similarly to blues,
focuses on bearing the life,
opinions and soul of the song-
writer - but throughout the
history of the genre, the song-
writers whose opinions gener-
ally succeed in breaking the
mainstream are, in fact, male.
The history of Eng-
lish women in punk is de-
pressingly brief, and de-
pressingly white and hetero-
sexual in its mainstream form.
Siouxie Sioux was one of the
first to break out on the scene
with as much glaring camp as
any male group; PJ Harvey
one of the only acclaimed
English additions to the ma-
jorly North-West Pacific Riot
Grrrl scene. In fact, it’s only
recently that non-straight, non
-white women are having
their voices heard - and it’s
the overwhelming cultural anxie-
ty spurred on by Brexit that has
ushered in the new generation of
feminist punk groups.
Riot Grrrl giants Bikini
Kill reunited for their first tour in
23 years this summer, and the
acts they brought to open for/join
them onstage could not be more
telling of the direction modern
punk is taking; Mexico’s all-
female garage-punk band Le
Butcherettes, fronted by Suárez
‘Teri Gender Bender’ Cosío, and
all-black, all-female, all-queer
Big Joanie. These bands - women
who write because they have
something to say - are finally
leading the movement of young
punk musicians who are realising
what today’s political climate
Bikini
Kill’s
Riot
Grrrls
‘’Punk has al-
ways been pre-
sent, in a way,
and it has al-
ways been a
way for young
people to ex-
press them-
selves’’
means for their future. With
Boris Johnson’s unlawful
suspension of Parliament
newly exposed and the
leading party ever-the-more
divided, many young peo-
ple are afraid and unsure of
what our futures are going
to look like - and music
may just be the way for-
ward, as it was in previous
decades for the people who
were not having their voices
heard. The only thing that
has changed is who the
voices that are being heard
belong to.
Punk has always
been present, in a way, and
it has always been a way for
young people to express
themselves - especially the
people who are not always
represented. Whether it be
the future pioneers of punk
watching the iconic Ra-
mones show at the Round-
house in 1976, the angry
derision of Riot Grrrl
amidst the domestic dissat-
isfaction of grunge in the
90s, or the next generation
of all-female bands support-
ing their predecessors and
selling out the most prestig-
ious NYC arenas in 2019,
the young people of this
country are continuously
finding their feet in the po-
litical world through expo-
sure to punk music and the
subcultures
that
have
stemmed from it.
The College magazine online: sixthformmag.blogspot.co.uk