Larry-bob Roberts's Reviews > Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music

A pretty quick read and a fairly basic intro.

There were only a few factual flaws. On page viii there is a sentence beginning "Riot grrrls' rage begat the more media-friendly Hole and Babes in Toyland" which is inaccurate in that both these bands started in the late 1980s, pre-Riot Grrrl.

On page 16, "Ladies First" (about a frilly girly-girl on a safari) would have been a better example from Free to Be You and Me than William's Doll, which advocates dolls for men, rather than deriding "frivolous aspects of girlhood."

I think the section starting on page 106 about jealousy as a theme in music by mainstream female musicians could have used a correlation with the theme of jealousy as explored in Riot Grrrl zines ("Stop the J-Word Jealousy from Killing Girl Love."

However, the most glaring omission is that although the book has chapters on Riot Grrrl, Foxcore, Lilith Fair, Spice Girls, and Britney Spears and her ilk, there is no section on queercore. Tribe 8 gets mentioned several times but generally gets lumped in with Foxcore and no mention is made of the queer focus of the band. And there is no mention of Team Dresch (although the "queer-feminist" record label Mr. Lady, co-founded by ex-Team Dresch member Kaia Wilson is mentioned.) In the list of labels Sleater-Kinney recorded for (p. 122), only KRS and Sub Pop are mentioned, omitting Donna Dresch's Chainsaw Records, which released their first two records. I can perhaps understand the omission of Fifth Column but these other bands played with the Riot Grrrl bands and were part Free to Fight, both of which are discussed.

While the book is not entirely US-centric, Riot-Grrrl-contemporary mainstream UK performers Elastica, Echobelly and Lush are not mentioned. Hip-hop performers also could have rated a chapter of their own.