Courtney Michelle Love is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years.
Babes in Toyland was an American alternative rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, formed in 1987. The band was founded by vocalist and guitarist Kat Bjelland, along with drummer Lori Barbero and bassist Michelle Leon, who was later replaced by Maureen Herman in 1992.
Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Bratmobile was an American punk band from Olympia, Washington, active from 1991 to 2003, and known for being one of the first-generation "riot grrrl" bands. The band was influenced by several eclectic musical styles, including elements of pop, surf, and garage rock.
Huggy Bear were an English riot grrrl band, formed in 1991 and based in Brighton.
Live Through This is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Hole, released on April 12, 1994, by DGC Records. Recorded in late 1993, it departed from the band's unpolished hardcore aesthetics to more refined melodies and song structure. Frontwoman Courtney Love said that she wanted the record to be "shocking to the people who think that we don't have a soft edge", but maintain a harsh sensibility. The album was produced by Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie and mixed by Scott Litt and J Mascis. The lyrics and packaging reflect Love's thematic preoccupations with beauty, and motifs of milk, motherhood, anti-elitism, and violence against women, while Love derived the album title from a quote in Gone with the Wind (1939).
Kathleen Hanna is an American singer, musician, artist, feminist activist, pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, before fronting Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2010, she has recorded as the Julie Ruin.
Tobi Celeste Vail is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zine Jigsaw. A drummer, guitarist and singer, she was a founding member of the band Bikini Kill. Vail has collaborated in several other bands figuring in the Olympia music scene. Vail writes for eMusic.
Teen pop is a subgenre of pop music that is created, marketed and oriented towards preteens and teenagers. Teen pop incorporates different subgenres of pop music, as well as elements of R&B, dance, electronic, hip hop and rock, while the music of girl groups, boy bands, and acts like Britney Spears, is sometimes referred to as pure pop. Typical characteristics of teen pop music include Auto-Tuned or pitch-corrected vocals, choreographed dances, emphasis on visual appeal, lyrics focused on love, relationships, dancing, partying, friendship, puppy love and repeated chorus lines. Its lyrics also incorporate sexual innuendo. Teen pop singers often cultivate an image of a girl next door/boy next door.
Cock rock is a genre of rock music that emphasizes an aggressive form of male sexuality. The style developed in the later 1960s, came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, and continues into the present day.
The port city of Olympia, Washington, has been a center of post-hardcore, anti-folk, and other youth-oriented musical genres since the late 1970s. Before this period, Olympia's The Fleetwoods had several Billboard chart successes between 1959 and 1963. Olympia saw a rise in feminism in the music industry, where artists commonly addressed rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism, and female empowerment in their songs. It was a center for the riot grrrl movement of the early 1990s, which featured Bikini Kill and Bratmobile.
Pretty on the Inside is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released on September 17, 1991, in the United States on Caroline Records. Produced by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, and Gumball frontman Don Fleming, the album was Hole's first major label release after the band's formation in 1989 by vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson.
Sharon Cheslow is an American musician, composer, artist, writer, photographer, educator, and archivist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band. She has since become an accomplished artist who works between different mediums, mostly sound-based.
"Garbadge Man" is a song by the American alternative rock band Hole, written collectively by the band's original line-up. It is the third track on the band's first studio album, Pretty on the Inside, released on September 17, 1991, by Caroline Records. Dealing with religious and personal issues, "Garbadge Man" was Hole's first song to have a music video, which was broadcast on 120 Minutes on MTV several times in the early 1990s.
The Beautiful Monsters Tour was a North American concert tour co-headlined by American rock bands Hole and Marilyn Manson. Launched in support of each band's respective third full-length studio LPs, 1998's Celebrity Skin and Mechanical Animals, the tour was planned to run from February 28, 1999, until April 27, with 37 shows confirmed. However, due to a highly publicized altercation between the bands' respective lead vocalists, the tour only visited arenas until March 14, for a total of 9 shows before Hole withdrew from the bill. The tour garnered a large amount of media attention and was billed by MTV as a "potentially volatile mix" due to the public feud between each band's outspoken vocalist.
Skinned Teen was a riot grrrl band from London, England, active in the early 1990s. They have been cited as an inspiration by Beth Ditto, Kathleen Hanna, Gina Birch and Josephine Olausson of Love Is All.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less common for women.
Candice Pedersen co-owned of the Olympia, Washington-based independent record label K Records from 1986 to 1999, along with Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening. In 1999, she sold her half of the label to Johnson.
Women have made significant contributions to punk rock music and its subculture since its inception in the 1970s. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid-and-late 1970s encouraged women to participate. This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the US and UK at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations. Women have participated in the punk scene as lead singers, instrumentalists, as all-female bands, zine contributors and fashion designers.
