“A social fact can be addressed with a broken chord”
-Marcus Griel
Sleater-Kinney became an important force for the third wave feminism movement and the northwest punk scene in the late from 1995-2005 because of the of their growing mass appeal and that they were dubbed “best rock band” by TIME magazine in 2001.
The band accomplished this because of their choice to remain on an indie label, a sonic aesthetic that consisted of call and response, slides, punctuation, and an abrasive use of effects pedals on the vocals and guitars, and lyrics dealing with the fears and constrains of femininity in the modern era.
For this blog, I will be addressing not only some of the band’s history and social impact, but also breaking down and analyzing their music and lyrics. To streamline this approach, I will be looking at a specific live performance from February 26, 1999 that the band performed in Seattle, Washington. I chose this particular performance for a few reasons. First, finding concert footage of Sleater-Kinney before the 2000’s is fairly difficult. Mostly, though, I found it fitting that this performance was in the birthplace of grunge. It helps to set the down that they are rebelling against a rebellion that is so strongly male codified