Shonen Knife: the story of the Japanese band who helped to form pop-punk
1991. We open on indie rock band Captain America playing in Kilburn, London. They have been on tour supporting Nirvana, and the rest of the gigs seem a distant memory as tonight, the crowd has turned, and their set is interrupted by a barrage of plastic cups hurled onto the stage. The next act, Shonen Knife, three women from Japan wait in the wings as an already angry mob of grunge heads stand in silent judgement in anticipation for the music to start.
“Since we were all female and we had come from a faraway country, the audience treated us more politely,” said the group’s frontwoman, Naoko Yamano. There is modesty in her observation. Her band were one of the pioneering forces behind pop-punk, as their ability to take the aggression and energy of punk but inject it with things more accessible than anarchy and the end of the world helped the genre move forward rather than getting lost in a pit of nostalgia. That night, the crowd likely treated them well because they enjoyed the music; Kurt Cobain certainly did, as he asked them to support him on the tour personally.
“I didn’t know who Nirvana were before that, but they looked wild, and I was so scared, so I didn’t want to tour with them at first,” admitted Yamano; however, after spending some time with the band, she not only grew to like them but also became a fan. “By the end of the tour, we became friends. Kurt Cobain gave it everything he had every night, screaming and playing guitar so hard, so I respected Nirvana’s attitude towards playing music a lot.”
The admiration was mirrored by Cobain, who, during the tour, said, “I’ve never been so thrilled in my whole life. They play pop music – pop, pop, pop music.”
The excitement felt by Cobain was mirrored by others worldwide. People around the globe had developed an affinity towards punk, what it stood for and the energy that came with each track, but there is only so long people can sing of a rebellion that never comes before they resort to nihilism. Shonen Knife provided something different, as their approach to punk music meant taking the sonic elements that gave the genre so much life but replacing the lyrics with things they were passionate about. In doing so, they showed the world it wasn’t always doom and gloom.
The punk scene was becoming saturated with stories of class, war and sex. Granted, these topics were the foundation upon which punk was built, but like any style of music, if an audience is overexposed to it, it loses all credibility. In a sense, given that one of the most startling factors of punk was how shocking it was, the fact that those same remarks continued to be blurted out meant it started to lose its appeal.
Shonen Knife helped expand the genre. “I was too embarrassed to write songs about love,” said Naoko, “Instead, I wanted to write about the topics that were important to me, like sweets and delicious food or cute animals. I’m not really a very deep thinker, so I just want to write music that will make people feel happy.”
Shonen definitely managed to do that. They had moderate success throughout their career, but their 1992 album Let’s Knife really got them, and the style of music they were making, the attention they deserved. Many elements of modern music can be traced back to them, especially now, given pop-punk is having a massive resurgence in the form of artists like Olivia Rodrigo.
All it takes is for one band to understand what they like about a sound and inject it with individuality; after that, you give way to a whole plethora of new music. That’s precisely what Shonen Knife did, and their impact on punk meant the genre evolved. Our attitude towards punk, in general, might differ were it not for them and their ability to take what people enjoyed about the music and further expand upon it.
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