The albums Bikini Kill wouldn’t exist without
Bikini Kill were at the forefront of the radical feminist punk subculture of the 1990s, where a huge part of the success of the movement was community built from a coterie of equally zealous band and zine-makers familiar with not just each other, but the influences they revelled in to form a greater understanding, connection, and camaraderie.
In that vein, they had the greatest, most considered list of musical influences; forget that shmucky Spotify algorithm, as these undiscovered gems and deserved classics combined make the list of albums Bikini Kill wouldn’t exist without and bleed into their sound until it is a ferocious concoction of ripe, rough, restless riffs.
So, let’s charge back two decades, when riot grrrl icon Kathleen Hanna shared not one, not two, but nine formative albums that changed her life, and influenced the Bikini Kill sound.
The list is as expansive as you might expect, touching genres far and wide and ranging from entries that make her laugh, to cry, to rage, with her secret weapon being listening to her fans and buying the albums they recommend, for there’s nothing better than the authentic search for a new sound.
A few albums are appearing in the all-important Bikini Kill list that are to be expected: of course, we have Blondie’s Eat to the Beat, which was released in 1979, and Carole King’s Tapestry, released in 1971, which was one of Hanna’s mother’s records, soundtracking the tender ages of riot grrrl infancy.
While Bikini Kill mastered the sound of the 1990s, they were well aware of the masters of the 1980s, too, listening to the likes of Soft Cell and Echo & the Bunnymen in basements around town in the badge-wearing, cigarette-smoking friendship group, and from this era, Yaz’s Upstairs at Eric’s 1982 album would go on to inspire them.
Hanna has given hearty shoutouts to the likes of Frightwig’s personable, radical 1986 project Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill! and the “theoretically smart and sonically full” album Cut by The Slits, but what Bikini Kill ultimately consider the “near-perfect record” is, of course, the Public Enemy album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back.
Perhaps the album most widely regarded as the “near-perfect” record by the entire industry, and anyone with ears, is Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and while it might be surprising to some, anyone familiar with the expansive inclusion at the heart of their mission would know that the cultural zeitgeist didn’t miss the band either, with Hanna calling it “a close-to-perfect, classic record”.
Following on from that is Bratmobile’s The Real Janelle and even Blue Angel’s self-titled release, Blue Angel, which was Cyndi Lauper’s first band and an incredible testament to her soaring vocals that would inspire, only from behind the scenes, the rest of the Bikini Kill catalogue to come, making for some inspired choices from a band that would change the feminist landscape forever.
