Sometimes when I’m listening to music – particularly music written and/or performed by women – it occurs to me that the music I’m listening to would probably annoy or even anger Men’s Rights Activists. And that makes me want to share this music with the world. So I’m starting a new series here: Music to Annoy MRAs With.
First up: Meredith Monk, an avant garde composer/performer/filmmaker/etc probably best known for her “extended vocal techniques” which one music critic has described as a melange of “extraordinary ululations and incantations, vertiginous leaps, drops, cries and other wordless acrobatics.” That seems about right.
If you’re a fan of The Big Lebowski, you’ve heard at least one song of hers: when the lovably pretentious feminist artist Maude Lebowski makes her memorable entrance, swinging naked through the air on a harness in a darkened studio, splattering paint onto a giant canvas, it’s the voice of Meredith Monk that provides the musical accompaniment. (Monk found the scene hilarious.)
Anyway, here are some Meredith Monk videos for you all. You may like them, you may not – Monk is sort of an acquired taste — but one thing is virtually guaranteed: they will confuse and annoy the hell out of any MRAs who happen to watch. A critically lauded female composer/musician making music they don’t understand? Noooooooo!
The first video is a selection from a longer piece called Dolmen Music; essentially, we’re supposed to be listening to a conversation in a strange language amongst Neolithic Brits (or perhaps space aliens, as Monk has suggested). I may have posted this before, but I’m posting it again, dammit.
The second is a clip from her film Book of Days depicting a variety show of sorts in a somewhat unusual Medieval village; stick with it until the end. I think I posted a shorter version of this once as well.
The final video is Monk performing a solo piano piece that actually has words; try to ignore the really patronizing voiceover.
Her official site is here, though I was having trouble reaching it today.
Learn something new every day!
“Backside illumination”…I smell a marketing dog whistle.
Re: music, “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood is full of rich, thick misandric goodness.
Another top 40 hit from KMRA Hell Radio is “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. A woman kicking an abusive man to the curb? The horror.
I can just see MRA scuzzbuckets who want to take upskirt photos being drawn in by that marketing.
Has no one mentioned Emilie Autumn’s Fight Like a Girl? I’m not normally into her songs, but that one is particularly catchy.
http://youtu.be/mpd9AZ6twC8
Using the voice as another instrument, not just for expressing meaning through the lyrics, brings back fond memories of late nights of Cocteau Twins and Sugarcubes in the dark.
“And third, the solo isn’t a “real” solo because the guitarists are women, and women are incapable of being good guitarists”
I’ve heard this used against Joan Jett by a number of guys. 🙁
Also, Janis Joplin has to annoy them for being awesome without being conventionally pretty or overtly ‘feminine’
Not to mention that Nancy Wilson on acoustic guitar kicked all those electric guitar gods’ asses:
…and thus was cock-rock defeated.
U and Ur Hand by Pink
Did somebody say Joan Jett?
Bet it kills them that she’s actually gay, too.
@Bina
That has got to be the best thing I have listened to all evening. (Although I must say that the male guitarist is pretty good there, too.)
Part of me wishes that Heart were more strongly influenced by Black Sabbath, though. A female-led heavy metal band from the 80s sounds like basically the best thing ever.
And then there’s this self-pleasurey little number:
@Ally S: You mean like Girlschool, the all-female heavy metal band that are good friends with Motorhead? Or Holy Moses, a female-led german-style thrash metal band? 😀
@BreakfastMan
Shit, Girlschool is awesome. =O I just listened to that song “Race With The Devil.” Thanks for the recommendation. Checking out Holy Moses…
Ally, try this. It’s Joan Jett’s first group, all female…and metal!
@Ally S: You might not like Holy Moses if you don’t like groups like Kreator or Destruction, because that band is very much in that same style. But I am glad to introduce you to an awesome new band. 😀
Also, Znowhite (another thrash band with a female vocalist) is awesome. Short-lived and unsuccessful, but the one album they put out is really damn good. 😀
Holy Moses aren’t really my kind of thrash metal, but I think they’re decent. They sound like they are heavily influenced by Anthrax, which can only be a good thing IMO. =P (Props to Anthrax, BTW, for being one of the few metal bands with an Indigenous man as their main vocalist.)
Umm Why would this annoy MRAs? She isn’t espousing the benefits of mutilating little boys genitalia. She isn’t advocating for the legalization of spousal murder for women. She isn’t creating or supporting apologetic supporting the idea that women are nothing but objects. She is not prostalatizing the cult of victimization. She is not opposing the recognition of male victims.
What about some beautiful if slightly odd music do you think will annoy MRAs?
@Ally S: There are more metal bands with indigenous men as vocalists then you might immediately suspect… Chuck Billy of Testament, for instance, is a native american as well.
Also, you might want to check out another former member of the Runaways, Lita Ford. She is somewhat of a metal icon for her solo stuff from the 80’s.
Most MRAs are misogynists. There’s not much else to explain, GNL.
Go away – talking about metal is far more interesting than your boring, tedious arguments.
Music to annoy GNL with – anything that features a woman singing, or talking, or expressing opinions in any way. Or anything featuring a man who isn’t reciting from Ye Olde Book of Misogynist Cliches.
You do realize that feminists don’t advocate any of this bullshit either, right? And on that note…
Someone already mentioned Bikini Kill but can I just say how much I love this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZxxhxjgnC0
I also just found the movie where all the scenes come from! Time to watch some old-timey (okay, I guess 1970 is not that old-timey) Maoist feminist propaganda ballet!
https://archive.org/details/The_Red_Detachment_of_Women
The description below the video:
Boo the youtube video didn’t embed 🙁
@genderneutrallanguage: “prostalatizing the cult of victimization” Fuck off. Just fuck right the hell off with that horrible, abuse-apology bullshit.
For everyone else… Here is one of my favorite Girlschool songs:
I’m going to end up staying way too late listening to all of these awesome female-led bands. Oh well.