The First Two Records

The descriptively titled debut full-length by riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill combines their first and purest (as opposed to best, although there's an argument to be made there as well) releases, 1991's Bikini Kill and their half of the 1992 split EP Yeah Yeah Yeah, done with the U.K.'s Huggy Bear. Bikini Kill's two most famous songs, "Suck My Left One" (a deeply disturbing incest fantasy in which Kathleen Hanna keeps shifting viewpoints so quickly, from rage to horror to a kind of mocking, in-your-face titillation, that the listener is left vertiginous by the end) and "Thurston Hearts the Who" (a sort of American post-punk version of the Gang of Four's "Anthrax"), are both present and accounted for, along with 11 others that range from willful noise primitivism to genuinely rocking scene anthems like "Rebel Girl." This and the even noisier follow-up, Pussy Whipped, might be all the Bikini Kill one needs. ~ Stewart Mason|