Le Tigre

The punk-rock moment begins with somebody learning how to make a noise of her own;
for the moment to keep rolling, somebody has to learn how to turn that noise into a musical
language. Enter Le Tigre, the feminist punk threesome of Johanna Fateman, JD Samson and
former Bikini Kill vocalist Kathleen Hanna. After a slamming 1999 debut and an erratic
follow-up EP, Le Tigre have settled into a groove of righteous New Wave party ra... More >

Here's one new rock record whose optimistic abandon is specifically conceived as a response to deprivation and attack. Or so I theorize--could just be that they got more jam than Sum 41 or the Strokes. They're not at their best when they catalog grievances (e.g. "F.Y.R.," for "fifty years of ridicule"). Who is? But over and above their jam, they're committed to naming names and utterly unwilling to give up on lives they're still learning to enjoy. It's not just "the ladies and the fags" who need that example anymore. Never was. (Grade: A-)