Introduction

Bikini Kill is one of the most iconic bands of our time, they formed the feminist punk rock movement which influenced thousands of women. Bikini Kill was known for their loud, fast paced and aggressive music. Kathleen Hanna, the main vocalist of Bikini Kill always sang with a purpose, screaming and singing into the microphone, passing along the feminist and activist messages in an aggressive way. 

 

Bikini Kills Live Performance – 7th St. Entry 1991

I found the audio to a live performance of Bikini Kill’s White Boy from 7th St. Entry, Minneapolis 12/08/91. Starting off, there’s no interview audio that is played at the beginning of the recorded version, they start off with the aggressive drums and guitars. The instruments are a lot more raw and scratchy sounding in the live version. When artists or bands record songs, they usually have to lower the volume of the instruments because they are louder than the vocals. But when bands are performing live, they don’t necessarily have the ability to do that. In this version of “white boy” the instruments are really in your face, grabbing your attention when you hear the aggressive guitar riff in the opening. 

 

 The instruments do have the ability to over power the vocalist but it doesn’t over power Kathleen’s voice. Kathleen screams her heart out during this performance, almost as if she was letting her anger out. I also listened and watched other live performances of Bikini Kill and Kathleen is always screaming into her microphone. She is truly such a cool and iconic performer. In this particular performance, it’s easier to understand what she’s saying because she’s just yelling and talking loudly rather than singing, which is what she does in the recorded audio. 

 

 

Cover by Love Lucinda

I also found an artist named “Love, Lucinda” who covered White Boy. It’s a dude playing the drums and a girl singing and playing guitar in a basement. Out of all of the covers I’ve listened to, this one is my favorite. The singer screams “Just Die!” like she’s screaming bloody murder. This artist really carries the same vibe as bikini kill. As a listener, you can tell that the singer has dealt with some sort of misogynistic men and or has been sexualized. The singer looks like she’s built up a lot of anger and letting it out her anger while she is performing, similar to Kathleen Hanna. 

 

Bitchcraft Cover

This one band, Bitchcraft posted a cover as well. If I was Kathleen Hanna I would feel misunderstood. There’s someone playing a autistic guitar, and they look like they are fake playing, you literally can’t even hear it over the guitar and drums. Actually, it looks like everyone is fake playing their instruments.  They played the music slower than the original, and the singer is bare foot. The singer does have a beautiful voice though. Their performance is almost relaxing, which totally defeats the purpose of the song. White boy is supposed to be an intimidating song, this performance is not intimidating, it lacks a lot of energy. 

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