Bratmobile - Pottymouth (1993)
Artist: Bratmobile
Author: Sarah
Date: 2/16/2025
Listen: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify
What I like best about this album is that it manages to find the middle ground between the simple catchy melodies of early Beat Happening and the more straightforwardly punk riot grrrl groups like Bikini Kill. Makes sense, obviously, it was one of the first riot grrrl albums in general, and they formed in the Olympia scene (iirc, it was even at Calvin Johnson's request).
The most important part of that sound, to me, is Erin Smith's guitar playing. On most of the best songs here (e.g. "Love Thing", "Cool Schmool". "Kiss and Ride"), it sounds like she's just playing one string at a time, and it's got this buzzy sound to it that feels reminiscent of surf rock without feeling like the beach at all. The first of the songs I mentioned is, to me, the song that best encapsulates what I love about Erin Smith's guitar. Combine that with Molly Neuman's very lo-fi drums and Allison Wolfe's voice, which, as befits the album as a whole, manages to find a medium between Heather Lewis and Kathleen Hanna, and you end up with an album that, while unmistakably a punk rock album, still has a few songs that wouldn't feel out of place on your next twee pop binge (the aforementioned "Kiss and Ride" particularly fits this role, since it's got that same sound as "Bad Seeds" or "I Spy" on Beat Happening's self-titled).