Y-100, a local alt-rock radio station in Philly, used to play nothing but local music on Sunday nights before the station switched formats to play nothing but rap.
I remember sitting in my room, listening to new and local music while cursing my way through calculus or history homework. It was during one of these sessions where I first discovered the band Halestorm.
The band consits of siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale with Joe Hottinger and Josh Smith.
While not exactly from Philly, they're from York, Pa, Y-100 played their song "Shadows of my Heart" fairly often as part of their Sunday play list. This being the height of the Limewire/Kazza era, I downloaded some of their songs and threw them onto my iPod.
While I hadn't forgotten about Halestorm over the years, searching for more of their music was not a priority. But when I was bored one day making a play list of female fronted bands, I decided to re-check out Halestorm.
It was a lot different then the band that I had listen to on Sunday nights.
Their self-titled debut album was released in April of 2009 and their lead single is titled 'I Get Off.' It means just what you think. The band that I had listened to all those moons ago had no blanent sexual references.
But I like it a lot.
There are a plethora of male-fronted bands talking about sex, how cool they are and all of the things they do. This is the first female led band that does this. And Lzzy sings over some pretty catchy and 'head-bobbing' guitar rifts and intense drum beats.
Look at one of their songs, "Innocence." Here are some of the lyrics to the song:
I've been here too many times before
And your tears don't mean a thing
I only come
When you scream
I told you
Child don't follow me home
You're just to perfect for my hands to hold
If you choose to stay
You'll throw it all away
And I just want to take
Your innocence
While not exactly 'dirty,' I dig the fact that there is a women out there who is not afraid of singing about things that make some people cringe.
Besides the lyrics, the music itself is fantastic. Lzzy has a phenomenal, almost haunting, voice and the rest of the band are all above competent artists.
Check out these songs for an overall view of the band's talents:
Familiar Taste of Poison
I Get Off
Love/Hate Heartbreak
How do you feel about a women singing overtly sexual songs? Do you think it's progress or a step back for women? A cheap record stunt? Share.
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Well, the term that first came to mind when I read those lyrics was "wowzers." I not a huge fan of overtly sexual songs myself, but I do think there is something to be said about a woman taking on this role. There's always been a double standard between men and women and I commend her and the group for not caring about that standard at all. Will it change this deep-seated standard? Doubtful. But at least someone is expressing themselves in a way that they choose. That's very respectable.
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly not that surprised by the lyrics or the songs that you posted. I'm pretty sure these lyrics are actually pretty tame compared to the pop stars of today. Just two examples off the top of my head would be Brittany Spears and every song she's done since her come back and Ciara with most of her songs but especially Love, Sex, and Magic. I think what would be an interesting thing to look up would be to compare the lyrics from the pop stars to the rock stars and see why there are so much difference. Another thing you could look at are the way bands develop and become more sexual, examples that I can think of would be Maroon 5 and Nickelback.
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