You Got This Thing That Follows Me Around

Babes in Toyland – “Bruise Violet”

There came a time, when I was maybe 13-and-a-half or so, that Courtney Love just wasn’t angry enough for me. The way that I felt towards those people I used to call friends, and those girls in the locker room with the Green Day patches on their L.L. Bean bags, and my mom, and my teachers… even Pretty on the Inside was too nice.

Then I discovered Babes in Toyland.

“Bruise Violet,” from their 1992 Reprise album Fontanelle, is ostensibly about singer Kat Bjelland’s ex-friend Courtney (conspiracy theories abound as to whether Hole’s “Violet” was a response song), but anybody who has ever been wronged can relate. When those guitars stab and that rhythm swings and Kat screeches, “YOU FUCKING BITCH, WELL I HOPE YOUR INSIDES ROT,” we’re all bratty adolescents who think the world owes us everything.

When I hear Avril Lavigne or Evanescence or whatever, it makes me happy. Because I know that some 13-and-a-half-year-old girl is banging her head against a wall somewhere, and that music is making her feel better. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Babes In Toyland – “Dust Cake Boy”

If “Bruise Violet” is too tame for you, check out this track, from the first Babes album, 1990’s Spanking Machine on Twin/Tone. Having grown up on stuff like this, I hear bands like Wolf Eyes and think “whatever, pussies.” (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Amy Phillips is a freelance music geek who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She writes for such publications as the Village Voice, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Blender, Tracks, Willamette Weeek, Kitty Magik, Decibel and Seattle Weekly as well as her blog, More In The Monitor.