Nerve Inspirations!

This albums is Le Tigre's self-titled debut album from 1999 which was formed by Kathleen Hannah, Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning. While living together Hannah and Fateman were in a band together called The Troublemakers which - safe to say- did not last long. This was after Hannah's 7 years in another feminist punk band Bikini Kill who was crediting with the introducing the Riot Grrrl movement - starting as a political zine and evolving into a band. Benning and Hannah had collaborated on a video for Hannah's 1998 album (also quite good) Julie Ruin.

This album is 31:44mins long - or 13 songs and although they're all good I personally enjoy Deceptacon, What's Yr Take On Cassavetes and MyMyMetrocard. Most, if not all of the songs on this album have some deeper meanings behind them or references to the news and events of the time; commonly it is to empower women to take charge in punk/music -male dominated- scenes i.e the Riot Grrrl movement.

Time for my final and highly biased paragraph. My favourite song on this album is What's Yr Take On Cassavetes because of how dingy and dirty it sounds: the talking story-telling-like begining, the low notes, and especially the way that they talk/sing which is almost like a chant. Now, I have tried to find out who Cassavetes was and it seems thatJohn Cassavetes was a very good American filmmaker and actor who had a reputation of: being quiet cruel and abusive on set, having affairs, gambling, but also having very powerful, beautiful art and pioneering American independant cinema. I think the song is questioning whether we are allowed to like his art despite all of his flaws and whether we can seperate the art from the artist, this seems to be question which we can never really answer even nearly 30 years later.

MAR. 13 2026