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For a long time, The Donnas were Exhibit A supporting my theory that it's a lot more fun to be a girl nowadays than it used to be. As long as The Donnas were out there, rocking hard, abusing groupies, giving and taking no quarter, things must be better for the young girls. Maybe there wasn't so much pressure to be Miss Perfect anymore. Maybe girls were allowed to have a good time, no regrets, no guilt, no ostracism.
The lead interview in Lollipop, a Boston-based music magazine celebrating 10 years of continuous in-your-face music coverage, neatly punctures this theory. Turns out high school was just as much of a nightmare for Donnas' lead guitarist Donna R. as for everybody else. She also has just as many issues about sports and popularity and fitting in as everyone else. "I'm just shy," she says, completely eviscerating the ball-busting image I got from, oh, say "40 Boys in 40 Nights", and continuing, "so people thought I was weird because I wasn't bubbly." Damn, the Donnas as wallflowers -- who would have thought it? Thanks, Lollipop -- next thing you'll be telling us the PowerPuff girls can't fly.
Or maybe not. The other really interesting article in the current issue concerns the female entrepreneur behind goth porn publisher (and web site) Blue Blood. In it, the Wesleyan-educated Amelia G talks about a uniquely feminist, empowered approach to flesh shots, in which every girl has a name, differences are celebrated, off-center attractiveness is not considered freakish and still, women pose with things like umbrellas stuck up their asses (apparently the girl got to keep the umbrella). It's a little unsettling -- I'm old-fashioned enough to still see most porn as exploitative -- but it's hard to see Amelia G as anything but a success story, creating the kind of work she wants to make, handling the technical aspects, building a successful business, without making any concessions to what the world wants.
I'm probably giving you the wrong idea. Lollipop as an enterprise is more concerned with young men's issues -- metal, punk, hardcore, and girls in tiny tee-shirts that say "Fuck Subtlety" -- than any statement about how women fit into the world. The music coverage centers around very heavy genres, with longer articles on hard-rockers like Strapping Young Lad and Lamont. Most of the CDs reviewed are new to me, which is a little scary considering how much time I spend listening to music, but there's an extended MP3 sampler that includes tracks from maybe a quarter of those in the magazine. There's an interesting interview with Erik Sanko of Skeleton Key, which at last explains why part of last year's Obtanium is so great and part of it truly boring (label pressure, need to conform, drummer quitting). There's also a nice Q&A with Roddy Womble of Idlewild, which describes the singer's youthful years, when he lived in South Carolina before moving back to Scotland.
The writing is pretty direct and unadorned. There is a fair amount of sarcastic humor, as in the fake captions to band promo shots and Bon Jovi notebook excerpts (parodying Kurt, I guess), but it's not that funny. The CD reviews are impassioned and honest, but they rely, very heavily, on comparisons to other bands. If you're not already fluent in a genre, you may not learn much by reading. However, if you like metal, hardcore punk, emo or stoner rock, you're going to find Lollipop a really exhaustive reference on young, underground bands that might otherwise fly under the radar. Oh, and there are lots of photos of underdressed young women. You don't even have to feel bad about salivating over them. It's kind of a feminist thing, these days, posing naked for magazines. Turns out it really is more fun to be a girl now.
-- Jennifer Kelly
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