Welcome back to the Odyssey! For the second month in
a row we get to delve into some Girlschool. Yeah!
Disc 1204 is… Hit and Run
Artist: Girlschool
Year of Release: 1981
What’s up with the Cover? Our four leather-clad heroines
survey the damage to a brick wall after they ran their rather large sedan into
it. Think they’ll be reporting it? The album title suggests…not.
How I Came To Know It: I just (Disc 1191) told the
story of how the 4 CD set of Girlschool albums came to be in my collection so I
won’t recount that again. I will note
that I originally came to know Girlschool through their guest appearances on a
Motorhead compilation.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Girlschool albums, and I am
putting “Hit and Run” in at number one, baby!
Ratings: 4 stars
“Hit and Run” is fast, furious and full of rebellious life; the musical equivalent of being punched
in the teeth and yet somehow enjoying the experience.
This is Girlschool’s second album and their most
commercially successful. In this regard a bit of context is important; it achieved
#5 in the UK but only #50 in Canada (although it did go gold, so we loved them
in our way). It had no real big hits, which is perhaps fitting for a record
that doesn’t have a single so much as a solid mass of standout songs that
deliver a consistent energy throughout.
Girlschool were Motorhead protégés and the influence
is strong. Like Motorhead they straddle the line between punk and metal. Here
you will get a lot of basic songs without a lot of chords played in the frenetic
style of punk music. Like a motorcycle that has a front wheel vibrating ominously
through a fast turn, Girlschool sounds like they are on the edge of losing control
but never do.
Helping centrifugally balance the turn are churning metal
riffs that would be at home on many an eighties metal album in the decade to
come. The title track has a killer groove that sits down somewhere between the
pomposity of KISS and the driving groove of Judas Priest. This time the song
isn’t about bragging about lovin’ and leavin’, but the hurt feelings of the
left behind. Girlschool doesn’t wallow, though, “Hit and Run” is a rallying cry to reject self-pity that raises a
middle finger to fate and circumstance alike.
My early music experience is more metal than punk
and the more crunchy riffs of songs like “Future
Flash” appealed to me more than the punk flavours, but all of it is good. In
both its incarnations, this is simple rock and roll, played with spit and
spite. While I would tune in from time to time to the lyrics, it would be a
mistake to look for a lot of complicated messages. Just let the visceral
experience wash over you.
The band does a great cover of ZZ Top’s “Tush” filled with Motorhead-esque
industrial crunch. It is great, but the fact that it isn’t even one of my
favourite tracks is even more telling about the album’s quality. I’d rather
here Girlschool blast their own stuff. When you can stand like that side by
side with a hard rock classic you’ve got a classic or two of your own, chart
topping be damned.
Listening to “Hit and Run” I could also hear the
echoes of history, as the record feels like the natural ancestor to many
all-girl bands that followed. L7 comes to mind, and – more recently – Bad Cop
Bad Cop.
This particular edition of the record has a bunch of
“bonus tracks.” While I liked the covers of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ “Please Don’t Touch” and Motorhead’s “Bomber” there were three more tracks
that made the experience a bit bloated, and didn’t sufficiently add to the
record. If you are going to put bonus tracks at the end of a CD (and I generally
wish you wouldn’t) then limit yourself to two.
That’s a minor quibble though on one of the truly
great metal albums of the early eighties, and one I expect to be in regular
rotation for years to come.
Best
tracks: C’mon
Let’s Go, Kick It Down, Following the Crowd, Hit and Run, Watch Your Step, Back
to Start, Future Flash
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