I’m counting down my 100 favourite songs of all time. To keep this from becoming a Bob Dylan / Tom Waits love-in, only one track per artist is allowed.
Go to 70 - Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin
Go to 72 - B.O.B. by Outkast
As Diplo’s wonderfully eclectic FabricLive 24 mix album powers towards its conclusion, the American DJ pulls off a masterstroke. OutKast’s earthshaking B.O.B. has ripped through the speakers and finally taken a breath as a gospel choir starts to chant “Power Music Electric Revival”. Suddenly a buzzing riff barges its way through the crowd and a woman yells “every day and night”.
Diplo’s blending of B.O.B. into Deceptacon by Le Tigre is a jaw-dropping, ass-moving, mind-expanding moment. Hip-hop meets punk is an understatement. This is guitar-howling, drum’n’bass-pounding rap crashing headlong into
sample-packed, electronica-infused rock.
It’s the unexpected union of two songs that both explode into being from their very first seconds and never let up. An assembly of artists with something to say, especially when it comes to others whose words were often empty.
Kathleen Hanna always has something to say and is always worth listening to.
She came to prominence as the lead singer of Bikini Kill, a ferocious punk band whose feminist lyrics and combative live shows put them on the frontline of the riot grrrl scene in the early 90s. One of the band’s earliest songs, Rebel Girl became an era-defining anthem of female unity, ripping through the plaid ranks of what Hanna called “beergutboyrock” with audacity and charm.
She did the same at her live shows, leaping from the stage to confront male hecklers, while urging women to push their way to the front of the crowd, creating a space for them to participate in an environment too often dominated by elbows-out men.
The subsequent notoriety brought mainstream media interest in riot grrrl with Hanna as its leader. But she became uncomfortable with multiple misrepresentations of the movement’s meaning and urged a media blackout. This led to a backlash from the press as well as ongoing verbal and physical harassment from dumb dudes affronted by the band’s very existence.
Tired of the whole thing, Bikini Kill split and Hanna worked on a solo project under the name Julie Ruin. Made in her bedroom, the resulting record saw the punk singer experiment with sampling and electronic beats. To play the songs live, she got together with her friends, Sadie Benning and Johanna Fateman.
Hanna had met Fateman through zines – the home-produced publications that were a key part of the riot grrrl scene – and the pair lived together in Portland. Benning was an artist and filmmaker who worked with Hanna on a Julie Ruin video. As they rehearsed the Julie Ruin material, something clicked and the trio decided to make new music together.
This first incarnation of Le Tigre (Benning left after the first album and was replaced by JD Sampson) continued to follow the electronic direction of Hanna’s Julie Ruin songs, despite the fact that none of the trio had much expertise or experience with digital technology. But why should that be a problem? After all, punk was the sound of barely competent musicians expressing themselves. Plus, Hanna felt it was a fine two fingers to the male-dominated world of technically proficient electronic producers.
Fateman and Benning spent lots of time scouring second-hand stores for old records and videos. Having sourced an interesting sound, they’d sample it, detune it and layer it over the doo-wop disco and punk songs the band were writing. Meanwhile, Hanna continued to celebrate, explore and dissect feminist themes and icons in her lyrics. Though she also wasn’t adverse to doling out a straight-up diss track.
Your lyrics are dumb
Deceptacon’s force and fury is immediate. From the opening megaphone blast of “Who took the bomp?” (a reference to Barry Mann’s Who Put the Bomp?) to the charged riff and stuttering electronic beat (which also references Mann’s 1961 song), it’s an intense, grab-you-by-the-face intro. And then Hanna comes in with her full-on furious flow.
She is sick to death of somebody, has no time for their bullshit, is tired of their superficial sound. Especially when she can do so much better. This is the notorious punk singer, whose previous band rioted to rock. But now she’s moving four-to-the-floor. “Wanna see me disco?”
The music may be more fun, more dancefloor friendly but Hanna had not abandoned her radical attitude. She dares you to even suggest as much: “let me hear you depoliticize my rhymes”. By contrast, every other music she hears has lost its edge. It’s “policy free”. Bland, resolutely mediocre with nothing to contribute to any debate.
“Everything you think and everything you feel is alright alright alright alright alright.”
The obvious reading is Deceptacon as a critique of the riot grrrl scene that Hanna had recently abandoned. She had criticised its gradual shift from a genuine movement to a genre label that record companies and the music media were happy to apply to any band that happened to have a frontwoman.
The rough rage of riot grrrl had been smoothed and repackaged as the latest trend. The lipstick slogans, handmade zines and reclaimed fashion now as iconic and empty as the Spice Girls. Barry Mann’s Who Put the Bomp? was a thank-you to the songwriters whose music and words added spice to our lives. Le Tigre wanted to know why it had been taken away.
Yet the third verse suggests that the target of Hanna’s ire is unexpectedly specific. As she wails the lines “a linoleum floor, linoleum floor, your lyrics are dumb like a linoleum floor”, fans of douchy punk rock bank NOFX may have felt a familiar prick in their ears. Not that they would be likely Le Tigre listeners given NOFX frontman Fat Mike’s penchant for on-the-record sexism, crassness and general unpleasantness.
This is a guy who writes a song called On the Rag about how moody women are when they have their period. He brags about making women uncomfortable on Creeping Out Sara. And he hates The Grateful Dead so much he wrote a song called August 8th celebrating the death of Jerry Garcia but is too inept to get the date right.
The guy’s a grade-A Asshole and I’m giving him way too much time already. But weirdly, that’s also what Hanna did. After she confronted Fat Mike about his lyrics when the two bands toured together, the NOFX singer responded with the song Kill the Rock Stars, where he mentions her by name. Hanna’s own musical retort stays anonymous but instead references a particularly insipid NOFX song called Linoleum.
Not only are Fat Mike's lyrics as dumb as a floor, she can walk all over him and Hanna’s repeated screeching of this fact is one of Deceptacon’s highlights. As the song comes to its blistering conclusion, the megaphone chants of “who took the bomp?” continue.
Barry Mann was being wry about pop’s penchant for shama-lama-ding-dong nonsense. But all of the bomps, boops and ba-ba-ba’s are infinitely preferable to Fat Mike’s bone-headed approach. It’s hard to think of a person who least deserves to be immortalized by a great song. But somehow this ridiculous lightning rod attracted a ferocious blast of Hanna’s creative power and the world is a now a better place.
I had no idea about any of this background for the majority of the time that I’ve loved Deceptacon. But then again, the first time I heard the song, I didn’t hear this version. My initial exposure to it was in remix form – the DFA mix that longtime (emphasis on the long) readers may recall I mentioned way back in 2015 when discussing LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends.
It’s a fabulously funky, glistening disco take on Deceptacon that slightly slows the vocals to make her reprimands more palatable. It’s such a great remix that for many years, I preferred it to the original. Even after seeing a fired-up Le Tigre perform the song live, I still walked away yearning for a few cow bells. But then along came the Diplo mix album and that moment when Outkast’s B.O.B. blends beautifully into Le Tigre’s Deceptacon.
Suddenly the imposed funk of the DFA remix seemed unnecessary – the song was ferociously funky already. The intensity of Hanna’s original vocals were now so essential to its force, just as Andre 3000 and Big Boi’s relentless raps power the Outkast track. And the pairing of the two songs highlights how Deceptacon effortlessly transcends genre while retaining the riot grrrl spirit that no one embodies more than Kathleen Hanna.
You don’t always need disco to disco. Sometimes rap needs to rock. As long as you do it with purpose.
Pull the thang out and bang. Put the fucking bomp back in the bompalomp.
If you like this, try:
The DFA remix
This exceptional live version
Hot Topic
After Dark
TKO
Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill
Ha Ha Ha - The Julie Ruin
No. 72: B.O.B. by Outkast
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