''One Beat'' is the sixth studio album by the American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney ( ) is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's current lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar) and Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), following the departure of longtime member J ...
, released on August 20, 2002, by
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally known ...
. It was produced by
John Goodmanson
John Goodmanson (born 1968) is an American recording engineer and indie rock record producer. He is best known for producing multiple albums by Bikini Kill, Blonde Redhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Los Campesinos!, and Sleater-Kinney.
Selected dis ...
and recorded between March and April 2002 at Jackpot! Studio in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
. The album peaked at number 107 in the United States on the
''Billboard'' 200 and entered the
''Billboard'' Top Independent Albums at number five. ''One Beat'' was very well received by critics. Praise centered on its cathartic musical delivery and progressive politics.
Background and recording
''One Beat'' is the follow-up to
Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney ( ) is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's current lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar) and Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), following the departure of longtime member J ...
's highly acclaimed fifth album ''
All Hands on the Bad One'', released in 2000.
Before entering the studio, Sleater-Kinney practiced in drummer
Janet Weiss
Janet Lee Weiss (born September 24, 1965) is an American rock drummer, best known as a former member of Sleater-Kinney and a current member of Quasi. She was the drummer for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, leaving after the album '' Mirror Traffic ...
's basement.
The band conceived the album to be "the voice in the silence" following the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on
September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
.
Vocalists and guitarists
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker (born November 9, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded ...
and
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus ...
did not follow a set of blueprints when crafting the songs; rather, they simply worked off each other's input and proceeded in a piecemeal way.
The album took longer to write than its predecessor. As Tucker explains, "the songs are more intricate and require a lot more arranging and tweaking. Our creativity really channeled us to that place."
Speaking about the development of the songs in a concert setting, Weiss has said, "The live forum is where we get the feedback from the people who we're really interested in communicating with."
''One Beat'' was produced by long-time collaborator
John Goodmanson
John Goodmanson (born 1968) is an American recording engineer and indie rock record producer. He is best known for producing multiple albums by Bikini Kill, Blonde Redhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Los Campesinos!, and Sleater-Kinney.
Selected dis ...
,
who came from the same educational background as Sleater-Kinney and recorded with most of the acts signed to
Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally known ...
.
Weiss has stated that Goodmanson has a "unique" way of working with the band. Both parties decided to steer the album in a challenging new direction.
In a later interview, Brownstein commented that "sometimes when we would want to do new things, he would be like, 'oh god, everyone would freak out if we did that, we can't do that!' ".
After the recording sessions, Tucker indicated that she viewed the record's final mix as "a vast, sweeping landscape" that is the most fully formed release in the band's discography.
Music and lyrics
Brownstein has referred to the album as a "strident and pointed political record, in terms of the lyrics".
The album contains some of Sleater-Kinney's most polemical songs; "Far Away" explicitly references the September 11 terrorist attacks and contains criticism of American president
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
. Corin Tucker said that it "wasn't really a conscious decision" to write about the attacks, but there was "just such as an overwhelming presence in our minds as we were trying to write songs, that we felt that we really needed to deal with it, and that we really needed to write about it".
The album's lyrics were also prominently influenced by the recent birth of Tucker's son Marshall Tucker Bangs. According to Tucker, "Marshall is all over ''One Beat''. The last year was definitely a difficult time for me, as he was born nine weeks
premature
Premature may refer to:
* ''Premature'' (2014 film), an American comedy film
* ''Premature'' (2019 film), an American romantic drama film
* '' PREMature'', a 2015 British television drama miniseries
See also
* Premature aging, of an organism
* ...
and he was in the hospital for a while. It was the hardest thing that I've ever lived through, that fear and anxiety, and I think I was able to let go into the music."
The song "Sympathy" was written about the "terrifying" experience of Marshall's premature birth.
"Hollywood Ending" attacks the concept of celebrity and the mainstream female
body image
Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, ps ...
.
Brownstein described the album's overall sound by saying, "I think of ''
Dig Me Out
''Dig Me Out'' is the third studio album by the American rock band Sleater-Kinney, released on April 8, 1997, by Kill Rock Stars. The album was produced by John Goodmanson and recorded from December 1996 to January 1997 at John and Stu's Place i ...
'' and ''
The Hot Rock'' as the two ends of the spectrum and it's kind of been combined on this record. And then we also pushed ourselves beyond that".
Goodmanson said that "To me, it's not a record that's built for alternative radio. Yet, surprisingly, the reaction from everyone I've played it for has been like, 'Wow, these guys are really going for it'".
The songs "Far Away" and "Combat Rock" are both politically conscious songs, while "Step Aside" references "the violence of the world outside" and the domestic responsibilities of motherhood. The track incorporates a
horn section
A horn section is a group of musicians playing horns. In an orchestra or concert band, it refers to the musicians who play the "French" horn, and in a British-style brass band it is the tenor horn players. In many popular music genres, the te ...
.
In ''One Beat'',
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus ...
plays her guitar in the style of ''
Document
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or ...
''-era
Peter Buck
Peter Lawrence Buck (born December 6, 1956) is an American musician and songwriter. He was a co-founder and the lead guitarist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. He also plays the banjo and mandolin on several R.E.M. songs. Throughout his car ...
, the guitarist of
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternati ...
The album contains the use of
wah-wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of electric guitar effects pedal that alters the tone and frequencies of the guitar signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The ped ...
s,
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s, sing-along choruses, and hints of
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
music.
The song "Prisstina" features backup vocals, synthesizers and guitars by American musician and composer
Stephen Trask
Stephen Trask (born Stephen R. Schwartz; born August 29, 1966) is an American musician and composer who graduated from Wesleyan University.
He was the music director and house band member at the New York City club Squeezebox, where they performe ...
.
Musically, ''
Lawrence Journal-World
The ''Lawrence Journal-World'' is a daily newspaper published in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, by Ogden Newspapers.
History
Though the ''Journal-World'' title came into existence in 1911, the paper dates itself to 1858, according to the ...
'' likened a good portion of the album to ''
The Scream
''The Scream'' is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including ...
''-era
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their contemporaries and with later acts. ''Q'' magazine in ...
.
Promotion and release
Before the release, Brownstein took time off to act in an
independent film
An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...
, ''Group'', which documents a group of women meeting each week in therapy sessions.
In March 2002, Sleater-Kinney previewed tracks from ''One Beat'' during a series of U.S. East Coast performances and at the
All Tomorrow's Parties
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''.
Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of Andy Warh ...
festival in Los Angeles.
The album's track list was confirmed in May.
At the start of August, the band posted the 12 songs as
QuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...
streams on the Kill Rock Stars label website.
''One Beat'' was released on August 20, 2002, by Kill Rock Stars. Alongside the standard edition, a limited edition of the album was also made available for purchase. Both the CD and Vinyl limited edition featured a second disc containing two bonus tracks, "Off With Your Head" and "Lions and Tigers".
Upon release, the album reached 107 on the U.S.
''Billboard'' 200 chart, No. 2 on the
Heatseekers Albums
Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...
chart, and No. 5 on the
Independent Albums
The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by '' Billboard'' maga ...
chart.
To promote the album, Sleater-Kinney performed at a street festival in Los Angeles alongside
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...
on the weekend of August 25. The band embarked on an extensive U.S. tour in support of ''One Beat'' at the start of September. The tour started with a concert at the Bluebird Theatre in Denver on September 11, which coincided with the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and ended with a gig at the
40 Watt Club
The 40 Watt Club is a music venue in Athens, Georgia. Along with CBGB, the Whisky a Go Go, and selected others, it was instrumental in launching American punk rock and new wave music.
The 40 Watt Club was the primary performance space for numero ...
in
Athens, Georgia
Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...
, on October 24.
Sleater-Kinney continued touring with the album for two years, during which time they secured a support slot on
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guita ...
's U.S. tour.
The album was remastered and reissued in 2014.
Critical reception
Media response to ''One Beat'' was highly favorable; aggregating website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
reported a
normalized rating of 85 out of 100 based on 22 critical reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Prominent music critic
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
, writing for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'', explained that Sleater-Kinney aim for "defiant uplift" and seem energized by the challenge.
Neva Chonin of ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' pointed out that the trio's "riotous manifesto remains the same".
Victoria Segal of ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' stated, "Few bands could explore motherhood and terrorism without making you want to shoot them: Corin Tucker's electric-shock voice and the adrenal guitars make them... essential pop topics".
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
reviewer Steve Huey commented that Sleater-Kinney sometimes sacrifices immediacy for angular melodies and
riff
A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompani ...
s that "don't catch hold", but gave ''One Beat'' a rating of four stars out of five by noting that its "musical progression is still extremely impressive".
Drowned in Sound
''Drowned in Sound'', sometimes abbreviated to ''DiS'', is a UK-based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway. Founded by editor Sean Adams, the site features reviews, news, interviews, and discussion forums.
History
''D ...
's Becky Stefani indicated that listening to the record makes one feel that "all is well in
alternative music Alternative music may refer to the following types of music:
*Alternative rock
*Alternative pop
*Alternative R&B
*Neo soul, sometimes known as alternative soul
*Alternative reggaeton
*Alternative hip hop
*Alternative dance
*Alternative metal
*Chris ...
".
Douglas Wolk
Douglas Wolk (born 1970) is a Portland, Oregon-based author and critic. He has written about comics and popular music for publications including ''The New York Times'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The Nation'', ''The New Republi ...
of ''
Blender
A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen appliance, kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsion, emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender ...
'' gave the album a maximum rating of five stars out of five by indicating that the band "swagger like they never have before, eschewing the filler that made their last few records drag".
Legacy
As of November 2004, the album had sold 73,000 copies in the U.S. according to
Nielsen SoundScan
Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
.
As of February 2015, ''One Beat'' had sold 90,000 copies.
''One Beat'' was ranked at number five in the
Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...
poll run by ''The Village Voice'', which surveyed 695 critics to find the best albums of 2002,
while ''
The Boston Phoenix
''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States of America by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the ''Portland Phoenix'' a ...
'' included it in its unnumbered list of The Best Albums of 2002.
Similarly, ''
CMJ New Music Report
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...
'' placed the record at number 6 in its Top 10 of 2002 list.
''
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
'' ranked ''One Beat'' at number 12 in its list of "Albums of the Year" for 2002; staff writer Caryn Ganz praised it as Sleater-Kinney's "sharpest statement yet".
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' placed the record at number 14 in its end-of-year list for 2002; contributor Brendan Reid wrote, "Years at the top haven't dulled their willingness to take risks, and that's just what they do, spectacularly, on ''One Beat''".
Track listing
Personnel
Credits are adapted from ''One Beat''s
album notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes.
Origin
Liner notes are desce ...
.
Sleater-Kinney
*
Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, actress, writer, director, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the rock trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus ...
–
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
,
vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
*
Corin Tucker
Corin Lisa Tucker (born November 9, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded ...
– vocals, guitar
*
Janet Weiss
Janet Lee Weiss (born September 24, 1965) is an American rock drummer, best known as a former member of Sleater-Kinney and a current member of Quasi. She was the drummer for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, leaving after the album '' Mirror Traffic ...
–
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
, vocals
Additional musicians
* Stephen Trask –
background vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used ...
,
synthesiser
*
Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk is an American, Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician. As a musician, he has been in bands such as the instrumental alternative/indie rock band Pell Mell and the electronic band Pigeonhed. He has long been as ...
–
keyboards
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
*
Sam Coomes
Samuel J. Coomes (born April 23, 1964) is an American musician, and one-half of the Portland-area indie band Quasi, along with his ex-wife, drummer Janet Weiss. Coomes was also a member of the mid-1980s underground pop band The Donner Party and ...
–
theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
* John Goodmanson –
EBow
The EBow, short for electronic bow or energy bow, is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It is manufactured by Heet Sound Products, of Los Angeles, California. It was invented by Greg Heet i ...
guitar
* Mike Wayland –
alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...
,
tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...
* Russ Scott –
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
* Jen Charowhas –
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
* Brent Arnold –
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
Technical personnel
* John Goodmanson –
producer
*
Larry Crane –
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
* Roger Seibel –
mastering
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2002 albums
Albums produced by John Goodmanson
Kill Rock Stars albums
Sleater-Kinney albums
Music about the September 11 attacks
Sub Pop albums