''Personal Best'' is the first

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by the American

queercore Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...

band

Team Dresch Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington. The band made a significant impression on the DIY punk movement queercore, which gave voice through zines and music to the passions and concerns of LGBT p ...

. It was released in January 1995 by both

Candy Ass Records Candy Ass Records was an independent record label in Portland, Oregon that was run by Jody Bleyle, a member of the bands Team Dresch and Hazel and of the queercore bands Family Outing and Infinite Xs. The label is best known for the 1995 relea ...

and

Chainsaw Records Chainsaw Records is an independent record label run by Donna Dresch that is devoted to Queercore bands. The label is in Portland, Oregon. History ''Chainsaw'' began life as a zine published by Donna Dresch in the late 1980s. Musicians and write ...

Recording and release

''Personal Best'' 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 the band and recorded at Avast! in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington, from August 12 to August 16, 1994. As the band's first album, it was released in January 1995 on the singer and guitarist

Jody Bleyle Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington. The band made a significant impression on the DIY punk movement queercore, which gave voice through zines and music to the passions and concerns of LGBT p ...

's label

and the bass guitarist

Donna Dresch Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch. Dresch has been actively involved in the queercore scene since the 1980s, as the creator of the fanzine ''Chainsaw'' an ...

's label

. The album's title and cover are a reference to the 1982

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

-themed film, '' Personal Best''.

Reception

Johnny Histon of ''

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 ...

'' praised the album's

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

lyrical themes, writing that they had never been explored before in rock music. He concluded, "Team Dresch knows that simply being itself and making great music is a political act. On ''Personal Best'' they do both." Retrospectively, Jason Ankeny of

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 ...

declared the album a "call to arms" that "explodes on contact", writing, "Of all the punk records to come out of the 1990s, ''Personal Best'' comes closest to actually recapturing the sheer passion and rage which originally spawned the movement two decades earlier". He praised how the band "never put their politics ahead of their songs — each of these ten tracks is airtight, with melodies as blistering as the lyrics". ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' writer Chris Richards called ''Personal Best'' "a fiery, all-but-forgotten punk masterpiece".

Track listing

# Fagetarian and Dyke – 2:45 # Hate the Christian Right! – 2:35 # She's Crushing My Mind – 1:42 # Freewheel – 1:39 # She's Amazing – 3:03 # Fake Fight – 3:07 # #1 Chance Pirate TV – 3:04 # D.A. Don't Care – 2:21 # Growing up in Springfield – 2:19 # Screwing Yer Courage – 1:39

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's

liner 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 ...

. *

guitar, bass guitar *

guitar, bass, vocals *

Kaia Wilson Kaia Lynn Wilson (born 1974) is an American musician from Portland, Oregon, best known as a founding member of both Team Dresch, a revered 1990s queercore punk band, and The Butchies, a pop-rock spin-off from her solo work. In addition to sing ...

guitar, vocals * Marcéo Martinez drums

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Best (Album) 1995 albums Candy Ass Records albums Team Dresch albums