The Queer Issue
In 1995, Sleater-Kinney, the Olympia punk band formed by Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, released its self-titled debut on Chainsaw Records. Unleashing Tucker's powerful howl over the pair's angular guitar interplay, the 22 explosive minutes of Sleater-Kinney instantly posited its makers as the greatest queer band in history. At the time, both women identified as dykes, though Tucker would later find love and make a family with a fella, and the band's artistic achievements would soon make any fixation on sexual orientation seem prurient. From 1996's Call the Doctor through 2005's The Woods, Sleater-Kinney created a body of work—highlighted by 1997's Dig Me Out, 1999's The Hot Rock, and 2002's One Beat—that revealed the band as the most intense and ambitious punk musicians in history. Still, for queers and those who love them, there could be no ignoring that the group crowned by mainstream-media monolith Time as the "Best Band in America" was conceived and powered by women who love women.
