The 1981 Listening Post - Girldschool - Hit and Run

 Girlschool - Hit and Run

#175

By Timothy Sprague

April 20 1981

Girlschool

Hit and Run

Allen’s Raitng: 3.5 out of 5

Tim’s rating: 5 out of 5

Highlights:

Watch Your Step

Yeah Right

Tush

Now this is a heavy metal album I can get behind! Girlschool give The Runaways and L7 a run for their money in the bad girl genre.  And these gals can play!  This is the second Girlschool album and the first I have ever heard.  It’s a real toe-tapper and I am always down for some gutsy female vocals.  From the get-go Girlschool deliver the goods, starting with C’mon Let’s Go and The Hunter. Watch Your Step is also a real standout rocker, especially for guys with a fetish for getting bossed around by hot chicks in leather.  Yeah Right has attitude up the wazoo….  “You can’t do that… You can’t do that… Yeah, Right!!!!”  Just tell ‘em to piss off, Girlschool.  I’m with ya!  The album is unpretentious and unrepentant the whole way through. 

The real treat for me is the cover of ZZ Top’s Tush. Great choice for an all-girl band to turn the tables on the dudes… or are they?  Maybe some kind of lesbian anthem?  Beats me but works either way.  No time for mushy ballads on this sizzler.  Just straight ahead 4/4 rock with plenty of muscle and sultry vocals.  There’s not a bad track on here and I can see why the record made it to number 289 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.

This discovery alone makes it more than worth it to have volunteered to help with this project.  Thanks for assigning it to me, Allen!

https://open.spotify.com/album/4mS85jLsBNV8isZMP20B7n?si=tkuT7A7GShW-TXuhT0aSxAq

The 1980 Listening Post - Girlschool - Demolition

 Girlschool - Demolition

#262

by Paul Zickler

June 30 1980

Girlschool

Demolition 

Genre: Punky British Metal

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Paul's Rating: 3.0 

Highlights: 

Take It All Away

Nothing to Lose

Deadline  

Great! More British Metal! Have I mentioned I’m not really a metal fan? But wait, this is different! It’s kinda punky, almost Motörhead-like (a slightly slowed down Motörhead, but still). Plus, dude, they’re all girls! Not that it matters, but 15 year old me probably would’ve found that detail significant, right? The crazy thing is, I don’t actually mind this at all. The riffs are rock solid, the solos are well constructed and mercifully brief, and the singing sometimes verges on fun. Sure, some songs are more interesting than others, even if they do all sorta run together. And yeah, the lyrics are dumb, but not pretentious dumb, more like Ramones or Runaways dumb (“Saved all my money, saving that's a drag/But I never let them see you when you drive up in your Jag/Oooo, they're gonna Take it All Away.”) Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely listen to several hours of those bands before I’d consider putting on Girlschool again, but if somehow the collected works of the Runaways, Ramones and Motörhead were erased in some freak accident, I’d definitely reach for “Demolition,” along with a couple of beers and my best muscle t-shirt. Nothing to Lose indeed!

https://open.spotify.com/album/29pafrkScKO52XQZ4eluRa?si=mcJy12x5QyiZzuz-I94mEw

The 1985 Listening Post - Girlschool - Running Wild

Girlschool - Running Wild

#35

February 1 1985

Girlschool

Running Wild

Genre: Glam Metal

2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Are You Ready?

This shouldn’t be classified this way. I mean it should but Girlschool should be more of a METAL band than an edgy version of Heart. Which is what this sounds like. I get covering Kiss’ “Do You Love Me?”, its a good cover for a band like Heart. But Girlschool…weren’t they harder than this? I mean, at this point Betty Blowtorch could’ve kicked their ass. Except that Bianca Butthole is dead. But, when she was alive, her band was twice the band Girlschool is here. This is an attempt to commercialize this group with a replacement lead singer and a new guitarist and they sound like watered down Crue. 

Go listen to The Donnas instead. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZg2-_o_Jxo