In a farewell to the B-52’s, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre opines: “...there are tons of different people who have made incredibly iconic, important music, who aren’t straight white guys, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that.” Nice of her to rescue the likes of Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Tchaikovsky, Prince, Aretha Franklin and Kate Bush from the obscurity to which the critical consensus has consigned them over the decades.
Sarcasm aside, to be fair, I think she’s leaning towards a good point; that the Georgia band made a virtue of spurning the dumb machismo that has long afflicted rock music. A few years ago I saw an exhibition of rock instruments at the Met in New York and while others drooled over the guitars of Hendrix, Page, Townshend and the like, I only had eyes for the Farfisa organ that made this happen:
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