PASSION IS NO ORDINARY WORD
In a business where women singers are a dime a dozen these days (and trite women singers the norm), Lydia Lunch can be proud of being one of the few women singers in rock who consistently breaks the mold of complacency surrounding much of today's music and redefines the role of what a contemporary women in rock 'n' roll should be today, simply by doing what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
PASSION IS NO ORDINARY WORD
LYDIA LUNCH 13.13 (Ruby)
Jeffrey Morgan
In a business where women singers are a dime a dozen these days (and trite women singers the norm), Lydia Lunch can be proud of being one of the few women singers in rock who consistently breaks the mold of complacency surrounding much of today's music and redefines the role of what a contemporary women in rock 'n' roll should be today, simply by doing what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants.
That she isn't cleaning up in any money or popularity sweepstakes (yet) is by no means indicative of any failure on her part. Let us not forget that, first and foremost, rock 'n' roll has always been about getting the music out of the mind of the creator and into the mind of the listener.
That Lydia continues to do just that, by recording and releasing albums on a steady basis, is not commentary on how low the industry's standards have declined.
On the contrary, the very existence of 13.13, like all previous Lydia Lunch albums (not to mention a hell of a lot of other; lesser known so-called "new music") is an affirmation that rock 'n' roll is still alive as a revolutionary force—ho matter what some people may try to do to kill it.
Rock 'n' roll has also always been about passion—and Lydia Lunch has enough raw passion burning in her soul to recreate your lifetime several times over (or destroy it, if need be).
That it takes an artist like Lydia Lunch to open our eyes and make us see just exactly how emotionally artificial and shallow some of our major women singer/songwriters (Debbie Harry, for example) really are (and probably always were), is a sad commentary on how easy it's become for us to accept whatever watered-down opiate is shoved in front of us these days, rather than opting instead for the real thing— no matter how elusive it may be to find, and no matter how unattractive it may initially seem to be.
And, although 13.13 is old news to Lydia Lunch by now, like all great music it's still significantly different enough to make any "progressive" radio station playing "new music" blanch and (hopefully) recognize just exactly what kind of watered down, assembly line pap it's shovelling out to the kids of today.
Just as radio never played the Velvets, Stooges or Dolls (and probably never will, although it does take perverse, ironic pride in programming the latest releases by Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Johansen), likewise will radio never play Lydia Lunch (regardless of whatever setting her music happens to be in).
So if you want to hear this album, you're going to have to make the supreme effort of actually going out and buying it because you're never going to hear it otherwise.
Sure, I could tell you about it but, believe me, whatever information 1 could impart to you about 13.13 still wouldn't prepare you for any of Lydia Lunch's other previous musical excursions—which stylistically run the gamut from pure, white-out noise (Teenage Jesus) to black noir R&B (8-Eyed Spy) to languid torch 'n' speed-bop (the Siam sessions) to the dark metal tome that is 13.13.
And because every other Lydia Lunch album is so radically different from all others, and because there is no easy solution to the dilemma of how to initially approach her music, my advice to you would be to simply have faith, pick a genre, and jump in.
Faith, and a renewed belief in the future of rock 'n' roll, and what you can do to be a part of it.
