Studio Albums
Spanking Machine (1990, Twin Tone Records)
Fontanelle (1992, Southern Records / Reprise Records)
Nemesisters (1995, Reprise Records)
EPs
To Mother (1991, Twin Tone Records)
Live Albums
The Peel Sessions (1992, Strange Fruit Records)
Painkillers (1993, Reprise Records)
Natural Babe Killers (2000, Recall Records)
Minneapolism: Live - The Last Tour (2001, Cherry Red Records)
Compilation Albums
Dystopia (1994, Inspid Records)
Lived (2000, Almafame Records)
Devil (2000, Almafame Records)
Viled (2000, Almafame Records)
Collectors Item (2001, Digimode Entertainment Records)
The Further Adventures of Babes In Toyland (2001, Fuel 200 Records)
The Best of Babes In Toyland and Kat Bjelland (2004, Warner Music Records)
Singles
Dust Cake Boy (1990, Twin Tone Records)
House (1990, Subpop)
Handsome & Gretel (1992, Southern Records)
Bruise Violet (1992, Southern Records)
Catatonic (1993, Inspid Records)
We Are Family (1995, Reprise Records)
Sweet '69
Record Label
Twin Tone Records-Southern Records- Reprise Records
Babes in Toyland is about as harsh as rock music gets guitarist Kat Bjelland screams and thrashes her guitar to the gut-pounding, throttling beat of bassist Maureen Herman and drummer Lori Barbero. Over their two albums and two EPs, the all-female trio offers no escape from their strongly female-oriented, but not necessarily feminist, rock.
Bjelland formed Babes in Toyland in 1987 in Minneapolis, after playing around San Francisco for several years in various bands which featured, at various times, Jennifer Finch of L7 and Courtney Love of Hole. After releasing a single on Sub Pop's singles club, Babes in Toyland came to the attention of Sonic Youth, who took them on a tour of Europe. Soon, they recorded their abrasive debut, Spanking Machine, with producer Jack Endino; one more independent EP followed before they signed to Reprise. Between labels, original bassist Michelle Leon left the group.
Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo produced their second album, Fontanelle, which showed no signs of concession to a major label. In early 1993, the band broke up for several days before re-forming to record the Painkillers EP and hitting the road with Lollapalooza 1993.
Even though Lollapalooza offered the group a boost in public exposure, they chose not to capitalize on it; instead, it took them nearly two years before they released a new record, Nemesisters, in 1995. With Babes in Toyland on hiatus, Bjelland formed Katastrophy Wife with husband Glen Mattson; in the spring of 2000, Reprise issued the Babes collection Lived.
if you care, it's "Babes" as in babies, not "Babes" as in chicks. This three-female post-punk Minneapolis band (formed in 1988) is widely considered the INSPIRATION of the Riot Grrrl movement, because THEY CREATED the idea that an all-X chromosome punk band was in itself a revolutionary act. (Apparently by the late 80s everyone had forgotten about previous penisless punk bands like the Slits, Raincoats and - god help us - the Bangles, and women in punk were far more likely to have a boyfriend in a band than to be in a band themselves.) The funny part is, you could make an argument that BIT is actually the antithesis of riot grrl: a band with reactionary sexual politics (lead singer/guitarist Kat Bjelland frequently punctuates her songs with the phrase "you fucking bitch") that jumped to a corporate major label the first chance they got. Okay, enough moralizing - what's the music like? Well, it's full of passion - lo-fi, riffless, tuneless, punk attitude.
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