The Raincoats by The Raincoats

by Lana Fleischli

As school ended, I found myself incredibly preoccupied and unable to figure out what to listen to. After some discussion, I landed on The Raincoats. I didn’t know what to expect as I played it for the first time. I had just been listening to the Clash’s “Lost in The Supermarket,” so I was reminded of that by the title of the first song, “Fairytale in the Supermarket.” 

I feel like the resemblance meant something. As I continued listening, I noticed how English they sounded in the recordings. Obviously, The Clash is also English, but to me they sound less British than The Raincoats. The resemblance also lies with the fact that both The Raincoats and London Calling came out at around the same time. They both released in 1979 just a month apart. It was during the British punk scene, and even though they are very different, you can see how the world potentially influenced them in similar ways.

Anyway, I listened to the album and I realized how cool they are. Not only were they women in music, which is an immense challenge for women even now, but they were women in music in the late ‘70’s. They were probably making music during or immediately after the women’s liberation movement in England. 

Also, they weren’t making traditional music. They are very experimental. Throughout the album, they play the melody, but then they talk-sing the song. It makes the music sound “untraditional.” It’s experimental, and it’s not what people expect to hear. It’s easy to see how The Raincoats influenced music in today’s world, or even how they influenced music  immediately after they released The Raincoats. 

In “No Side To Fall In”, they have a song which could be super gentle-sounding. However, with use of distortion on the strings (which is common throughout the album), they go from a soft, gentle song, to an intense song. Their experimentalism adds so much to the music and makes it different from anything you’d hear. I also want to mention their cover of the Kink’s “Lola”. I found it really interesting  that they really didn’t change much to it, yet they accentuated certain parts, specifically the drums. Perhaps they didn’t want to mess with a classic, but still put their own spin on it? Whatever the choice was, it’s a great cover of a well-known song. 

The Raincoats are incredibly interesting to me to think about, because I didn’t know much about them before I listened to The Raincoats. Their music is really cool and different from anything I’ve heard before. 

Now I’m just gonna lay it all out: women making punk music in the 1970’s is simply badass, because women making music in general is badass.