Spit (album)

Spit
Studio album by Kittie
Released January 11, 2000
Recorded 1999
Studio EMAC Studios, London, Ontario, Canada
Genre Nu metal
Length 37:23
Label Artemis
Producer Garth Richardson
Kittie chronology
Spit
(2000)		 Oracle
(2001)
Singles from Spit
  1. "Brackish"
  2. "Charlotte"
  3. "Paperdoll"
Alternate cover

Spit is the debut studio album by the Canadian heavy metal band Kittie. Produced by Garth Richardson, the album was released on January 11, 2000 by Artemis Records. Spit was moderately successful, selling over 600,000 copies in the United States, over 40,000 copies in Canada and certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in October 2000. Music videos were filmed for "Brackish" and "Charlotte". Spit was finished in August 1999, and radio specialty shows and the music press supported the album. Before its release, Kittie was featured in an MTV News 1515 report. NG Records pressed 8,000 copies of Spit and, according to Morgan Lander, "those 8,000 copies were gone in like the first fucking week".

The nu metal album has elements of heavy metal, speed metal, techno, alternative rock, hip hop, groove metal, alternative metal and death metal. Spit, whose lyrical themes include sexism, hatred, ignorance, betrayal, bullying and life experiences, received mixed-to-positive reviews.

Background

Kittie was formed in 1996,[1] when drummer Mercedes Lander and guitarist Fallon Bowman met in gym class.[2] Mercedes' sister, Morgan, became Kittie's lead vocalist and guitarist after Fallon and Mercedes jammed for several weeks; Tanya Candler completed the lineup as bassist. Kittie recorded demos and began playing dates in 1998. They played Call the Office and the Embassy, and signed up for Canadian Music Week in 1999. Kittie approached Jake Weiner, second-in-command at NG Records; when he saw them play live, Weiner signed them to NG during the summer of 1999.[1] NG was aquired by Artemis Records, and producer Garth Richardson obtained the band's demo.[2] Kittie recorded Spit,produced by Richardson,[3] at EMAC Studios in London, Ontario.[4]

According to Morgan Lander, the songs were "all written when" the members of the band "were 14 years old". She said that Kittie was largely influenced by alternative music: "bands like Nirvana, Silverchair and Alice in Chains". The band wrote the music first, as a "backdrop" to Morgan's vocals.[5]

Music and lyrics

Talena Atfield, sticking out her tongue
Although bassist Talena Atfield (pictured) is on Spit's album cover, Tanya Candler played bass on the album.[6]

Spit is a nu metal album[7][8][9] with elements of heavy metal,[10] speed metal,[11] groove metal,[12] alternative metal,[12] alternative rock,[13] death metal,[10][14][15][16] techno[3][15][17] and hip-hop.[9] According to Exclaim!, Spit "plays like an inconsistent collection of stale 1991-era Pantera and Sepultura B-sides, overdubbed with the occasional 1995 techno sprinkle for a somewhat modern measure".[3] The album contains heavy riffs,[12] rapping,[9] screaming and clean singing.[18] An AllMusic review said that the album has a "meatier, heavier sound than contemporaries Limp Bizkit and Korn".[17] According to Michael Tedder of The Pitch, "Spit echoes Helmet's precision, Slayer's power and (with some songs dealing with body image and self-esteem issues) even Nirvana's confessional songwriting".[14]
"Get Off (You Can Eat a Dick)"
Michael Tedder of The Pitch wrote that "Get Off (You Can Eat a Dick)" is a "vital, vitriol-filled" jab "at men who think women can't play rock".[14]
"Choke"
According to a Washington Post advertising supplement, "'Choke' constricts as tightly as its subject matter, pounding from death metal brutality into a down tuned stomp that bites of sarcasm and smacks with scorn."[15]
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The album's lyrical themes explore hatred, ignorance and sexism,[19] and AllMusic noted its feminist lyrics.[17] "Jonny" is reportedly a reaction to male domination of women,[20] and "Paperdoll" is about the degradation of women as objects.[20] "We want to destroy the idea that a lot of men see women as blowup dolls. We want to break that, because we're better than that", said Morgan Lander.[15] "Choke" is an emotional response to betrayal. "That song's about someone telling you that they love you so much, and they put you up on a pedestal and make you feel great, then they turn around and say 'screw you'", said Fallon Bowman.[15] Mercedes Lander explained the meaning of "Do You Think I'm a Whore": "That's about the way that I perceive myself and the way other people tend to perceive me. There are times that I really don't think that people get what we're doing and understand where we're coming from. We're girls, playing in a guys' business ... "[15] According to Morgan Lander, "Do You Think I'm a Whore" "is about not judging a book by its cover and digging deeper into the substance to reveal that ... things aren’t what they seem. The title is like that basically to prove people wrong".[19] She continued that the song "is about how people automatically think you're a slut because you wear a short skirt".[7] The singer said, "'Charlotte' was inspired by a book that I had read many, many years ago, about a serial killer [Rites of Burial, by Tom Jackman and Troy Cole]. He did a lot of really, really messed-up things, and the story really stuck with me. I thought it was really quite sad and disturbing. So it draws lyrical inspiration from that".[21] She said that "Brackish" "actually is a commentary on a friend of the band's and the relationship that she was in at the time ... We didn't necessarily think it was a good one, and a lot of those lyrics were representative of our feelings towards that situation".[21]

Mercedes Lander explained the meaning of Spit's title track, her favorite song on the album: "People expect us to suck, then we get on stage and blow them away. One minute they're just standing there, then their mouths drop open and their dicks feel small."[15][22] The song "Spit" was inspired by the attitude of local bands towards Kittie.[19] According to Morgan Lander, Spit is "a dark album, but it's about every day life which isn't always peachy ... Life doesn't always treat you as nice as you'd like, but you shouldn't blow your head off because something goes wrong".[7] According to Talena Atfield, the album's songs are about "life experiences, basically. Oppression, people mistreating us, people putting you down because you're different, giving you a hard time because of who you are". Asked if she experienced or saw many of these things in school, Atfield said: "Yeah, in life in general. Everyone goes through discrimination and oppression. People look at our songs and try to pick them apart and say that they're about sex, but none of them are. They were written at a pretty young age, so they're not about sex at all".[23]

Promotion, release, commercial performance and touring

Young women holding a bass guitar
Atfield in the music video for "Charlotte".

Spit was released on January 11, 2000[10][17] by Artemis Records.[24] NG Records pressed 8,000 copies of the album. According to Morgan Lander, "Those 8,000 copies were gone in like the first fucking week".[1] Although the album was not Kittie's biggest chart success, Spit is their most successful album and was certified gold by the RIAA[2] on October 17, 2000.[24] The album sold more than 600,000 copies in the United States and 40,000 copies in Canada.[25] Although Spit was finished in August 1999, it was not released until January 2000; radio specialty shows and early press supported the album.[26] Their debut album and supporting tour earned Kittie coverage in Metal Edge, whose readers voted Morgan Lander Female Performer of the Year and Spit Home Video of the Year in the magazine's 2000 Readers' Choice Awards. The band was voted New Band of the Year, Who's Going to be the Next Big Thing and Most Underrated Band, (earning Kittie five Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards that year).[27] Before Spit was released, Kittie was featured in an MTV News 1515 report.[26] The music video for "Brackish" was played on MTV and was rotated on WAAF.[26] On May 31, 2000, Kittie was interviewed and performed on the talk show Later.[28] Spit peaked at number 79 on the Billboard 200, and was on the chart for 37 weeks.[29] It peaked atop the Top Heatseekers chart.[30]

After Spit's release Kittie toured with Slipknot and released a home video, Spit in Your Eye. They began an American tour on April 27, 2000, with Chevelle, Shuvel and the Step Kings. Kittie then toured Europe with Suicidal Tendencies and performed at Ozzfest.[31] They planned to tour with Pantera, but the tour fell through when Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo fell and broke two ribs. After the Pantera tour fell through, Kittie created a headlining tour[32] and performed at the 2001 SnoCore festival.[33]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[17]
Robert ChristgauC+[34]
The Daily News4/5[35]
NME4/10[36]
Select[8]
Rolling Stone[37]

Spit received mixed-to-positive reviews. Rolling Stone gave Spit a three out of five, called the album "fairly good-natured for an exercise in repetitive maximum aggro".[37] Robert Christgau gave the album a C+, calling it "proof that Korn fans aren't sexist—they were just waiting for four cute teenage girls to come out bellowing "Get Off (You Can Eat a Dick)." Waiting so eagerly, in fact, that whether the girls bellowed loud enough was beside the point".[34] Roxanne Blanford of AllMusic rated the album 3.5 out of five and wrote, "These 12 emotionally-brutal tracks exhibit high degrees of angry, brash, pro-feminist declarations, proving these young women learned well the lessons of predecessors Joan Jett, Lita Ford, and the current reigning queen of angst-rock, Courtney Love. Kittie bites just as hard as the boys, as evidenced in the steely guitar churn of "Brackish" and the caustic burn of "Raven," wherein Morgan Lander's grating vocals shatter all illusions that women can't spew rock venom with the best of them".[17] Teen Ink gave Spit a positive review: "Kittie is a Canadian band made up of four girls who can rock, yell and keep up with any hardcore band out there".[18]

The CMJ New Music Report gave Spit a positive review: "So, you think Josie & the Pussycats are the quintessential chicks who rock with reckless abandon, huh? Well, the teenage babes in Ontario, Canada's Kittie will scratch and claw their way into the dark recesses of your hearts thanks to their debut, the smashing 'n' stomping Spit ... Kittie is the band that your kid sister will happily adopt when she rebels and grows outta her Backstreet Boys phase. Me-fucking-ow."[10] Select called the album "gloriously unfocused rage", with musical boundaries remaining "unchallenged by their formulaic riffing or Morgan Lander's Courtney-with-a-more-powerful-brand-of-throat-sweets vocals". The review concluded, "It's Kittie's ability, as much as their novelty value, that makes them so remarkable".[8] The Washington Post criticized the album: "All four members of this Canadian metal-punk band are women, which is still a novel (though certainly not unique) lineup for a headbanging ensemble. Too bad that's virtually the quartet's only distinguishing feature".[38] The review concluded, "After four or five of these pounding rockers, Kittie becomes a bore."[38] Exclaim! also criticized the album: "The only hinge of credibility that Spit swings on is the fact that it's produced by Canuck studio wunderkind Garth Richardson (Melvins, Rage Against the Machine). He injects far too much testosterone into the band, using enough overtly suspicious studio trickery such as triggers and sampling, making the album sound synthetic. Guidance Counsellor's advice: pull the plug and stay in school".[3] NME gave the album a four-out-of-ten rating: "Like kindred spirits System Of A Down, Kittie want to give you the impression that they're just too tasty to fuk wit, too unhinged to view as normal folk, too pierced for the mainstream. All poppycock, of course, when their social extremism amounts to tossing tired adolescent-friendly soundbites around ('Do You Think I'm A Whore', 'Get Off (You Can Eat A Dick)'), writing their sleevenotes a LoT LiKe THiS and whacking the low frequencies up so they threaten to loosen bowels at 1,000 paces. RaD. Which is the cruellest of ironies because, if they didn't feel they had to try so hard, Kittie could be one of the most (uncom)promising fem-centric rock'n'roll bands of the new millennium."[36] Steve Kandell of MTV wrote , "Lacking any perceivable musical virtuosity or lyrical acumen, the young women of Kittie are nonetheless capable players. Spit offers 12 bile-spewing dirges featuring churning guitars and angry growling vocals that are probably no worse than your average Coal Chamber tune, although that may be damning with faint praise". Kandell called "Charlotte" "impressively layered" and continued, "Though Spit is far from sugarcoated or commercial, there is a vague underlying sense of gimmickry to the whole endeavor".[39] Maui V. Reyes of the Philippine Daily Inquirer criticized the album's harsh vocals but wrote, "These girls can rock, and it's evident in tracks like "Raven," "Brackish" and "Charlotte." Reyes continued, "These girls can jam with the likes of Incubus and Pantera. Think of them as a female version of Korn."[40] According to Billboard, "Everything about Spit is supposed to be titillating—from the jailbait visual image of the act's four teen female members to the winking yet completely harmless lyrical content. Alas, everything about the project seems a tad too calculated to actually trigger the desired response."[41] Spit was number 24 on Metal Descent's "25 Best Alternative Metal Albums" list,[12] and "Brackish" was on Fuse's "19 Best Nu-Metal Hits of All Time" list.[9]

Track listing

All tracks written by Morgan Lander, Mercedes Lander and Fallon Bowman. 

No. Title Length
1. "Spit"   2:20
2. "Charlotte"   3:56
3. "Suck"   3:31
4. "Do You Think I'm a Whore"   3:00
5. "Brackish"   3:06
6. "Jonny"   2:24
7. "Trippin'"   2:21
8. "Raven"   3:25
9. "Get Off (You Can Eat a Dick)"   2:52
10. "Choke"   4:05
11. "Paperdoll"   3:22
12. "Immortal"   2:49
Total length:
 37:23

Personnel

Main personnel[6][4]
Additional personnel[6][4]

Chart positions

Chart Peak position
Top Heatseekers[30] 1
Billboard 200[30] 79
Top Independent Albums[30] 14

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 "An interview with Morgan Lander of Kittie". London Groove Machine. July 3, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Blanford, Roxanne. "Kittie | Biography & History". AllMusic.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Sokal, Roman (November 30, 1999). "Kittie Spit". Exclaim!.
  4. 1 2 3 Spit (CD liner notes). Kittie. Artemis Records. 2000.
  5. ↑ Joseph, Peter (February 8, 2001). "Sno-core Ball hits with metal edge". The GW Hatchet.
  6. 1 2 3 Garry Sharpe-Young (2005). New Wave of American Heavy Metal. Zonda Books Limited. p. 187. ISBN 0-9582684-0-1.
  7. 1 2 3 Brannigan, Paul (March 4, 2000). "Teen Spirit". Kerrang!. No. 791.
  8. 1 2 3 Muirhead, Stuart (April 2000). "Albums". Select. p. 93.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "The 19 Best Nu-Metal Hits of All Time". Fuse. 11 February 2015. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "MUST HEAR". CMJ New Music Report. 61 (652). February 7, 2000. ISSN 0890-0795.
  11. ↑ Bercovici, Jeff (1999). "Kittie, Spit (partial) (© 1999 Ng Records)". NY Rock.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "The 25 Best Alternative Metal Albums". Metal Descent.
  13. ↑ Hannaham, James (2002). "Underage Against the Machine". Spin. Vol. 18 no. 1. p. 25. ISSN 0886-3032. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  14. 1 2 3 Tedder, Michael (January 25, 2001). "Cat Powers". The Pitch.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Kittie Bio". Washington Post.
  16. ↑ "Kittie - Spit (1999 Ng Records)". FEMMUSIC.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Blanford, Roxanne. "Spit - Kittie". AllMusic.
  18. 1 2 "Kittie - Spit". Teen Ink.
  19. 1 2 3 vanHorn, Teri (January 25, 2000). "Kittie Drummer: We're Not A 'Girl Metal Band'". MTV.
  20. 1 2 Teitz, Alex (February 11, 1999). "Kittie Plays the Fillmore". FEMMUSIC.
  21. 1 2 Prato, Greg (October 14, 2015). "Morgan Lander of Kittie". Songfacts.
  22. ↑ Richardson, Tanya (February 3, 2000). "cd reviews". The Stranger.
  23. ↑ Hammond, Alice (April 2000). "Interview with Talena of Kittie". NY Rock.
  24. 1 2 "American certifications – Kittie". RIAA. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Kittie File Lawsuit Against Their Record Label". Blabbermouth. April 1, 2003.
  26. 1 2 3 Hay, Carla (March 25, 2000). "ARTEMIS' TEEN ROCKERS KITTIE CLAW UP THE BILLBOARD 200". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media. 112 (13): 13, 16. ISSN 0006-2510.
  27. ↑ Metal Edge, June 2001
  28. ↑ "Later Episodes". TV Guide.
  29. ↑ "Kittie - Chart history". Billboard.
  30. 1 2 3 4 "Kittie | Awards". AllMusic. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016.
  31. ↑ Mancini, Rob (April 18, 2000). "Kittie Preps Home Video, Music Video". MTV.
  32. ↑ vanHorn, Teri (November 10, 2000). "Kittie Plan Own Tour Due to Sidelined Pantera Trek". MTV.
  33. ↑ Simon, Richard B. (January 23, 2001). "Dual SnoCore Tours Raging, Jamming Across North America". MTV.
  34. 1 2 Christgau, Robert. "Robert Christgau: CG: kittie". Retrieved November 10, 2012.
  35. ↑ "New all-girl group gets a thumbs up". The Daily News. February 2, 2000. p. 13-A.
  36. 1 2 "Spit". NME. September 12, 2005.
  37. 1 2 Berger, Arion (March 30, 2000). "Kittie: Spit". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 11, 2007. Retrieved November 10, 2012.
  38. 1 2 Jenkins, Mark (January 21, 2000). "Slipknot "Slipknot" Roadrunner; Kittie "Spit" Artemis". The Washington Post. p. N07.
  39. ↑ Kandell, Steve (December 28, 1999). "Spice Grrrls". MTV.
  40. ↑ Reyes, Maui V. (November 22, 2000). "Bands with a wrecking ball". Philippine Daily Inquirer. p. E 3.
  41. ↑ "KITTIE Spit". Billboard. Vol. 112 no. 4. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. January 22, 2000. p. 30. ISSN 0006-2510.

External links

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