When I first heard Bis, I was pretty sure I hated them. I mean, it was on a tribute album to the Smiths, fer crissakes. What on earth were they doing there?
I still don’t have a good answer to that question. Bis, after all, were the ‘90s equivalent of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which means they were the ‘80s equivalent of Berlin and the Human League. Do any of those bands have a single thing in common with the Smiths? No, which is what made their version of “The Boy with a Thorn in His Side” both fascinating and maddening. On the plus side, they gave the song the danceable beat that it begged for all along. On the other hand, they also stripped Johnny Marr’s lovely chord progression out, effectively turning the song into a dub mix. Not what this Smiths fan was looking for.
Fast forward three years, and Bis releases their second album Social Dancing. Somehow, it catches my ear – I’m guessing they landed a track on a CMJ compilation, as I was a subscriber at the time – and I find a promo copy cheap…and in the process discover a song that still pops up on Medsker mix discs. Short, fast, funny and insanely catchy, “I’m a Slut” gleefully pokes fun at gender roles – “Have I done something to upset you / Was my dress a bit too see-through” – but had a Shirley Manson badass-ness to it as well. In a musical climate that was still suffering a hangover from what Alanis Morissette hath wrought, it was a most welcome breath of fresh air.
The band’s 2001 EP, Music from a Stranger World, was even better than Social Dancing, but it wasn’t good enough to stop them from breaking up two years later. Wikipedia says that they recently reunited for a few gigs in England. You have to think that they’re watching this whole ‘80s retro thing and thinking, “WTF?”
Bis – I’m a Slut.mp3
