The basic model for a rock-'n'-roll band has always been four buddies playing guitars and drums. That all-male unit has been fundamental -- rock's version of the nuclear family. And where have women fit in? Often as the girlfriends about whom misogynistic lyrics could be written. Women have sung in girl groups (usually packaged by a male Svengali); they have served as the comely, tambourine-rapping vocalists in otherwise all-male bands; or, like Madonna, they have achieved success as sexy solo divas. But for most of rock's history, women have never been full, chord-crunching, songwriting partners with men in real rock groups. The guys form the Rolling Stones or Guns N' Roses and sing Under My Thumb and Back Off Bitch; the women become the Marvelettes or the Go- Go's and record perky pop ditties.
More and more, however, in rock -- and also in rap and R. and B. -- men and women are forming bands in which the latter not only sing but play instruments and write songs too. Some tough all-female bands have formed that give a womanist twist to the raucous sound usually associated with all-buddy bands, but the more remarkable and successful phenomenon has been bands with men and women playing together. Very fine albums by the Cranberries and Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than a million copies each. Coed bands are also on the cutting edge: of the 10 groups named in Rolling Stone magazine as the hot bands to watch this summer, three are mixed gender. And these groups are coming to a stage near you: the Australian band Frente! will be playing U.S. cities this August; Afrocentric rappers Arrested Development will be at Woodstock '94; and the alternative-rock bands Smashing Pumpkins and the Breeders are headlining this summer's touring Lollapalooza music festival.
Coed bands are creating some of the most interesting music around. Frente!'s debut, Marvin the Album, offers up incongruously ear-caressing melodies on harsh subjects ranging from El Salvador to manic depression. Hole's Live Through This features primal guitar riffs and high-IQ lyrics by Courtney Love (rocker Kurt Cobain's widow). Arrested Development's brand-new CD, Zingalamaduni, is smart, political hip-hop (one song deals with abortion). Says lead rapper Speech: "It's important to get men and women expressing themselves about issues together." Steve Yegelwel of Atlantic/Seed Records, a label with several coed bands, says the phenomenon is the start of a new era: "It's kind of like the beginning of punk."
The typical all-male rock band is a roiling bouillabaisse of sexual competition and desire, and that is reflected in the music. "There is a different atmosphere in a coed band," says drummer Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, a pioneering male-and-female group. Coed bands usually avoid cartoonish, bombastic sexuality except to ridicule it. Their songs often seek to understand the differences between the genders, and they are often painfully self-critical. Lyrics to Frente!'s Labour of Love go, "I don't know how I bent/ What you said to what I believe you meant." Says N'Dea Davenport, singer-songwriter with the R.-and-B. band Brand New Heavies: "Especially when a song is dealing with relationships, it turns out much better when both sexes are involved in creating it."