Fontanelle (album)

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Fontanelle

Studio album by Babes in Toyland
Released	August 11, 1992
Recorded	Pachyderm Studios, Cannon Falls, MN
Genre	Grunge
Length	37:09
Label	Reprise Records
Producer(s)	Lee Ranaldo and Kat Bjelland
Allmusic.com
Babes in Toyland chronology
The Peel Sessions (1992)	Fontanelle (1992)	Painkillers (1993)

Fontanelle is an album by Riot grrl band Babes in Toyland, released on August 11, 1992. It was the band's first release on a major label (Reprise Records, a division of Warner Music), and their first recording to feature Maureen Herman on bass.

The album was co-produced by singer/guitarist Kat Bjelland and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. It was engineered by Brian Paulson and mixed by Dave Ogilvie. The cover photo--an image of a naked doll held up in front of a mirror--was taken for the album by photographer Cindy Sherman.

The band has explained the album's name as referring to the soft spot on the top of a baby's skull, as well as to a little fountain used by fairies. It's also the name of a magician consulted by Gilles de Rais, the real-life murderer who inspired the fairy tale "Bluebeard." [1]

The process of recording the album is described in the book Babes in Toyland: The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band, by Neal Karlen.

1 Lyrics
2 Track listing
3 Personnel
4 External links

[edit] Lyrics

The album leads off with a blistering screed called "Bruise Violet":

You got this thing that really makes me hot

You got a lot & more when you get caught

You got this thing that follows me around

You fucking bitch I hope your insides rot

The "you" of this song has often been identified as Courtney Love of the band Hole, a former bandmate of Bjelland's with whom she had a well-publicized feud. However, the song's theme of unbridled rage--often directed at a specifically female target--dominates the album in a way that transcends any specific individual.

Thus, in the song "Handsome & Gretel," the innocent girl of the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" is denounced as a hard-boiled and promiscuous manipulator--an archetypal slut:

I vacuumed out my head

Jumping from bed to bed

My name is Gretel

A soul of metal

I've got a sloppy slot

In the song "Won't Tell," however, the lyrics proclaim a kind of loyalty to "you," promising:

I won't tell on you ever

See me do

I wait forever for you

Figure out your problem with me is you

I won't ever be like you

This concern with identity--which is the undercurrent of the anger of "Bruise Violet"--is expressed again in the song "Mother," which repeats the phrase "You are me." Addressing what seems to be the same person as both "Mother" and "Sister," the song turns "Bruise Violet"'s rage over stolen identity full circle: "I run from me & it shows/That's what you like me for."