Sacred Kink

Kurt Cobain made a lot of mistakes in his life but loving the Vaselines was not one of them. Nirvana covered one of their songs for their MTV Unplugged session, two other covers show up on the Incesticide record and as Kurt might tell you if he were alive today, from 1986 to 1989 the Vaselines were the best pop band on the planet. Sub Pop was kind enough to cash in on the Nirvana connection and on The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History, release everything the Vaselines recorded. From the stomping, singalong opener "Son of a Gun" to the distorted and nasty "Let's Get Ugly" 17 tracks later, this collection is the Holy Grail of indie pop music. It's unfailingly amateurish, almost completely silly, occasionally quite perverted, and always about sex. The music has the simplicity and ear-grabbing melodies of the best bubblegum, the loud and semi-competent guitars of punk, and some of the attitude and lo-fi sound of the noise rock scenesters like the Jesus & Mary Chain.

Though former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford has been absent from the recording industry since 1997, she hasn't exactly been idle. After releasing Kiss Me Deadly, her final album after a string of them in the '80s and '90s, the music scene – and the industry with it – changed, and alternative ruled the airwaves. Ford got married to Jim Gillette, former vocalist with hair metal rockers Nitro, and started a family. In addition, she relocated to the Caribbean. Wicked Wonderland is uncharacteristic of the pop-metal she released a decade ago. It's an in-your-face metal record, but ultimately it's a very studied and calculated 21st century pop-metal record.