Bif Naked

I Bificus (1999)

ChrisGorman2

I first heard Bif Naked on a compilation put out by the magazine CMJ. The song was called "Moment of Weakness". While CMJ incorrectly deemed it "hardcore", it was still a good poppy punk track, and I was at once smitten with Bif's vocals. I love a good female vocalist.

I got this disc expecting a punk CD. What I got, was a mish-mash of styles. Yes, punk was omnipresent in a lot of the songs, but she also had syrupy ballads, electronic songs, and even straight up butt rock. For the punker-than-though types out there, I would suggest steering away. This is for the more open-minded music listener.

The first song on the disc is called "I Died", and when I first heard it, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be disgusted. At the time, I thought it was just silly, with crashing rock guitars and lyrics like "I died/eating french fries/in the restaurant on the corner/where you broke my heart" . After a while though, I began to realize that Bif wasn't always going for deep, but rather just honesty. The song began to grow on me, and is now one of my favorites.

There are a ton of other great songs too. The new-wavish "Any Day Now", the pop-punk of tracks like "Moment of Weakness" and "Chotee" and ballads like "Lucky". On the aforementioned "Chotee", the album hits a high point. The emotion in the song is just plain incredible, as Bif wails for her daughter, who was either aborted or put up for adoption. Its a sad song, and it never fails to make the listener stop and reflect.

Bif Naked is certainly not the Patti Smith of our generation. She has a long way to go, both musically and lyrically. Her album is a good collection of songs, but its not very cohesive, and it fails to really engage the listener at points. I also with she would steer away from electronica and balladry, as she is best when she sticks to rock and punk. Overall though, I really enjoy this disc. Oh and by the way, she is pretty hot. I saw her at Warped a couple years ago, and she is pretty fine, so at least watch her videos on mute or something, k?