“Groundhog Day” – Corin Tucker Band
The second 1990s indie rock hero to make the list, Tucker was one of the founding women of the Riot Grrrl movement. With Carrie Brownstein she formed Sleater-Kinney, a band that helped to set the standard for women who wanted to make intelligent, socially-conscious music that also rocked hard.
She hits all those points here. Smart? Check. Socially conscious? She doesn’t know how not to be. And rocks? Hell yes. In the process she issues a challenge to her fellow Gen Xers: just because we’ve grown older, started careers and families, and lost some of the passion we had 20 years ago, there’s no excuse not to try to improve the world around us.