When Joey Ramone sang, "I wanna be your boyfriend," The Ramones tapped into bubblegum pop's naïveté with a rosy-cheeked hiccup. When GRLwood's Rej Forester sings the line, at first with a little nod to Joey's Buddy Holly impression, she eventually screams it with all of the pent-up rage of someone who just wants a woman to dump her dude, but also is pretty damn tired of being ignored by society.

GRLwood's debut album Daddy "challenges social norms and taboo topics relating to sexuality and heteronormative social structure," Forester says.

After a demo and an EP, "Bisexual" is the album's first single. It lulls you into the Louisville duo's hooky, self-deprecating, surf-inspired punk before tearing you apart. When guitarist Rej Forester and drummer Karen Ledford hit the refrain, you quickly understand why they call their cathartic and fun music "scream-pop."


Daddy will be out on sonaBLAST! Records sometime this year.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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