Grrrls

A journalist from across the pond, Raphael combines interviews with 14 contemporary female rockers, with overviews of each and an introduction that gives her stance on women in rock. It's a good thing. While few American readers will recognize the U.K. interviewees, Raphael snags extensive commentary from Stateside hotshots Courtney Love, Liz Phair, Kim Gordon and Tanya Donnelly as well as reigning international pop sprite Bjork. Raphael's introduction suffers from impeachable feminist flag-waving and noncritical hyperbole (in re rocker Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, she claims that ``With a single bullet, Cobain defined a generation''). Her essay format for the interviews eliminates her own questions, but repetitive answers reveal a formulaic approach, especially concerning singer/guitarist Juliana Hatfield's infamous and now-rescinded remark that women aren't built to play guitars. Despite her indulgent reprinting of old news (she allows Love to read pages of Meeting the Madwoman into the mike, although Love has mentioned it in other interviews) and rambling tangents (Phair starts pontificating about the GNP), Raphael does manage to get these women talking in good ways: Love describes her climb from muse to musician, Nina Gordon recalls her realization that playing music wasn't solely her big brother's turf and Kim Gordon comments beautifully on the physicality of performing rock and roll. This book may have a hard time competing with the other female rocker tomes recently come to U.S. shelves, but fans will own them all. (Feb.)