The band Cheap Perfume are the granddaughters of the riot girls you couldn’t turn into suburban moms in the PNW. Fresh off a short tour where they opened for The Descendents, they rolled through my Instagram with handmade show flyers and killer live concert photos of the women in the band rocking the fuck out. What’s not to love?
Cheap Perfume (the band, not the noxious shit your well-meaning uncle buys you for Christmas) has been around for a while, graciously giving us gifts like the lyrics: “We’ve had to say a lot of stuff we thought was fucking obvious, like: Yes, it’s okay to punch Nazis.” Name-dropping vile scum like Milo Yiannopoulos and using the term “alt-right” dates this song a little bit (2019 feels like pre-history these days), but how can you not get a little smile on your face and pep in your step when reminded that, “Yes, it’s okay to punch Nazis?”
Did that song not feature enough demands to suck a chick’s dick in Hell for you? Great news! Cheap Perfume’s song “No Men” is here to cure your ills. Calling it “semi-satirical,” they hit all the big anti-feminist points: We hate men, burn bras, we’re all ugly lesbians, and we wear combat boots. Duh. “No Men” is a catchy little number that will take you right back to bands like Bikini Kill and Tsunami Bomb with a video full of lighthearted bullying of men.
Cheap Perfume (the band, not that spray you found in the back of a drawer that smells like an old woman farted into talcum powder) even has a sex-positive fuck-you song. “I Get Wet” is a perfect “sing-along-in-the-car-at-full-blast-when-you’re-fucking-pissed song.” Featuring simple, angry lyrics that celebrate the vocalist’s ability to get wet and mad at the same time, the song invites a sort of manic, angry energy that makes you want to get mad just so you can get over it while screaming along to this.
If none of that sold you … I don’t know what to tell you. The band has THIS logo, for crying in the sunshine:
So, that’s Cheap Perfume! Enjoy it! Or don’t
