Corinne Burns is a 17-year-old girl whose mother has just died from lung cancer. She works long hours at a fast-food restaurant to help support herself and her younger sister in a town hammered by the early-1980s recession. A local TV interview captures Corinne’s blunt, confrontational side as she pushes back against a smug reporter and even fires back at her boss, a moment that rings true with teenage viewers who see a mirror of their own frustrations. A follow-up segment keeps Corinne in the spotlight, showing her flippant, sarcastic streak toward the journalist, while she also slips in a plug for her garage band, The Stains, a trio that includes her sister Tracy Burns and their cousin Jessica McNeil.
Emboldened by the exposure, Lawnboy books the Stains on a tour that pits the aging, somewhat washed-up Metal Corpses against the gleefully nihilistic Looters. The Metal Corpses are fronted by the belligerent Lou Corpse, Lou Corpse, and their clashes with the Looters become a running spectacle. The Stains themselves join as the opening act, and the tour quickly exposes the tension between the bands’ worlds: the Stains’ chaotic energy versus the calculating, harder edge of the Looters’ volatile lead singer, Billy. The tour’s dynamics are further complicated by the business side, as Dave Robell arranges for a new opening lineup, setting the stage for a more complex power play.
At the first show, the Stains falter badly: neither Tracy Burns nor Jessica McNeil can play their instruments, and Corinne belts out a misaligned, off-key performance that draws the ire of the audience. The Metal Corpses’ guitar player Jerry overdoses fatally in the bathroom, and the band pulls out of the tour. Lawnboy places the Looters at the top and bids the Stains to be replaced as the headlining act. The second show marks a dramatic shift in Corinne’s persona: she unveils a skunk-striped punk look, complete with a see-through top over bikini bottoms, and proclaims that she “never puts out,” a line that becomes a talking point for the media. While male reporters focus on Corinne’s anti-social stance and the band’s talent deficit, several female journalists see the Stains as a fresh voice of empowerment, praising them as symbols of a new feminism even as the crowd reacts with a mix of admiration and anger.
The Stains’ meteoric rise continues as they become a national sensation, inspiring girls across the country to imitate Corinne’s daring aesthetic and rebellious attitude—dying their hair, leaving home, and chasing a form of independence that feels radical to young fans. But the momentum is precarious. A tour stop at a motel finds Billy sharing his personal pain and his supposed illiteracy, reciting lyrics from a song that crystallize his worldview, including the line that captures the tour’s mood. When the Stains perform next, Robell pushes forward with a plan to replace them with Black Randy and the Metrosquad, a move that could end the Stains’ run. The confrontation leads to a riot-like reception, with Corinne attacked by a rival fan wielding a tube of hair dye. The tour collapses, Robell cancels the contract, and Corinne takes back the withheld money, returning some of it to Lawnboy as an olive branch.
The morning after, Corinne appears on television again, facing a stern male journalist who questions her role model status. Billy apologizes for wrecking Corinne’s career and asks her to return as the Looters’ opening act, but she refuses. Yet fate has its own plan: a radio broadcast reveals that the Stains’ first single is a hit, and years later, the band makes its MTV debut on Lawnboy’s newly launched label, having transformed from a chaotic underground act into a recognized phenomenon.
