Gold Medal
The Donnas
(Atlantic)
\I don't wanna know if you don't want me, no"" croons The Donnas lead singer Brett Anderson, and no, Gold Medal is not a wanted album. Not only is it an over-produced and overtly polished attempt to capture a mainstream audience out of the attention that the Donnas garnered with their 2002 hit single ""Take It Off,"" but it is an album that is, throughout, entirety lacking a clear definition of musical ambition and what the band is hoping to accomplish through their attempt to look back to retro-1970s folk-rock.
Known for their loud, amplified guitars, heavy drums and a musical tenacity towards their male-dominated industry, The Donnas' Gold Medal is a huge disappointment to all of the above qualities that have drawn Donnas fans to their blend of solid, hard-hitting rock that is rare within an era of female bands that are more often found to be within the likes of Lillix than of Kittie.
With Gold Medal comes a slick production and an obvious attempt at setting an agenda. Harkening back to the mid-1970s, Gold Medal looks to transport the band into the era of big hair, solid-rock, tube socks and feminist coming-of-age. Their attempt at using tried-and-true formulas in an attempt to produce modern retro hits draws comparisons to Jet and its use of raw, throw-back wailing in their hits ""Are You Gonna Be My Girl"" and ""Cold Hard Bitch."" But while Jet succeeded to produce its wanted sound in its attempt to go retro, Gold Medal's music is a mix of acoustic, electric and vocals that commonly blend to the point that the focus becomes lost and the songs indistinctive. More often slower in tempo than their electric guitar lines would normally warrant, The Donnas took a huge gamble on this album and did
not succeed.
While previous hits have announced the Donnas as women (not girls) to be reckoned with in music, this album is a joke, and further solidifies itself as such when the included music video for ""Fall Behind Me"" starts with rainbows and unicorns progressing across the screen in unison with the screeching guitar opening. It's a little hard to believe a woman who's singing, ""You're gonna cry and beg for mercy"" when rainbows are flittering through her technicolor, digitally enhanced persona.
It is the included video that best exemplifies that this album has new hands on deck steering the ship and, for all intents and purposes, is running it into the ground. If the Donnas do some soul-searching and return to what they are good at, especially their loud, raw guitars and punching lyrics, and stay away from the packaged, uninteresting mush that is present in Gold Medal, they will have a future within the industry with something to show for having the talent to rock like no other all-female band that is currently on the market. If they don't, it will be very easy to push them into the column with the over-produced, managed likes of Lillix.
-Bridget Maniaci
