The Donnas - 'Gold Medal' (Atlantic)
2/5
By: Thomas Hannan
The Donnas have been around for ten years and 'Gold Medal' is their fifth album. That sentence took a long time to write, so difficult it was to comprehend; before penning it, it was surely understandable to be in a slight state of shock, mumbling barely intelligible noises that aimed for words like 'what?' and 'how?', but sounded more like faint grunts of incomprehensibility.
Hats off to them then, as to have made what has to have been a very successful career (as is made plainly obvious by the fact that they're still around) from records that all sound so very similar is a task much more complicated than the actual content of the music. The genius truly lies in finding an audience for five albums of it. If they can stick with it, and you can keep up the quality, give them what they want. Don't ever change. And, if you must do so, make the alterations slight. No running off in directions where we might not bother to come and find you.
So, whilst the slightly quieter, ever so faintly more considered 'Gold Medal' might be a sign of growing up, the modifications do nothing to take away from the party ethic; the songs about boys, the blatancy of the prose, or 'instantaneous' nature of the sound. That template isn't one you can deviate from very far without betraying one of those aforementioned that are the reasons people have stuck with you in the first place. The Donnas can't ever really challenge an audience, but neither side of the bargain wants that to happen.
The furthest they can get away from what we would predict also results in the album's strongest moments; a dazzling title-track, the cheesily pleasing rock of 'It's So Hard', the rewardingly planned song-craft of 'Revolver'. But too much of the rest of it can be dismissed as Donnas-by-numbers - the too easy to second guess 'I Don't Want To Know (If You Don't Want Me)', the all too characteristic 'Out Of My Hands' and unconsidered man-baiting of 'Takes One To Know One'. It is possible to retain a style without declining into self-parody (check Babes in Toyland, The Ramones, Johnny Cash), but such inconsequential little ditties as these don't seem to have woken up to that.
Of course, as their persisting existence and output explains, there is an actively enthused, be it airheaded gang of recipients, and we truly wish both sides of the relationship well. But as time goes on, it's difficult to not to see either one or the other dwindling away. The Donnas themselves have, in their greatest moments (a few of which contained here), reached a profound height of giddy, simple graciousness - but just how much more of the less elevated patches people will stick around for is perhaps some cause for concern.
Artists in this article: The Donnas
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