And now, from Oakland… the anti-Hanson!<\/p>\n
Picking up the three-chord rhythm where the Ramones left off,
\nThe Donnas, a four-piece female punk group, bang through their
\nten-song debut
\nAmerican Teenage Rock ‘N’ Roll Machine<\/i> in just over 25
\nminutes, well too short to make a serious impression on the
\nlistener. But those 25 minutes are not bad, though some rough edges
\nremain.<\/p>\n
Led by vocalist Donna A., The Donnas lift some lines from the
\nRamones bible (like the importance of the radio on “Gimmie My
\nRadio”), but there’s a major difference between the godfathers of
\nAmerican punk and their daughters – The Donnas are an admittedly
\nhorny bunch, and have no problem singing about it. (The Ramones
\nwere more interested in sniffing glue than… oh, never mind.
\nThings like this will keep us from getting a family rating from
\nRSAC.)<\/p>\n
Donna R.’s guitar work isn’t bad, though I would have liked to
\nhave heard a little more in the lead department; she shows that she
\nknows her chops rather well. Bassist Donna F. is pretty hidden in
\nthe mix, while drummer Donna C. occasionally shows some weakness in
\nher fills on the skins – though this could also be the fault of a
\nrather poor production job.<\/p>\n
But it’s in the songs on
\nAmerican Teenage Rock ‘N’ Roll Machine<\/i> where The Donnas can
\nbe heard to be serious about what they’re doing – unlike The
\nRamones, The Donnas are willing to let a song stretch for a while
\nto get their point across. And while I can appreciate the teenage
\nhormones – they don’t get any easier at 27 than they were at 17,
\nlet me tell you – there are times I wish they’d get off the subject
\nof teen sex (“Wanna Get Some Stuff,” (“You Make Me Hot,” “Leather
\nOn Leather”).<\/p>\n
So how is the music? Well… better than one would have
\nexpected. Let’s face it, music from teenagers has been poo-poohed
\nthroughout rock’s history (remember The Runaways? Bad 4 Good?), and
\noften it hasn’t been that good. The Donnas do show some musical
\nimmaturity, but not so much that it cripples the album; indeed,
\nthere are times where their skills on their instruments surprised
\nme. But this maturity only comes with time and practice – and,
\nhopefully, better producers.<\/p>\n
But the biggest problem with the album is its brevity – it’s
\nreal hard to base a judgment on less than a half-hour worth of
\nstuff. C’mon, ladies, couldn’t you have thrown one or two more
\ntracks on this one to pad it out just a tad?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAmerican Teenage Rock ‘N’ Roll Machine<\/i> isn’t a punk
\nmasterpiece, nor is it the disappointment some would want to make
\nit out to be. For a debut album, not bad – but there should have
\nbeen more material to judge it on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7321],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38818","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-donnas","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38818"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38818"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}