If you like the Riverdales, when Ben Weasel became Ben Foster; if you own one or two albums by the Queers; and if you like all-girl bands, chances are you will be turned on to the Donnas. The Donnas share a similar style, that sweet-pop, Fifties/Happy Days meets the rock-and-roll Ramones kind of sound Ben Foster and Joe Queer established for their bands. Songs include covers of “Da Doo Ron Ron” and Brian Wilson’s “Drive In.” Then there are titles like “High School Yum Yum,” “Hey, I’m Gonna Be Your Girl,” and “I Wanna Be A Unabomber.” An electric blend.
Be warned though: There are twenty-three songs on this album, which runs for a total of forty-one minutes. If you do the math, you’ll notice the average play time of each song falls short of two minutes. Because each song pretty much has the same kind of sound, after a while it starts to sound like you’re listening to one very long-playing song. The first time I listened to this album, I was cleaning my house and in the middle of taking out the trash, I started to wonder if maybe the CD player had been programmed to repeat and had I been listening to the same song for the past twenty minutes? No, I hadn’t been. And it was actually well into half of the album.
This is really, actually a fun, fast listen. Just make sure your CD player is not set on “track repeat,” and you’ll be okay. Lookout! Records, P.O. Box 11374, Berkeley, CA 94701; http://www.lookoutrecords.com
