Turn 21

Album review

There's a double-edged sword in the title of The Donnas Turn 21 -- they're now old enough to drink but a little too old for Barely Legal, thereby whittling their core audience of frustrated middle-aged rockers by a third, maybe. Then, there's the sound itself, which is less Ramones than retooled Runaways, a band that was never as wild, popular, or good as their revisionist reputation claims. The girls do their best to seem like crazy sluts, "spending every night in a different state/spending every night with a different date -- I'd do them all if I could," which just winds up just sounding a little desperate. Screwing police officers, wearing hot pants, dissing critics that gave them bad reviews, huffing and binge-drinking, giving midnight blowjobs, covering Judas Priest, and giving props to Cheech, Chong, and Schlitz -- if this is the music of young rock & rollers, then Neil Sedaka is still hip. At least this time they wrote their own tunes, so they mean it, man, but it can't help but feel a little pre-packaged and processed for an audience that was into this music before the Donnas were born. Occasionally, the band winds up with a hook and some momentum, as on "Drivin' Thru My Heart," but musically they're never as gaudy and raunchy as they should be; it says something if the Judas Priest cover is the only thing that really hits hard. Face it, if The Donnas Turn 21 sounded as shamelessly sexy as the lyrics and tarted-up images, it'd be a hell of a little rock & roll record. Instead, this inspires feelings of guilt instead of guilty pleasure.

© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo