The Donnas: Gold Medal : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Somebody out there pissed off the Donnas real bad, and now the four sassy chicks from Palo Alto, California, are getting their revenge with Gold Medal -- a full album of hard rockin', bird-flipping tunes that come on like punky updates of "You're So Vain." Five albums in, these ladies have outgrown their limited palette of good-time party tunes about boys, cars and getting high, and have tapped into an emotional well full of more bile than anyone could have expected.

"Friends like mine will never let you down/Until you hit the ground," Brett "Donna A" Anderson snarls on "Friends Like Mine." "It Takes One to Know One" taunts the dude in question with lines such as "I may not be a man/But you're not one either." With help from producer Butch Walker, the Donnas indulge their Eighties hair-metal obsession more than ever before, with guitarist Allison "Donna R" Robertson wailing on solos that would make AC/DC's Angus Young proud.