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Album Review by Chuck Eddy
The Donnas - American Teenage Rock'n'Roll Machine (Lookout!)
The Donnas are 18 and don't know what they (really, really) want, but they know how to get it anyway. They hate vegetables and going steady, but love huffing glue in the girls' room and "going mano," whatever that means. And they dress so cool, like hot childs runnin' wild in the suburbs of '76: skintight leggings, brightly colored Converse All-Stars, and tight pastel T-shirts branded with Heathers-style stage names -- Donna R., Donna C., Donna F., and Donna A. Four Cali babes from affluent Palo Alto High, they've been filtering their sweet sassiness and youthful possibility through amps'n'mikes since the eighth grade (1992).
"When I was a freshman, I was all into girl bands, y'know, because I was, like, a dork, and was, like, `All right, riot grrrls!' " guitarist Donna R. said in an interview last year, while also dissing the band's self-titled 1996 album as sounding "like a tin can." But on American Teenage Rock'n'Roll Machine, the Donnas' Lookout! debut, they squeeze ten pep-rally pom-pom stomps into 24 shiny minutes of party-metal hair spray They pit ballroom blitzes against blitzkrieg bops and teen-era Redd Kross against "Tush"-era Girlschool, although lead singer Donna A. confesses that her real role model is forgotten new waver Nikki Corvette. The Donnas even tap Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" (see "Checkin' It Out" and "Looking For Blood"), but now little sister in her braces and boots is brandishing the switchblade.
"I can't wait to lose it / I'm a time bomb ready to go," reads the ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry anthem "Shake in the Action." But not ready to be Ma-Donnas yet, these desperate teenage lovedolls also insist that girls needn't give it up to live it up. So what if, in the next verse, our self-described "speed demons" claim they're not looking for a love that lasts, but need a shot and need it fast? They're merely aching to put their newfound sex-ed knowledge to use ("I know about getting it on"). In the album's juiciest ovulation explosion, they beg boys named Johnny Max and Chuck Chuck for "some stuff tonight." As Miss Missy Elliott would say, their hormones are pumping like a disco! (Lookout!, PO Box 11374, Berkeley, CA 94712-2374)