Not In This Disco
The title of Gossip’s fourth album, and major-label debut, is loaded. There’s the obvious visual gag of butch drummer Hannah Blilie plastered on the cover, hair coiffed and glowering moodily like she’s Chris Isaak. But, mostly, it seems like the band are mocking the crossover expectations of their new corporate overloads. Having long garnered a cult following of, as their friends Le Tigre once sang, “the ladies and the fags,” Sony's clearly hoping the band hits an untapped market: men.
The punchline, upon playing the record, is that Gossip have never sounded so queer. Early albums may’ve been steeped in dyke politicking, but, musically, they were dealing in that most masculine of musical modes: balls-out rock’n’roll. Music for Men tries its gloved hand at punk-funk, dance-rock, and unironic electro; their one-time guitar/drums set-up now trussed up in synthesizers.
It’s an extreme make-over that goes beyond mere accessorising: “Love Long Distance” dabbles in the piano-riffing of early-’90s pop-house, “Four Letter Word” is built entirely from synth parts, and “Pop Goes the World” sounds rather like a suitably-cheesy Eurovision Song Contest entry.
Making Music For The Man, Gossip sound big and slick and ready for corporate radio; legendary beardo Rick Rubin roped in to polish them up for the US. After their third album, 2006’s Standing in the Way of Control, blew up in England, singer Beth Ditto became a bonafide British-tabloid celebrity, and sales spiked even more. Now cemented as chart act in Europe and Australia, Gossip will be sold unto their homeland anew.
The Ambitions Are:
Which is suitably symbolic, given fans of the band’s early works will find little left of the Gossip-they-loved on Music for Men. It’s only on closing number “2012” that things sound suitably punk and urgent. Here, Ditto lets loose with a performance that reminds you of her vocal heft; yelling with a wailing vibrato like she’s trying to channel Corin Tucker.
For much of the rest of the record, Ditto sounds forcefully restrained; forever hedging in an attempt to sound refined. Similarly, the album itself sounds somewhere between stilted and self-conscious; the ramshackle, punk stumblings of their beginnings now hidden behind a fashionable façade, the prospect of imminent fame seemingly causing Gossip to freeze up.
A logical comparison for the LP may indeed be Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ It’s Blitz!. The similarities between the bands are striking: pin-up singer, guitar/drums backing, started out drenched in raw rock’n’roll before graduating to electro-addled festival-sized grandeur.
But, there’s one key difference: It’s Blitz! sounded like Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ growing into their own commercial ambitions. Music for Men sounds like Gossip trying to live up to the commercial ambitions imposed upon them by others.
Record Label: Columbia
Release Date: June 23, 2009
