Gossip - Music for Men
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Music for Men is the first full-length, major-label release from Gossip, an indie rock trio based out of Portland, Oregon. Attention always seems focused on the plus-sized, lesbian frontwoman of the group, Beth Ditto, but Gossip would not exist without the musical talents of guitarist Brace Paine. Hannah Blilie does an admiral job on drums as well, but Paine also plays bass and keyboards. Ditto frequently uses common (and sometimes clichéd) sayings in place of actual lyrics – like “misery loves company,” “…where it stops, nobody knows,” “what goes around…” and “dance like there’s nobody looking” – and, additionally, she has no compunctions about appropriating lyrics from other people’s songs. To be fair, she also regularly changes words to make the phrases her own and the cribbed lyrics always work much better than the sayings.
Rick Rubin helped them produce an album with elements of new wave, blues and post-punk…all tied together with a disco groove. The first notable song is “Heavy Cross” since the repetitive chorus of "Dimestore Diamond" begins to grate after a listen or two. "Pop Goes the World" and "Vertical Rhythm” are the next good ones, followed by another annoying song, "Men in Love," the new “gay message” track from the band. "2012" and "Love and Let Love" are also worth mentioning and the last song has a great punky rawness that almost gets a mention by name.
- Score
- 71%
Music for Men sounds better than Standing in the Way of Control – no doubt because of Rick Rubin’s production – but it also seems like a collection of songs that (with a couple exceptions mentioned above) won’t gradually become more and more unlistenable with time like the popular title track of the previous album.
