Women with Grinding Axes

By Josh Tyrangiel

During its 575-episode run, Saturday Night Live has had four all-female rock groups as musical guests. SNL is a major rung on the ladder to mainstream success, and it's worth wondering why so few female bands get the chance to step up. Lilith Fair proved that plenty of ladies are eager to strap on a guitar, but very few seem to want to do it with their sisters--perhaps because they know that the (still) mostly male rock audience inevitably associates all-women bands with either gender politics or tickle fights.

The double standard at work is obvious. No one expects Hoobastank to speak for all men--just as no one wants to imagine what the band does on its tour bus--but it is also unavoidable. Which makes the success of the Donnas all the more impressive. These four twentysomethings cracked the SNL barrier in 2002 thanks to their major-label debut, Spend the Night, and on their new album, Gold Medal, they flower fully into woman rockerhood, teasing dirty young men with innuendo about sex and power ("Already met your mom and dad/ Said I'm the best one you've never had") while inspiring young women with entendres about sex and power ("May not be a man, but you're not one either/ Takes one to know one").

The Donnas are not a joke band, though they started out as one. After debuting in 1993 at their eighth-grade talent show and briefly hooking up with a producer-Svengali, each member assumed the pretend first name Donna (flipping the Ramones' gimmick of assuming the same last name) and played superfast punk riffs stolen from the Dead Boys and Voidoids. On Gold Medal they're going by their real names, and they have expanded their thievery to include licks from Loverboy, Kiss and other high priests of shallow catchiness. The music is nothing you haven't heard before. Songs like Fall Behind Me and Revolver fly by on the same mix of punk reverence and hair-band irony that fuels Weezer, the Hives and dozens of other bands. But the Donnas are better musicians than most of those other bands. Guitarist Allison Robertson in particular plays her three chords with tremendous clarity and without the pretension of genius. She knows this is popular art and delivers her hooks with the same ease with which they should be enjoyed.

Where the Donnas truly separate themselves is in their lyrics. All four Donnas claim writing credit, and Gold Medal marks the first time they're mature enough to be vulnerable as well as sassy. "So sorry you never wanted me," Brett Anderson sings on the title track, and she's not vengeful or funny, just hurt. Honesty imbues all of Gold Medal--honesty and independence. Just don't tell the boys. --By Josh Tyrangiel