Beth Ditto belongs in a museum. Somewhere where she can be preserved and taken care of so future audiences can appreciate the Gossip lead singer’s garage punk attitude and gilded vocals. Because the more time she spends with Gossip on her new major label, the more her value depreciates.
The Gossip that high school friends jammed down my eardrums was a screaming, unhinged frontwoman whose resonant soulful vocals could give way to man-eating caterwauls designed to unleash the fury of a woman with ravenous needs. Then came Standing in the Way of Control, which started to trend toward this post-punk sound that still suited Gossip, but didn’t fit it like the raw lo-fi sound of That’s Not What I Heard. Still, it was a step in a new direction and that’s fine. Not the same band, necessarily, but it still works.
Not so with Music for Men, which new major label overlords Sony finally released this week in physical form. While Ditto makes a point of bounding around on stage in whatever form she feels necessary, this album closes her in a white room with a synthesizer, fashions her hair ? la Flock of Seagulls and instructs her to, “Let it flow, but keep a cap on it.”
“Dimestore Diamond” is a brooding Gang of Four tribute in dance-punk clothing. With the lone baseline opening the track and Ditto seeming to slowly build her soulful drawl over the track, you think this might be promising. And halfway through, the climax is still building. OK, not building, but waiting. Then comes a guitar feedback that could have been recorded in a stock effects workshop, the repetitive sole guitar riff and an inexplicable pop, as if Ditto got bored when not singing and put a thumb in her mouth.
They didn’t spend the whole album fooling around, of course. The first single, “Heavy Cross,” lets Ditto unleash some of her fury over the breaking of some angular guitar work — albeit briefly — and “8th Wonder” shows Ditto regaining some of that empowerment the production values may have stripped of her: “You’re the eighth wonder of the world/ So don’t abuse it/ You’re just another beating drum/ For generations to come.”
Well, unfortunately for Ditto, the rest of this album makes her seem second-rate. “Long Distance Love” has Ditto fronting an early ’90s pop-R&B group with some phoned in vocals and even more hackneyed instrumentation. “Pop Goes the World” seems like someone decided it’d be cute to splice The Rapture with the Miami Sound Machine and see if she can keep up with the beat. “Four Letter Word” does the exact opposite, slowing down the beat and making Ditto compete with the most embarrassing synth blips and bloops.
The lyrics may be pretty lousy at times, such as the “Out of reach/ Out of time/ You always seem to be” refrain of “Vertical Rhythm,” but that’s rather forgivable when you hear it coming out of Ditto’s mouth. And that’s the thing. Other reviewers have noted how the lyrics seem forced or cheap when put in this context and seem to miss the point. Ditto’s never been an amazing lyricist, just a stellar vocalist and showwoman. It’s just that, on this album, she’s muffled.
That’s what makes the last track, “Spare Me From the Mold,” so confusing and yet so indicative of what Gossip should stick with. It’s the one track on the album where the guitar, drums and bass all back Ditto rather than suppressing her. This isn’t the garage rock we’re used to, but on this album, it’s a lot more appropriate than the half-hearted synth-pop fluff Music for Men usually sticks with.
If only Gossip would use the major label break to show off some dance moves instead of dragging their feet.
2 stars out of 5.
