Send "Jemina Pearl " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Spin |
 On her sweetly sassy solo debut, former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl makes the big pop move BYOP always seemed suspicious of, singing about good times and bad boys over fuzzy girl-group guitars that collapse the distance between the Ronettes and the Runaways. (Tweepunk fans nostalgic for the cardigan-clad likes of Tiger Trap will love this record.) The album's best cut, "I Hate People," is an unexpectedly bubbly May-December duet with Iggy Pop, but all of Break It Up ripples with raw power....full text |
| Nytimes |
| A short list of tweaks turns Gossip into a pop band on its album “Music for Men.” Concentrate a little more on melody. Round off some guitar distortion. Follow through on the dance beats of the 2006 studio album “Standing in the Way of Control.” And add instruments and backup vocals here and there to the band’s bare-bones sound: Hannah Blilie on drums, Brace Paine on guitar or bass and Beth Ditto on vocals. And voilà — indie-rock barnstormers are pop contenders. Formed in Olympia, Wash., in 1999, the Gossip worked the club circuit. At first it played stark blues-rock stomps like those of its contemporaries the White Stripes. But in 2006, having dropped the “the,” Gossip took up other riff-driven possibilities and it had dance-music producers remix tracks for an EP. The song “Standing in the Way of Control” was adopted by a British TV series, “Skins,” and became a European hit. With a move to a major label and a top producer, Rick Rubin, Gossip is now aiming well beyond its longtime base. “We’ll capture their attention,” Ms. Ditto vows in “Pop Goes the World,” over synthesizer bass and Latin percussion, adding, “We’ll make ’em stop and stare.”...full text |
| Pitchfork |
| "Drug runs and beer busts, it's all I know/ I don't wanna grow up and have to let go," barked Jemina Pearl on Be Your Own Pet's second and final LP, Get Awkward. "I feel the pressure to change my ways/ All I see are more dark days." By definition, BYOP was a fleeting endeavor-- a band of fuck-off teens destined to flame out rather than linger on. They wrote songs about food fights, robbing banks, and, like, adventuring; when Pearl declared, "We ride bikes, cars are for idiots," narrow side lanes turned into unfuckwithable alleys of cool. To BYOP, concerns about contentment, love, and mortality were laugh lines. They even turned typical punk rebellion into a cartoon farce. "Next year I'll be 21/ So look out, world, 'cause I wanna have fun," sang Pearl on BYOP's "Super Soaked". Now 22, Pearl's name is front and center on Break It Up, her solo bow recorded with BYOP drummer John Eatherly. The zombies and pizza parties of yore are replaced with predicted "dark days," though this Brooklyn by-way-of Nashville badass is still thrashing against maturity as best as she can. Case in point, here's the singer describing a recent altercation with a fan: "dude fucked up during the last song by flicking lit cigarettes at me. not cool. i kicked his ass, there was blood, and everyone at the show cheered because he sucked." In Pearl's world, there's black and white-- and maybe some red. Things that suck get what they deserve, whether they're asshole fans, jerky boyfriends, or simply the notion of growing up. She's an old-school punk in that there's little pretense; she thrashes about onstage because she wants to and not because she thinks it looks cool. According to her Ecstatic Peace label head (and Break It Up guest guitarist/vocalist) Thurston Moore, she's not "out to impress anybody; she [is] just kicking total ass." He should know....full text |
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