Spread the 'Gossip' around

Listen up fellas, Beth Ditto of Gossip doesn’t like you, despite what the title of the band’s latest effort, “Music For Men,” may suggest.

As if that’s not enough, the cover of the disc is a photograph of an androgynous being, complete with perfectly coiffed hair and arched eyebrows.

Ditto, a self-described out-and-proud overweight lesbian feminist, is no stranger to sexual politics and stickin’ it to the man. For instance, when she snarls soulfully, “It’s the perfect crime” of same-sex male trysts in “Men In Love,” you better believe her.

“Music For Men” is the disco-flavored, post-punk revival band’s first effort since 2006’s “Standing In the Way of Control,” which has seen prominence ranging from the U.K., where it went gold, to the prime time fly-and-flashy soap, “Gossip Girl.”

The result of “Music for Men” is a Rick Rubin-style (Rubin is the album's producer) wall of sound, raging a war on the loudness of ’70s-era punk, and a more cohesive album than Gossip’s previously more uneven discs. 

The 12-track album is full of sweet breakup jams like the “Sweet Dreams” feel of “Love and Let Love,” which features the abstract hook, “It’s a long long way to February / Where the ocean meets the sun.” “Four Letter Word” finds Ditto gleefully cynical with the lyric, “Never gonna fall in love again, never wanna see your face again.”

Those who love Gossip will be happy to discover a shinier, slicker sound chock full of the band’s typically genre-mashing schizophrenia. Those who find Ditto trite and disillusioned might want to take a long hard look in the mirror.