Surely this can't be the same Gossip that released the punkified blues album That's Not What I Heard on KRS in 2000? Well yes it is. Six years later and there's barely a sniff of the wired guitars and rudimentary production values that saw The Gossip emerge from the Olympia scene along with the likes of Bangs.
Gossip have headed for the dance floor. Admittedly things start in fairly familiar territory. Listen Up! opens with a riff that is a step away from White Stripes' Seven Nation Army, but with a fat funky bass line and Beth's voice sounding like an indie Donna Summer: it's also not that far away from the kind of disco that thinks that disco balls are a whole new avenue in exciting lighting.
Although the original version of the song is pretty good, the mixes are where it comes into its own. Here Listen Up! explores similar territory to Kathleen Hannah's Le Tigre. Once the baggage of an 'authentic' sound is shed, it morphs into a bone fide floor filler. It practically instructs you to find your boogie shoes and shake your ass like there's no tomorrow. Word is that Gossip is good, so you'd better listen up.
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