The music of the Donnas is cleverer and more enjoyable than most of the retro-pop I've heard lately. Though it's high-school kids who compose the group's fan base, it's boomer music critics who've become their champions. They like these girls from Palo Alto, Calif., because they say they're the first punk band that's successfully built on the deceptively simple premise of the Ramones: fast, melodic, loud songs about adolescent stupidity, though in the Donnas' case it's from a female point of view.
I think the multigenerational appeal is deeper. Take the name. Back in the '70s, it was probably the second most common female name (after Debbie) at my high school. Although all four girls use the name on stage, their real names would never have appeared in my yearbook. Brett? Maya? Torry? I think there was one Allison in my graduating class, but the other three obviously have lapsed hippie parents. I would guess that's where they heard the first three Ramones albums, all of which were released before they were born. Maybe their dads all dated Donnas.
Then there's the subject matter. Though the American high school experience of jocks/cheerleaders vs. dorks/bohemians seems to be an unassailable archetype, I don't recognize much of my own experience in recent movies such as "She's All That." A lot of it has to do with Hollywood stereotypes (I don't recognize my own experience in "Rebel Without a Cause," either), but mainly it has to do with the details.