PANIC OF GIRLS
BASIC INFORMATION
Artist: Blondie
Release date: May 30, 2011
Genre: As with Blondie, everything.
New Wave, rock, pop, dance-rock, reggae
Producers: Jeff Saltzman, Kato
Khandwala
Singles: ‘Mother’, ‘What I Heard’
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The
title is certainly an attention-grabbing and impressive one, suggesting a sense
of mania that the album never quite manages to reach. The cover, by Dutch
artist Chris Berens, is a thing of beauty: fantastically weird and mismatched,
it kinds of fits with the album, presenting distorted whirlwind-y figures of
the band, maybe to reflect the distorted, all-over-the-place nature of the
material. The title and the cover are definitely good for getting people to
pick up the album.
TRACK-BY-TRACK
D-Day: A very strong start to the album with a fast-paced rock track. Debbie
Harry’s vocals are cybernetic and futuristic in places. The lyrics are strong
and the song doesn’t overstay its welcome, remaining punchy, thoroughly modern,
and engaging. 10/10.
What I Heard: Continuing the opening shock
of Panic of Girls, the album’s second
single is more radio-friendly and more pop than ‘D-Day’, boasting a fizzing
rock-tinged pop instrumental, good lyrics and good singing. Nothing is truly
better than ‘average’ here, although new bandmember Matt Katz-Bohen is to be
commended for bottling the Blondie sound. 7/10.
Mother: Similar-sounding in
production to ‘What I Heard’ and ‘Love Doesn’t Frighten Me’, this is probably
the most radio-friendly track on the album, continuing the opening pop-rock
punch of the album. The lyrics are good, the production average and the singing
enthusiastic in a track worthy of being the lead single to the album. 8/10.
The End the End: The cyber-punk punch of the
beginning of the album now ends as the record slides into reggae. This is a
pleasant foray into reggae, and while it’s a little light of substance, it’s a
harmless little album track, so you can’t be too mean to it. Debbie Harry’s
vocals are perfect. 8/10.
Girlie Girlie: Blondie do covers so
perfectly. Think Hanging on the Telephone or Denis. And Debbie Harry’s
uber-confident rendition of this Sophia George cover made me believe upon first
listen that she had written it. It’s so Blondie and so brilliant for that
reason. You can tell Debbie and the whole band are having a ball here. 9/10.
Love Doesn’t Frighten Me: Recalling ‘Mother’ and ‘What
I Heard’, this song has a nice opening riff, lyrics which aren’t just up to
par, singing which is a little too uniform and regulated, but impressive performances
from the whole band. This just sounds a little too neat, but all in all is
still impressive. 8/10.
Words in My Mouth: The album drops again after
the blast of fresh air that was “Love Doesn’t Frighten Me”. A pleasant enough
song, and a nice calming-down point for the album. Written by the geniuses
behind ‘D-Day’ and ‘Horizontal Twist’, there’s nothing wrong with this, to be
honest. But surrounded by “Wipe Off My Sweat”, “Girlie Girlie” and “Love
Doesn’t Frighten Me”, it looks a little bit like the Ugly Duckling of the
middle of Panic. 7/10.
Sunday Smile: The third of this album’s
customary “Tide is High” pastiches, this cover has no real place on the album.
Its alleged reggae-calypso charms fall flat on their face, as Debbie Harry
doesn’t sing with conviction, the band doesn’t play with conviction, and the
song drags on for what seems like hours longer than anybody wants. This is the
point where the album, which has been flying reasonably high in the sky until
now, suddenly malfunctions and starts to crash into the ocean. 2/10.
Wipe Off My Sweat: The production on this song
is so bad I could cry. It sounds like one of those terrible remixes of ‘Atomic’
that was on that compilation from 1998. Nevertheless, the song comes from three
of the band’s songwriting masterminds, and although there is unnecessary
Spanish lyricism, the song is fast-paced and doesn’t sink too far down into the
water. 6/10.
Le Bleu: Four and a half minutes of
totally unnecessary pseudo-French accordion-y music-hall tat that has no place
even on a traditionally experimental Blondie album, to be brutally honest.
There are few nice moments in what is an unnecessarily lengthy and dull song.
This, along with ‘Sunday Smile’ and ‘Mirame’, is what’s really, really letting
the album down. 1/10.
China Shoes: This is so lovely it made
Lady Gaga cry. Haunting and melancholic, this is a quiet standout of the album;
certainly the best ballad-y slow track on the album, it’s likely to get
neglected because of its slow tempo. The lyrics are some of the best ever by
Blondie, and the music beautiful, proving there’s nothing wrong with a bit of
Harry and Stein, and ending the album in the same fantastically good manner as
it began. 10/10.
BONUS TRACKS
Horizontal Twist: This is the most fun track
on the album, and entirely deserving of being featured on the album. It’s SO
FUN! Debbie gives her best vocals on the album, sounding so effortlessly cool,
and the lyrics are weird and fun and rhyme-y and fantastic. The music is simple
but awesome, dance-able, and fun. Other artists would kill to have songs like this. 10/10.
Mirame: The third culprit of why the
album is so bad, it’s understandable why this was reduced to only be a bonus
track, for it is awful. Blondie has always been, no matter how experimental in
their albums, a New Wave, pop-rock, punk-y band. Why all the unnecessary
excursions into reggae and world-music? The opening riff is lovely, and it
repeats through the song, but from the first word of Spanish it’s clear this is
a miss rather than a hit. 1/10.
End of the World: This is six minutes long. Six minutes long. SIX F***ING MINUTES
LONG! And worse still, it’s not even a good song. It’s six minutes of the sort
of dreariness that makes you so desperate you will even listen to “Sunday
Smile”. There’s nothing good in a forgettable six minutes of misery and sorrow.
1/10.
Sleeping Giant: Why this is merely a bonus
track is a question that will never have a good enough answer. This is
beautiful, and fascinating, and cyber-rock, and with the most superb lyrics
ever witnessed (apart from those on ‘China Shoes’). Another perfect slice of
Harry and Stein. I have the notion that back in 1979 or so, the essence of a
perfect Blondie song was bottled for future use. This is one of the times when
the bottle was opened. 10/10.
OVERVIEW
Given
that it was eight years since the previous Blondie release, this is impressive
stuff, showing that the well hasn’t run dry yet… just. The good tracks are
FANTASTIC, and the bad tracks are suicide-inducingly AWFUL. There’s a clear
rift. Jeff Saltzman’s production has its flaws in places, but he is a good
addition to the band’s production. This album would have benefited massively
from “Horizontal Twist” and “Sleeping Giant” being on it. Above all, this is a
case of the band trying to please too many people at once – reggae fans, rock
fans, Spanish fans, French fans – and as such the album lacks focus and
alienates long-standing Blondie fans; at least this reinforces the notion that
you never know what you’re getting with Blondie. Despite this, Debbie Harry’s
vocals are as good as ever in the strongest release since Blondie’s comeback…
until the upcoming “Ghosts of Download”, that is… 5/10 just for being so out there, and not being afraid of taking a
new direction. However, a 7/10 for
the Special Editions.
IMPROVEMENT STATION
The
album’s main problem is its reggae and world-music tracks – there was no real
reason for two of the album’s tracks (three on the Collector’s Pack edition) to
be sung in different languages, just as there was no real reason for so much
reggae. If the whole album continued the cyber-punk feel of tracks like “D-Day”
and “Horizontal Twist”, this would surely have been a hit.
I think the real way to
improve this would have been just to let the band loose – Debbie Harry is a
fantastic lyricist, and Matt Katz-Bohen and Chris Stein fantastic songwriters.
If the album was written entirely by Harry, Katz-Bohen and Stein along with
Barb Morrison and Charles Neiland (‘D Day’, ‘Words in My Mouth’, ‘Horizontal
Twist’), this would have been a lot better.
‘End of the World’, ‘Sunday
Smile’ and ‘Le Bleu’ overstay their welcome – surely a chorus could have been
cut from these at least? (‘End of the World’ runs to almost six minutes, for example).
You can never have the
perfect version of Panic of Girls.
This is because there were two special editions – the Deluxe Edition and the
Collector’s Pack (which includes badges, the album, a magazine, photos,
postcards and a poster). Each of the special editions included two bonus
tracks. Unfortunately, the Deluxe Edition has “Sleeping Giant”, which is great,
but it has “End of the World” too. Likewise, the Collector’s Pack has
“Horizontal Twist”, which is fabulous, but “Mirame” too. An improvement would
be if “Sleeping Giant” and “Horizontal Twist” were on the same Deluxe Edition
of the album.
The tracklist is sloppy and
messy. It begins well but there is far too much reggae, with the hits
distributed far and few between. In addition to this, some of the best tracks
are reserved for the Special Editions. IMO an improved tracklist would be:
1) D- Day
2) What I Heard
3) Bride of Infinity [an
outtake from the recording sessions]
4) Girlie Girlie
5) The End the End
6) Mother
7) Love Doesn’t Frighten Me
8) Horizontal Twist
9) Sleeping Giant
10) China Shoes
DELUXE EDITION
11) Words in My Mouth
12) Practice Makes Perfect
[another outtake]
SOUTH AMERICA / SPAIN ONLY
11) Wipe Off My Sweat
COMING SOON: Hopefully, some Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga reviews will be coming soon, all leading up to a review of Blondie's brand-new album "Ghosts of Download" around May 16, and a review of its accompanying album "Deluxe Redux" a day or two later.
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