Album: Blondie, Panic of Girls (EMI / Eleven Seven)

Reviewed
Sunday 03 July 2011 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Blondie are the most reluctantly retro of bands, their leader a heritage heroine who hates being treated like a museum piece.

One has to admire a woman who, at 65, would still rather push things forward than look over her shoulder. So while PoG indubitably carries the DNA of classic Blondie, it's retooled for the 21st century.

The first punk band to embrace disco ("Heart of Glass") and hip-hop ("Rapture"), they unapologetically rip into this album with a pulsating and mangled electro-pop opener called "D-Day", and rarely, if ever, lapse into giving people a poor photocopy of Parallel Lines. There's one bum note in the form of a cover of Sophie George's dreadful 1980s reggae hit "Girlie Girlie" ("Hey, 'Tide Is High' did pretty well for us 29 years ago...). Other than that, "Le Bleu", a charming bit of chanson, is about as old-fashioned as it gets. For that, respect is due.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in