Pandora Kills

"Pandora Kills"
Single by Romo from the album Romo
Released	August 8, 2011
Format	CD single Digital download
Recorded	2010
Genre	Alternative, electronic, experimental pop
Length	5:44 (album version) 4:03 (single version)
Label	Saturdays
Writer	Jenna Romo
Producer	Jenna Romo
Chart position	#3 (Urapopstar Singles Chart) #2 (Urapopstar Downloads Chart) #18 (Urapopstar Airplay 40)
Certification	Platinum
Additional artwork
UK CD2
Romo chronology
"Piccadilly Circus" (2011) "Pandora Kills" (2011) "Rinse, Rinse/Frenemies" (2011)

"Pandora Kills" is the third single from Romo's self-titled fourth album. The song was commercially released on August 8, 2011.

Romo has described the song as her most political. The song protests commercialism, over-development and overpopulation, hypothesizing that greedy business owners who exhaust the earth's natural resources while expanding their development will cause disastrous effects on the human race. Romo took heavy influence from the films Avatar and WALL-E while writing the song, and the title was inspired by the universe of Pandora featured in Avatar. Likewise, the song's music video depicts the Prime Minister of England as careless to his acceleration of doomsday and shows no desire to prioritize sustaining humanity.

"Pandora Kills" debuted at #3 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Charts upon its release, and despite being her lowest charting single of the album era thus far, managed to become the first single of her career to sell over 100,000 copies in its first week.

Background

The title "Pandora Kills" comes from the universe of Pandora, the setting of James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar. Romo has further stated that the idea to portray the song's antagonist as "imperialistic and oppressive" also came from the film, while the song's hypothesis that over-development could be fatal to humans came from the 2008 animated film WALL-E. The title was also inspired by the myth of Pandora's Box and how opening its contents unleash the evils of the world; in interviews about the song, Romo has said corporate greed and ignorance to threats to mankind are evils that would destroy the human race.

"Pandora Kills" came about after Romo visited the president of a major corporation in her home city of Manchester, expressing concern and outrage for his greedy demeanor. "The man - I won't name him, or the company he leads - he was selfish, and only cared about furthering his foundations just to make some cash. I asked him, don't you show some concern for what's going on in our world? We're trying to take care of the environment and we have an out of control population, continuing to develop means more electricity, more water and sewer usage, and a flux of more people buying things adding trash to the landfills, or worse, trashing our highways and our natural resources. He didn't seem to give a shit about what I had to say. He was clearly in it for his benefit and nothing more."

The song's lyrics describe a real estate developer who is interested in developing every inch of available land on Earth to a point that it exhausts natural resources. It contains references to the songs "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell and "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds (the latter of which is best known to modern audiences as the theme song for the TV series Weeds), both addressing the issue of development in the social consciousness. It is also known for its criticism of disgraced BP CEO Tony Hayward for allowing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to become as disastrous as it did: "Sunbathe in filth and show your American pride / It's Tony Hayward's way to show how trivial you are".

Lyrics

"Pandora Kills" makes Romo's anti-commercialism, pro-environment stance clear and known in the opening line: "Rainforest is a dirty word." The first three verses of the song describe the mission of the antagonist - an unidentified "you" who is assumed to be a real estate developer - who seeks to develop every strip of open land he can find for commercial development. The opening verses describe the beliefs and actions of the antagonist; he believes open land is worthless and seeks to develop it all into high-priced condominiums. The line "chew the fat from our wallets" suggests the protagonist is receiving support from the government, which itself receives support from taxpaying citizens. In the third verse - noted for its heavy use of metaphors - the antagonist emerges successful in his mission, much to the displeasure of the narrator: "You fuck away our territory / Impregnating the ground you walk on / With concrete, solid and soulless".

The remainder of the song describes the aftermath of the antagonist's actions. Fast food restaurants, shopping malls and sleazy hotels pack the streets and the people who do not support the antagonist's plans are driven out of town so he can continue building more property - even a McDonald's restaurant just steps away from Stonehenge. Global warming occurs and causes the earth to see more extreme temperatures during the summer and winter months, increasing the planet's vulnerablity to natural disasters. With more development, more babies are born, and with more human life on Earth, more resources are required to sustain their lives.

In the final lines of the song, Romo implies Earth does not have enough resources to support overpopulation, which she labels "a metropolitan pandemic", and states her belief that overpopulation would cause the end of the human race.

Critical reception

"Pandora Kills" received general acclaim from critics, who saw the song as a "major risk" for Romo, not only for its stark musical departure from past songs, but also by applying the sardonic personality she is known for to a real world issue. In its review for the album, Q Magazine stated, "Few songs are convincing enough to eliminate our doubts that an artist won't succeed outside of the comfort zone. For Romo, with 'Schizo Pop' we knew she could take on the world of pop music. Now, with 'Pandora Kills', she successfully destroys the comfort zone."

Popmatters' review for Romo named "Pandora Kills" as the album's highlight, saying, "Romo's parable on the uncertain future of our environment carries an apocalyptic tone with dark synths and trippy beats dominating the soundscape, lined with attacks real estate developers, big box corporations, and even former BP CEO Tony Hayward. Romo's blending of the moral and philosophical tones of her debut album Eve with her blunt and direct way of words she is known for in her dealings with her peers helps this song stand out amongst her catalog."

Controversy

Upon the release of Romo, several industry insiders claimed the idea for "Pandora Kills" was plagiarized from FERROXYL's songs "Lullaby For Mother Earth" and "How I Operate", both taken from their debut album Earth And Her Poisons. Romo has vehemently denied this claim, saying she composed and recorded the song before she even heard of FERROXYL.

In addition, the song has come under fire from conservative commentators, who regard the song as "anti-capitalist" and "extremist propaganda".

Track listings

CD1

1. Pandora Kills (album version)
2. Pandora Kills (Skrillex remix)
3. They Call Her Pandora

CD2

1. Pandora Kills (Ximena's Hope Mix)
2. Pandora Kills (NLT's ...Forgive Us Edit)
3. Pandora Kills (I'll return, when the Pandorica Opens mega mix)
4. Pandora Kills (Nicholas X's Electronica Mix)
5. Pandora Kills (Tiffany Amber's Tiffany Amber Mix)
6. Apocalypse Kills (vs. Alesha's "Apocalypse City")
7. Like Pandora (Time Kills) (Romaulo Paulomo Mash-Up)
8. Pandora Kills (Bella-May's "I Enjoy Nude Pillow Fighting" Remix) (bonus track)

Promotion

Full time promotion for "Pandora Kills" began on June 30, 2011. During this time, Romo began her third headlining tour, Taking Back Music. She also continued to keep up with Internet memes by having her previous single remixed by a YouTube user who inserted unintelligible ramblings from fictional character Nigel Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys into the track, and received $250 from a fan for taking a picture with him where the two were planking on a stairway. Romo also received publicity for attending the premiere of Prime Cut wearing Justin Bieber memorabilia, saying she "lost a bet."

Romo also put up an ad on Craigslist asking for a "new BFF" to take China's place while the singer is on hiatus. The singer has considered MIDNIGHT, Cassie Diamond and L'mondrea as likely candidates. She also requested Sienna Martinez contribute vocals for a remix of "Pandora Kills". Despite this, Romo has spent the most time mingling with Kelly Dando from Ace Rejects, her closest competitor on the release date, quickly taking a liking to her because of similar interests.

She also turned down an offer from a street beggar to appear on ITV's flop breakfast show Daybreak, visited France, went to a movie premiere with a monkey as her date, and attacked Kidz Bop for releasing a creatively censored cover of her previous single "Piccadilly Circus".

Performances

"Pandora Kills" was played live for the first time during a 10-date mini-tour of the United Kingdom in which Romo tested the material of her fourth album. It was performed at the 2010 Christmas Chart Show as a medley with the album's lead single "Music From Mars".

Music video

Development

Romo filmed the video for "Pandora Kills" for a period of three days between July 8-11, 2011, in Los Angeles, California, and it officially premiered on VEVO on August 1, 2011. Although the video is set in London, Romo used CGI and green screen technology to achieve the desired effects of her apocalyptic future vision of Earth.

In advance of the video's release, Romo stated "Pandora Kills" would "not be a pop video" and described it as "probably the scariest shit you'll ever watch".

The video is Romo's most expensive to date, and one of the most expensive videos produced on Urapopstar, costing over $2 million. Romo said she financed most of the video's expenses out of her own pocket.

Synopsis

"It shows a horrific vision of the apocalypse, in which the victims are so taken in by the government and their destructive agenda they are physically, mentally and emotionally incapable of preventing imminent doom. I hope this will serve as a dark reminder to you to think before you support corporate greed, the Tescos and Walmarts of the world."

— Romo

The video depicts the United Kingdom in the year 4511. A massive conglomerate takes over the country, buys every acre of open land and uses it to develop real estate, causing the entire country to resemble a dark metropolis. The overflow of commercial development and a massive population increase caused shifts in the earth's movement and global warming, both of disastrous proportions. The life expectancy on Earth is only 30 years old.

In London, the mass of people walking through the streets are obese and wearing gas masks, as they struggle to move around town and carry out basic functions of a city such as fire and rescue transport.

Romo is depicted in the video as a frail, graying old woman, who reveals her age to be 35. She claims she was among the last generation who criticized the takeover of the developer, who is revealed in the video to be the Prime Minister, but when her generation started dying off, the conglomerate won the public over by suggesting if it took over the country people would never have to pay taxes again.

The Prime Minister, who also serves as CEO of the real estate conglomerate Martcoville, is greeted by his advisers with a study that would help improve air quality, but he shoots it down as a criticism of his administration. Romo wants to form an uprising against the Prime Minister, but fails to garner any support from the townspeople, who are shown to be oblivious to any problems in their surroundings as they were conditioned to accept it for what it was. A building, referred to in the video as the Murdoch Tower (a reference to media titan Rupert Murdoch), collapses, causing destruction in the city and panic among the Prime Minister's advisers, but he instead wishes to rebuild the tower bigger and better than the last one.

Upon watching news reports showing further destruction, yet also showing tranquility outside 10 Downing Street where the Prime Minister resides, Romo decides she does not want to live if it means living on an earth where everyone is suffering and they don't want to better their circumstances. She draws a bath and overdoses on pills, with the intention of killing herself by putting herself in a sleep she won't get out of.

While Romo is passed out, more chaos ensues, including the destruction of Big Ben and the death of a street musician resembling Romo who performs her previous single "Piccadilly Circus" in Piccadilly Circus who is killed by one of the sign advertisements at the junction. Two elderly women who live in Romo's apartment building notice Romo passed out in the bathtub and attempt to carry her out of the building before disaster strikes, but are physically incapable. The final scene of the video shows Romo regaining consciousness at the very moment an earthquake shatters the ground beneath her, killing her.

Critical reception

Like the song itself, Romo's music video for "Pandora Kills" received general acclaim from most critics. The consensus is the video not only effectively mirrors the themes of the song's lyrics, but provides a compelling narrative and action-packed sequences expected in a Hollywood blockbuster but not in a music video, setting it apart from videos released by the current crop of hitmakers.

Ban

The video for "Pandora Kills" was banned from television and pulled from VEVO on August 8, 2011, just one week after the video's premiere. British television networks considered the video inappropriate in the wake of the London riots. The move drew criticism from both Romo and her label Holy Trinity/Saturdays Records, who viewed it as an unnecessary means of censorship.

The video later reappeared on VEVO on August 15, 2011.

Chart performance

In a highly competitive chart battle with Sandi Cohen and Ace Rejects, "Pandora Kills" debuted at #3 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart upon its release, but because of the major publicity for the chart battle, sold a whopping 103,298 copies in its first week, marking Romo's first single ever to sell over 100,000 copies in a single week. "Pandora Kills" has sold 266,715 copies, enough to be certified platinum.

"Pandora Kills" also became Romo's third consecutive #2 single on the Urapopstar Downloads Chart.

External links

Lyrics