Blondie - Blondie - Greatest Hits
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Music CD Cover
Artist: BlondieEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
CD Release Date: 2006-10-03
Music Label: Capitol
Product features:
- BLONDIE GREATEST HITS
- Dreaming
- Call Me
- One Way or Another
- Heart of Glass
- The Tide Is High
- X Offender
- Hanging on the Telephone
- Rip Her to Shreds
- Rapture
- Atomic
- Picture This
- In the Flesh
- Denis
- (I'm Always Touched by Your) Prescence, Dear
- Union City Blue
- The Hardest Part
- Island of Lost Souls
- Sunday Girl
- Maria
Free Music Notes for Blondie - Greatest Hits
Free Music Review: Blondie have gone way up in my estimation now...
Hit: 5 Stars
After listening to this album, I'd have to say that Blondie are one of a handful of the best US bands of all time...maybe top 3...if not better. This re-evaluation of the band is due to listening to a lot of songs which you don't hear on commercial FM stations in Australia. Over here, you can expect to hear "Heart of glass" a lot. I used to find this a great song but now tend to avoid listening to it when it's on the radio. You do tend to hear "Call me" often too, which is a great, driving, rock song. Too much of that song is barely enough, as Roy and H.G. might say.
It was great to rediscover "The hardest part", a song I had totally forgotten from "Eat to the beat", an L.P. I used to own as a kid. Listening to that song now, it strikes me as the kind of song Jimmy Barnes or AC/DC would do...a very boyzone kind of track, in stark contrast to the sublime girly vocals that lead singer Debbie Harry usually does. If I hadn't just checked Amazon's listing for "Eat to the beat" I would have said that this compilation I'm reviewing is definitive, but some of the songs listed on "Eat to the beat" ring a few bells for me, so maybe a couple more songs from the that earlier album would have done the trick. In any case, this compilation is vastly superior to some skinny compilations I've seen around the place.
The sound quality on this cd is quite good...sounds really bright, and I tend to like that quality in cds. On occasion, it may sound a bit harsh but otherwise, I have no complaints.
One of the qualities I like about the band is the satisfying drumming/drum sound. I make the same comment in my review of The Police's latest compilation. The major hook of the band is the silky, liquid, cooing vocals of Debbie Harry, the blonde bombshell of the band. She can really hold a note too. A great front woman.
Listening to this cd, another comment I can make about their music is the style that they play. To me, they seem to have been influenced by 50's music, and 60's girl band music, but they give a modern update to it.
They do experiment with music though: "The tide is high" [which features a Darth Vader look alike in the video!] has a reggae feel to it, and "Island of lost souls" has a Calypso sound to it. The latter was a minor hit in Australia and I think it was the last time the band charted here.
There are two good songs which features Harry incorporating French lyrics to great effect: "Denis" and "Sunday girl".
My pick as the best songs on this album are "Call me" and "Atomic". The latter has a great bass line in the middle of it. One of the best songs for a great bass solo.
Blondie can also lay claim to being one of the first, if not the first band to take rap music mainstream with "Rapture". The pre-rap part of this song is divine, with Harry at her sensual, sexual, cooing best. It has a gorgeous bell melody at the start, with Harry sounding all girly, then sounding like a sexual woman later in the piece [the song "Maria" also has a very nice bell part to it]. Her rapping and the video are historically interesting for mentioning some 'names' of that scene at the time. The video features graffiti art by well known 'taggers' of the time [graffiti artists].
Some of the songs which make me think of 50's/60's acts are: Dreaming [60's], X Offender [50's/60's], In the flesh [50's/60's girl band sound], Denis [has a Buddy Holly sound, from the 50's] and Sunday Girl.
Apart from the two songs which I think are great [Call me/Atomic/Rapture], the songs I consider to be good on this album are: Dreaming/The tide is high/In the flesh/Denis/Union city blue/The hardest part/Sunday girl/ and Maria. "Union city blue" is a soaring, anthemic song...perfect to sing along too!
Australia gave Blondie their first international hit. Harry says:
"We met Ian [host of seminal Australian music show "Countdown"] in 1977 when we were supporting Iggy Pop in the States. He asked us if we had any videos. We gave him videos for X-Offender and In The Flesh. On Countdown they were meant to play X-Offender, but they played In The Flesh instead. So our success in Australia was one big mistake! By the end of 1977, In The Flesh had hit number two in Australia. It was our first hit anywhere in the world".
Have heard Harry say elsewhere, I think, that maybe Australian stations were a bit too conservative to play "X Offender" at the time. Hearing the latter song for the first time on this cd, I find that amusing. The song isn't particularly confronting and I think "In the flesh" is actually the superior song...by a loooooooong way.
Lastly, some years ago I saw Blondie on pay tv, playing live. I thought Harry was awful...she was still acting like she was the blonde bombshell she used to be and her singing reminded you of how great she used to sing these classics. My wish was for Harry to develop another kind of stage persona and sing her songs in a different, but cool way. Say, maybe more punkish, or raunchy...like Tina Turner, perhaps. A couple of songs on this album could show the way for her, I think: "One way or another" which has a freakshow carnival sort of vocal sound to it...phlegmy etc. "Picture this", which sounds a little Country, has Harry making gargling sounds with her singing. Finding a similar edger to her voice now I think would suit the band perfectly...age has taken away her sublime voice and the ability to hold those notes.
Without this album, I'd be restricted to thinking that the only decent songs this band had are the ones you hear on commercial radio in Australia. The fact that these stations always flog songs to death should be a warning on how bad that assumption is.
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are probably the only American band which shades Blondie. This album is a must buy for pop/rock fans.
Blondie - Greatest Hits Poster
Blondie Photos
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