Curse Of Blondie, The - Blondie > Reviews > BLONDE & BEYOND

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Some top songs
Disadvantages:	Moments where the quality control falters

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Talk about not capturing the moment. Blondie reunite in 1998 after a sixteen year absence, and soon enough they find themselves back on top of the charts with the ice-cool 'Maria'. The accompanying album, 'No Exit', was a disappointingly mediocre effort, but sold very well. You'd think that a band as savvy as Blondie would size this momentum and record some new material soon after this success? Sadly, Blondie have done the exact opposite, hence a lengthy five years later we see the release of 'The Curse of Blondie', taking its name from the various disasters and court-room dramas that are following the band around these days. And the album itself? Yikes, it's not very good.

As with 'No Exit', the quality control seems to let Blondie down. Blondie seem to have this uncanny knack for writing some fantastic songs and then sitting them next to really dire, uninspired material on the albums. This was painfully evident on 'No Exit', where quality cuts like the aforementioned 'Maria' and 'Screaming Skin' sat next to dross like 'Forgive And Forget' and the abhorrent title track, and it is true here. It would be unfair to say this is a consistently bad album, because there are a number of bright spots. But it's a rule for this band that when they're good, they're very, very good, but when they're bad they are horrid.

The album opens on the worst possible note; 'Shakedown' is absolutely terrible - a stiff, immobile exercise is faux-hip-hop which is really embarrassing to listen to. It's silly, forced and embarrassing. Nobody with a healthy level of sanity needs to hear a 50-something woman rap "I think I'd have a better chance to see the pope/I get so bored with his shtick and his mini-minute dick/And all his high and mighty shit, I'm a witch/Well, well, well a wish wanna throw it in a ditch". Why do a rap song? Why oh why? This is the band that wrote the seminal 'Rapture' in 1980, granted, but nowadays it comes across as a tired old band trying desperately to play catch-up and hook itself to new fads.

'Shakedown' also serves as a statement of intent for this album, unfortunately. Rather than capitalising on the fact that their brand of spiky, angular guitar-pop has been adapted by most current vogueish bands such as Franz Ferdinand and the Killers, Blondie release an album of wanton experimentalism, journeying from rap to folk to dub to jazz to heavy rock. And none of it suits. The band's fascination with the leftfield and bizarre is something often forgotten in favour of their pop sensibility, and the band very often play against the mainstream with bizarre, twisted music that you would not hear on the radio. Unfortunately, this schizophrenia within Blondie weakens the band, as though there are two personas vying for control: the pop Blondie, a band that writes effortlessly cool chart-toppers, and the leftfield Blondie, a band that release turgid pap like much of this album. And anyway, the ice-cool pop princess who all the boys love is the one you'd want to take to the party, not the bespectacled girl in the corner reading 'Catcher In The Rye' and playing jazz music.

It's no surprise then, that the best song on here by light years is 'Good Boys', the lead single off the album, the song which evokes the Blondie of old the most. It's a dancefloor masterpiece with a darker edge, the hypnotic beats punctuated by Chris Stein's funk-punk guitar. Debbie Harry's voice has an inimitable coo and the song sounds utterly sexy, fresh and contemporary.

Blondie prove their ability to rock out with the best of them on 'Undone' and 'Golden Rod', which follow. The strength of these tracks, plus 'Good Boys', which precedes them, alleviates the alarm caused by the woefully bad album opener. Aggressive, hard and unpretentious yet catchy and hook-driven, the songs reveal why Blondie are so highly thought of.

'Hello Joe', written in tribute to the late Joey Ramone, has an electro-salsa feel and Harry's voice hovers between sultriness and sadness. Harry's vocals are solid, though on more than one occasion it becomes evident that she can't hit the high notes like she used to be able to. Oftentimes it seems like a completely different singer to the Blondie of the 1970's, so different is Harry's voice. For what she lacks in ability to hit notes she could once reach with ease, Debs has the luxury of a melodic, deeper vocal that can turn its charms to any material.

There are other high points. 'Rules For Living' written by keyboardist Jimmy Destri, is a sweeping, dramatic number which puts Harry's unique vocals to the fore, backed by a solid beat by Clem Burke. 'End To End' is another number which evokes classic Blondie, sounding like 'Call Me' for the 21st century. The postmodern 'Background Melody (The Only One)' is a quirky little number dealing with Harry singing a song to a child conceived to a Blondie song, with its rather amusing ditty of "And baby when they made you/I was the background melody/A partner to the feeling/Now you're a part of me". It is a bizarre, ethereal, other-worldly charm and a laid-back, sloping groove.

Unfortunately, these highlights are few and far between, as punctuating them are songs which should have been locked away in a vault never to be heard by human ears. 'Shakedown' takes the credit for being the worst song on the album, but there are many close contenders. 'Songs Of Love' is possibly the most boring song in the Blondie canon, a mournful exercise in freeform jazz that makes you wonder why they even bothered. Blondie's half-baked attempt at an Okinawan folk song, 'Magic (Asadoya Yunta)' is dreadfully tedious, the kind of thing you'd play to an obstinate baby who just won't go to sleep. Or to punish it.

'Desire Brings Me Back' is a repulsive, wretched monster of a song, a pretentious journey into scatty jazz which nobody needs to hear. Unbelievably pretentious and knowingly leftfield, its repeated refrain of 'Back to the earth, back to the earth' is headache-inducing and does the band's credibility no favours.

Overall, the album suffers from over-production, resulting in a number of songs sounding like they've had the guts polished out of them. But then there are songs which are just plain awful, and which no amount of production can rescue, such as the hideous 'Desire Brings Me Back'. You can't polish a turd, as they say.

Curiously, Blondie seem to be relying on writers outside the band more often than they ever have. Blondie were once a self-contained outfit and even on 'No Exit' there were only a few outside writers. Here, we see efforts and co-writing credits from the likes of Romy Ashby, Kevin Griffin, Craig Bartock, John Vitale, Carla Olla and Gretchen Langheld., whoever they all are. Sometimes it works (the Bartock/Vitale-written 'Undone') and sometimes it just falls flat (Langheld's 'Songs Of Love').

The fact that 'The Curse of Blondie' didn't even muster a release in the New Yorker's home country suggests that the band is now nearing its revised expiration date. Also, the fact that Debbie Harry will be 60 this year (while the rest of the band sport middle-age spreads befitting men in their early 50's) signals that the band can't go on for much longer. Thankfully, it will be on Blondie's 70's and 80's output that they will be judged, proving their place as immortals of rock music, rather than 'The Curse of Blondie', which will serve as a forgettable postscript to an interesting career. Avoid.

'The Curse of Blondie' is available from Amazon.co.uk at £9.97