If you consulted a Blondie discography in the fall of 2002, you would see a slew of compilations listed, and you might wonder why a new Greatest Hits was needed. But a closer examination would reveal that there really is a niche into which such a collection would fall: that of a full-priced, single-disc, CD-era hits compilation covering the band's entire career. Although still in print, The Best of Blondie is a 12-track release from the LP era, first issued back in 1981 in between Blondie's fift   [ read more ]

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If new wave was about reconfiguring and recontextualizing simple pop/rock forms of the '50s and '60s in new, ironic, and aggressive ways, then Blondie, which took the girl group style of the early and mid-'60s and added a '70s archness, fit right in. True punksters may have deplored the group early on (they never had the hip cachet of Talking Heads or even the Ramones), but Blondie's secret weapon, which was deployed increasingly over their career, was a canny pop straddle -- they se   [ read more ]

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Just as Blondie's second album, Plastic Letters, was a pale imitation of their self-titled debut, Eat to the Beat, their fourth album, was a secondhand version of their breakthrough third album, Parallel Lines: one step forward, half a step back. There was an attempt, on such songs as "The Hardest Part" and "Atomic," to recreate the rock/disco fusion of the group's one major U.S. hit, "Heart of Glass," without similar success, and, elsewhere, the band just tried to cover too many    [ read more ]

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Blondie turned to Britain-based pop producer Mike Chapman for their third album, on which they abandoned any pretensions to new wave legitimacy (just in time, given the decline of the style) and emerged as a mainstream, contemporary pop/rock band. But it wasn't just Chapman's influence that made Parallel Lines Blondie's best album; it was also the band's own songwriting, including Deborah Harry, Chris Stein, and Jimmy Destri's "Picture This"; Harry and Stein's {\dis   [ read more ]

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In artistic terms, Plastic Letters, Blondie's second album, was a classic example of the sophomore slump. If their debut, Blondie, was a precise update of the early-'60s girl group sound, delivered with an ironic '70s sensibility, its follow-up seemed to consist of leftovers, the songwriting never emerging from obscurity and pedestrian musical tracks. The production (again courtesy of Richard Gottehrer) was once again bright and sharp, but in the service of inferior material it alone couldn't   [ read more ]

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Originally issued as an EMI Special Products collection, Collectables' The Best of Blondie is a somewhat skimpy compilation, offering just ten songs from the band. Granted, they happen to be ten of Blondie's best songs, including "Call Me," "One Way or Another," "Heart of Glass," and "The Tide Is High"; only "Island of Lost Souls" isn't among the band's best work. The fact that the collection focuses mostly on the purely pop part of Blondie's career will make it appealing to   [ read more ]

CD $7.58

CEMA Special Markets' Back to Back Hits features a selection of four or five songs each from two separate artists -- in this case, four songs each from Blondie and Pat Benatar. Blondie fairs better, since each song -- "Call Me," "Heart of Glass," "The Tide Is High," "Rapture" -- was a hit, while Pat Benatar only has "Heartbreaker," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "Love Is a Battlefield," balanced by the lesser-known "We Live for Love." The pairing really doesn't m   [ read more ]

CD $6.63

CEMA Special Markets' Back to Back Hits features a selection of four or five songs each from two separate artists -- in this case, four songs each from Blondie and Pat Benatar. Blondie fairs better, since each song -- "Call Me," "Heart of Glass," "The Tide Is High," "Rapture" -- was a hit, while Pat Benatar only has "Heartbreaker," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "Love Is a Battlefield," balanced by the lesser-known "We Live for Love." The pairing really doesn't m   [ read more ]

CD $8.53

The basic Blondie sextet was augmented, or replaced, by numerous session musicians (including lots of uncredited horn and string players) for the group's fifth album, Autoamerican, on which they continued to expand their stylistic range, with greater success, at least on certain tracks, than they had on Eat to the Beat. A cover of Jamaican group the Paragons' "The Tide Is High," released in advance of the album, became a gold-selling number one single, as did the rap pastiche "Rapture,"   [ read more ]

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Autoamerican was Blondie's last real album (until its 1999 reunion with No Exit), after which the band collapsed in legal problems and solo aspirations. The Hunter was only made because they still owed Chrysalis an album on their contract, and it sounds like the obligatory record it was. "Island of Lost Souls" (the album's only U.S. singles chart entry and, in fact, the only song released as a single in the U.S.) was a try at remaking "The Tide Is High," and "The Beast" tried to re-c   [ read more ]

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Yes, this is a budget collection, and yes, it does contain many of Blondie's best tunes, but the fact is that all 18 of these tracks probably could have fit on a single disc. It's got more tunes than the 12-track Best of Blondie, but falls well short of the 47 tracks on the generous Platinum Collection double-disc set. It all comes down to how much Blondie the listener wants, and how much they want to spend. ~ Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide

CD $11.38

No Exit was a textbook example of everything a reunion album shouldn't be -- sloppily written, dominated by embarrassing attempts to sound current (especially the Coolio [!] duet in the metallic title track), and calculatedly commercial. So it's no surprise that when Blondie decided to try again five years later -- when Debbie Harry was actually old enough to be a Golden Girl, few were paying attention and The Curse of Blondie didn't even get a U.S. release. But what's shocking is that this,    [ read more ]

CD $12.33