CD of the week:Neil Spencer
Even in their prime, Blondie always were better at making singles than albums. It’s Picture This, Heart of Glass and Rapture for which the New York New Wavers are celebrated, not Parallel Lines or Eat to the Beat.
Reconvened 16 years after their acrimonious split amid the usual regroup talk of being “a dysfunctional family”, the band have delivered, in No Exit (Beyond), a comeback album entirely in keeping with their history – patchy but perfect in parts. They’ve even returned to the producer of their 1976 debut, Craig le Leon.
Certainly in single Maria, a chugging piece of guitar pop with a chiming chorus, there’s at least one classic hit, with a clutch of contenders to follow. Nothing Is Real But the Girl and Under the Gun have the same tinny, post-punk charm as the Seventies singles. Even the title track, a thumping but tuneless squall of hip hop/rock with a guest appearance by rapper Coolio, is probably chart-bound.
The other 11 tracks mix workaday rock with eclecticism that’s equal parts adventurous and misguided. Blondie always did try to push the musical envelope, expanding into disco for Heart of Glass and rapping on Rapture. Similar attempts here are erratic; the sub- Specials Screaming Skin and anaemic Divine are reminders of why white reggae got its bad name. Against the odds, the smoky jazz strut of Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom and country waltz of The Dream’s Lost on Me are successes, handing Debbie Harry the chance to show she’s a mature musician as well as a gracefully ageing icon.
Harry’s recent years as a Jazz Passenger have allowed her to stretch her vocals beyond formula pop. Though still not technically agile, she’s arguably never sung more expressively.
Inevitably, though, No Exit is in essence a superior piece of nostalgia. Never an innovative musical force, Blondie’s real legacy was Harry herself, a streetwise Venus who helped feminise pop for ensuing generations, none of whom have ever matched her. In this respect, Blondie’s place in the history books remains unsullied.
Soundbites
Various: Sound Offerings from South Africa (Gallo) Aimed at tourists, perhaps? For those who’d like a cross-section of South African music of all styles, this CD will do. The variety is almost bewildering, and of course not all of it is brilliant, but it provides a snatch of everyone from Lucky Dube to Jeremy Taylor and Spokes Mashiyane to Tananas. Isicathamiya rubs shoulders with Boere traditional, choral with township soul, Afro- pop with contemporary rock. – Shaun de Waal
Everlast: Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (Tommy Boy) Formerly with American-Irish rappers House of Pain, Everlast Schrody quit, found Islam, and had a heart attack. As you might expect, his new album is primarily a confessional, set to a mlange of acoustic blues, hip hop and rock. What It’s Like and Get Down (about gangstas “making up in gold chains what you lack in brains”) are highlights, but the juice runs out before the album finishes. -Neil Spencer