This new Blondie album has been a long wait for eager fans like myself, but while the majority of said fans were delighted with the outcome, I was left thinking \u201cI waited eight years for this<\/i>!\u201d\u00a0 Blondie releases are always surrounded my mysterious circumstances, and this time around it was no different.\u00a0 Recorded during late 2009 to early 2010, its release was delayed several times due to dramas with various record labels, and so the wait dragged on and on to the point where I wondered if it would ever show at all.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
When Panic Of Girls <\/i>(the band\u2019s ninth studio album) finally showed itself late this year, the band had already been performing several songs live for a full year and so it killed off a bit of the mystique that should have surrounded its release.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke are still passionate and youthful in spirit, but I\u2019m starting to think that the ten years of constant touring may have drained some much needed life from their creative juices.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing on this album that is remotely of the same ilk of the band\u2019s greatest work, much less anything even vaguely memorable once the disc stops spinning.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why, because all of the elements for success in the studio are still in place, and along with long-time bassist Leigh Foxx, the group have added two fresh faces on keyboards and guitars to inject some youth and new ideas into proceedings following Paul Carbonara ending his thirteen year tenure with Blondie.\u00a0 Original band member Jimmy Destri was going to resume his membership with the group only in the studio, but that fell through, too, and so for whatever reason, this album just doesn\u2019t take off.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Harry\u2019s pipes are still in fine form and there are some nice moments to be found here like \u201cGirlie Girlie\u201d and \u201cWords In My Mouth,\u201d but some cuts like \u201cD-Day\u201d and \u201cThe End The End\u201d are truly diabolical.\u00a0 \u201cSunday Smile\u201d is very retro and should have worked better than it does, but Harry is just phoning this one in.\u00a0 The stupid generic dance pop of \u201cWipe Off My Sweat\u201d is further ruined by the odd decision of Harry\u2019s to sing the verses in Spanish.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
This is, of course, followed by a lifeless French ditty \u201cLe Bleu.\u201d Honestly I hope our beloved Debs hasn\u2019t lost the plot, because she\u2019s much better than this tripe as her last solo album (from 2007) Necessary Evil <\/i>proved.\u00a0 That record at least had spunk and character; this too-slick-for-its-own-good throwaway disc has none of either.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cChina Shoes,\u201d \u201cMother,\u201d and \u201cWhat I Heard\u201d are all okay, but only just, and like I said before, they sure don\u2019t stick in my memory bank with all the other great Blondie songs I shuffle around in there.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So I don\u2019t know if maybe its time they all gave it up, but I don\u2019t see them dragging themselves off the touring rollercoaster anytime soon as the band seems intent on appearing at every music festival on the planet before they check out.\u00a0 Or maybe they should raid their vaults and see what\u2019s left over from previous years because it would have to be more satisfying than anything dished up here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7696],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-42495","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-blondie","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42495"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}