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| Blondie - The Best of Blondie Band: Blondie Tracks: - Heart Of Glass - Dreaming - The Tide Is High - In The Flesh - Sunday Girl - Hanging On The Telephone - Rapture - One Way Or Another - (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear - Call Me - Atomic - Rip Her To Shreds I never get tired to listening to this album If the number of times I listen to it each year means anything, "The Best of Blondie" is the best greatest hits CD in my collection. Yes, the New Wave classics like "Dreaming," "Hanging on the Telephone," "One Way Or Another" and "Call Me" are here, but like with most artists the songs I really seem to enjoy are those great songs that never got a lot of air play, like "Atomic," "Sunday Girl" and my personal favorite, "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear." Yes, it would be nice to have a bit more representation from the punk stage of vocalist Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein (e.g., "I'm Not Living in the Real World"), but you do get the proto-rap hit "Rapture." What else can I say, except that pretty much everybody I know has this CD and loves it. The Best Of Blondie? For The Casual Fan, Yes. First I'd like to state something that may be very important for all prospective buyers: some of the tracks on this CD are not the original versions as found on Blondie's original albums (most of the material here originates from Parallel Lines/Eat To The Beat/Autoamerican). In my track overview, I will denote those songs that feature different mixes or have been trimmed or expanded with a *. Highlights include: 01. Heart Of Glass*; A heavily disco-tinged punk anthem; problem is, this is a trimmed radio version, not the Parallel Lines classic. But a minor quibble. 02. Dreaming; One of Blondie's best, and most underrated, records. A wonderful pop-rock cut with Debbie's brimming-over vocals and cryptic lyrics. 03. The Tide Is High; You either like this, or you don't. I happen to enjoy it. 04. In The Flesh; one of the few representations of the band's earlier punk/girl group roots. 05. Sunday Girl*; This features a verse in French, instead of the all-English original; for everyone except completists, this does not matter in the least, as the structure and arrangement of the song remains the same. Pure pop heaven. 06. Hanging On The Telephone; A much-beloved rocking cover of the Nerves original; Debbie is full-on catty here and it works wonderfully. 07. Rapture; This track is a bit........dated, but is still funky and enjoyable nonetheless. And Debbie's raps are suprisingly skillful and intricate. Wonderful club track. 08. One Way Or Another; everyone knows this; this is punk rock at its best, and most sparing. Debbie's vixenish vocals will get under your skin. 09. (I'm Always Touched By) Your Presence Dear; I'm SO Glad this was included on this album; one of those "should have been a massive hit" album tracks. 10. Call Me; Blondie's most mainstream rock record, but an amazingly good listen. The last two tracks, Atomic and Rip Her To Shreds, while superb, are not classics. Conspicuous Omissions are: Union City Blue (from Eat To The Beat), a Truly amazing track which should have replaced Rip Her To Shreds, and it WOULD have been nice to see either Pretty Baby or X-Offender here to better represent the band's roots. Buy Eat To The Beat as well as this, if only because Union City Blue should not be missed. Excellent Collection For The Casual Fan For many people, THE BEST OF BLONDIE would be a suitable collection of Blondie's hits, largely because of the fact that it is the most concise and accurate of all of Blondie's collections. True, PLATINUM COLLECTION may cover all of the band's definitive songs, but it contains plenty of unnecessary junk as well. So THE BEST OF BLONDIE will most likely be the album you would enjoy. Looking at the listing of the songs, it may upset some people that the list is not in chronological order. But that is actually what makes THE BEST OF BLONDIE such a great collection; the band's sound is strong, effective, and rich from start to finish. All of the band's big hits- "Heart of Glass," "One Way Or Another," "Dreaming," "Atomic," "Call Me," "The Tide Is High," and "Rapture"- are here. The collection also shows some effective pre-PARALLEL LINES material in "In The Flesh," "Rip Her To Shreds," and "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear." Be warned, though: some people might be upset that a couple of these songs are not in their album or hit versions-according to the liner notes, three of these songs, including "Heart of Glass," are given "special mixes"-but yet, the versions featured here do not seem to destroy the quality of those that the world first heard. Come to think of it, this collection might be a little too concise. There are a few European hits and key album tracks missing such as "X Offender," "Denis," "Fade Away and Radiate," and "Union City Blue," just to name a few. Maybe when Chrysalis Records was compiling this for its original release in 1981, they should have made the collection a double-LP, for a single-LP as the one showed here does not tell Blondie's entire story up to the point of its release. But nevertheless, THE BEST OF BLONDIE is a collection that serves as at least a good introduction to the band- and should leave many people satisfied throughout its playing. Buy Blondie The Best Of Blondie at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.comJamster - the latest ringtones for your phone! |
