Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/24/2008
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
disco-styled
"Heart of Glass"; and
Harry and new bass player
Nigel Harrison's
"One Way or Another"; plus two contributions from non-band member
Jack Lee,
"Will Anything Happen?" and
"Hanging on the Telephone." Together, they were enough to give
Blondie a number one on both sides of the Atlantic with
"Heart of Glass" and three more U.K. hits, but what impresses is the album's depth and consistency -- album tracks like
"Fade Away and Radiate" and
"Just Go Away" are as impressive as the songs pulled for singles. Still,
Chapman's contribution is not to be discounted; a producer with a track record full of punchy British
pop hits with his former partner
Nicky Chinn for
Suzi Quatro,
Mud,
the Sweet, and
Smokie, he brought his sense of precise arranging and playing to a band that previously had been quite sloppy in execution, and he did it without sacrificing the group's spirit, particularly
Harry's snotty yet sophisticated vocal style. The result is state-of-the-art
pop/rock circa 1978, with
Harry's tough-girl glamour setting the pattern that would be exploited over the next decade by a host of successors, led by
Madonna. (The 2008 reissue adds four different bonus tracks than the 2001 reissue: the 7" single version of
"Heart of Glass," the French version of
"Sunday Girl" and remixes of
"Hanging on the Telephone" and
"Fade Away and Radiate" done in 1995. It also adds a DVD with videos and a Top of the Pops performance of
"Sunday Girl".)
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
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