Track Listing
1. Hanging On The Telephone
2. One Way Or Another
3. Picture This
4. Fade Away And Radiate
5. Pretty Baby
6. I Know But I Don't Know
7. 11.59
8. Will Anything Happen
9. Sunday Girl
10. Heart Of Glass
11. I'm Gonna Love You Too
12. Just Go Away
Review
No matter what you think of Blondie this album is such a sea change in music and on what is on this list that it is definitely a worthy addition to it. And I quite like it. Well let's be honest I love it, I'm a sucker for this, what I can only call bubblegum punk.
This is equal parts Bubblegum pop and punk,in the end it is something quite different from what came before but quite similar to stuff which would come later. This is the birth of the New Wave as we would know it in the 80's which are just around the corner. And frankly for a child of the 80's like me that is a good thing.
This album is fun, it is little else, but fun is quite enough for me. Although I also have to admit that some of the playing is quite good. A big not to the guest participation of Fripp playing guitar in Fade Away And Radiate. King Crimson's guitarist and Blondie isn't really the most obvious of mixes but it does work.
Oh hell, just enjoy this, don't try to analyse it, it is quite vacuous, again prefiguring the following decade, but the punk influences are there patent in the instruments more than the delivery or lyrics but definitely there. So big thumbs up to Blondie.
Track Highlights
1. Hanging On The Telephone
2. Sunday Girl
3. Heart Of Glass
4. Fade Away And Radiate
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
In Euclidian geometry, parallel lines are unique in that they don't connect: most, if not all, of the songs in this album are about two people who can't connect in some fashion, usually romantically. Although the inner sleeve for the record features what appears to be lyrics for a song called "Parallel Lines", and even though it is the album title, no such song exists. "Parallel Lines" was a poem written by Deborah Harry, but it was never set to music.
Hanging On The Telephone:
3 comments:
it's not punk, in any way
yes it is
It's Post-Punk/New Wave but it definitely has strong punk influence. I would agree that "bubblegum punk" is a good name for the style. Songs like 'I Know But I Don't Know' and 'Just Go Away' definitely sound more like Punk than not.
I agreed in my review with most of what you said in this review:
Review of Parallel Lines
I don't agree with the term "vacuous" to describe the songs; the music is simple, but not simple-minded.
Okay maybe the lyrics are goofy...
To add a couple of points, (1) Debbie Harry is a great singer; the things she does with her voice on this album are often strange and beautiful and (2) If anyone thinks the disco pumpin' beat of 'Heart of Glass' is all that Blondie was about, this is the album that will set them straight.
-- M1001
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