An Awesome BLONDIE Release!

Just got the latest release from enduring rockers BLONDIE, a 3 disc set called “BLONDIE 4(0) EVER" (so named in celebrating 40 years of music) that is a treasure trove for any fan of Deborah Harry and the Boys! In this box, you get the latest album from the group, “Ghosts Of Download”, a “Deluxe Redux” Greatest Hits package, and most importantly of all, an amazing DVD featuring a complete 1977 performance of the group at CBGBs!!!!

Ghosts Of Download

I’ve been faithfully purchasing Blondie’s releases throughout all the various line-ups, from their first album “Blondie”to “the Hunter”, from “No Exit” through to “Panic Of Girls” and have loved ‘em all, and “Ghost of Download” is another great album proving that no matter what, these guys have what it takes! Man, how can they still rock so great?!

Deluxe Redux Greatest Hits

 The “redux” Greatest Hits CD is, as the title might suggest, remade versions of some of their best loved Blondie classics over the years- while nothing can compare to the original songs, it’s fun to hear them performed “afresh”! Interestingly enough, the tracklist order is almost exactly the same as their impeccable 1981 Greatest Hits release, with “In The Flesh” and “I’m Always Touched by Your Presence Dear” replaced by later hit “Maria”.

1981 GHits and Redux GHits Tracklisting

 And then we have the Concert DVD, WOWWW!!!! So amazing seeing the band in their ferocious young days when it was all about raw in-your-face performances! My favorite live Blondie Concert DVD is the Musikladen Extra performance from 1978, and if I had one complaint it was that a lot of great songs off the first album weren’t performed, songs like “Shark In Jets’ Clothing”.“Kung-Fu Girls” (a personal fave you may recall I had fun with here), “Rifle Range”, and the great Blondie anthem “Rip Her To Shreds”…

Musikladen and CBGBs Set Lists

Happily, ALL these songs are included in the CBGB’s set!!! In fact, I think the only song they didn’t do was “Attack of the Killer Ants”and while that may seem like a silly song to miss, I can’t help but wonder how they’d do that one live!
After the concert, they even added a really cool bonus for a “Plastic Letters’ fan like me: footage of the band rehearsing “Denis”. I mentioned many times before how much I love Debbie’s look from this era, and seeing them in the studio going through this song was a nice way to end the disc!
If THAT wasn’t enough, I did get around to mentioning all the unbelievable GOODIES the DVD came with: FIVE photos taken by Chris Stein himself, and an awesome fold out poster of a beautiful 1979 Blondie flyer!!! SO SWEET!

Live at CBGBs CD with Amazing Bonus Goods!

Okay, going back to re-watch the concert again…and I think I’ll top this evening off by re-watching the Musikladen Concert, too!

My Blondie Collection!

Since I had dug out all my Blondie stuff, I though some of you might be interested in seeing what I’ve got in my Blondie Collection, all my CDs and DVDs… (sadly my VINYL Blondie stuff never survived my many moves, sigh, would be great to still have them now…)

My Blondie CDs 1

My Blondie / Deborah Harry CDs 2

My Blondie DVD Collection

Oh, and don’t forget my official Barbie collectable Deborah Harry “Plastic Letters” Figurine!

It was when I got this that I realized my obsession with Blondie had gone "Beyond the Pale" LOL

Barbie Collection, Debbie Harry Style!

Mattel recently released a limited editon BARBE series entitled “Ladie Of The 80’s”, where they fashioned Barbie with the style and look of several famous icons of the eighties, including Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett, and, unbelievably, a PLASTIC LETTERS era Debbie Harry!

Plastic Letters has long been my favorite album from Blondie, and the look that Debbie was rockin’ during this time is my hands down favorite look from her as well (feathered, billowy two-toned hair- blonde with black streaks), so you can BET I was THRILLED to see this album honored like this!

It’s kind of unusual that they’d choose Plastic Letters to recreate, one would think that they would have chosen one of Blondie’s more well-known releases like “Eat To The Beat” , or “Parallel Lines”… perhaps they wanted to dress Debbie’s Barbie likeness with a more “extravagant” dress than the white dresses she wore on Eat To The Beat or Parallel lines. What’s even more unusual is the fact that while this series is called “Ladies Of The 80’s”, “Plastic Letters” came out in 1978! HAHAHA

In any case, as soon as I saw that Debbie Harry doll, I IMMEDIATELY got on the ball and ordered myself a copy! The package just arrived today, and I have to say it looks even better than I thought! Look at the detail in that dress, the transparent heels, etc- they even got the two-toned feathred hair right! And it’s so cute how they really managed to get Debbie’s sexy and smouldering features onto the doll’s face!

Looking at the back of the box, they even managed to get ahold of an exciting alternative shot of the famed Plastic Letters album cover, a picture that not even the digital release of the album included!

Barbie Doll Liner Notes:

“The Platinum, Punk Goddess of a decade, Debbie Harry is singer, songwriter, and frontwoman for Blondie. She took her band away from the Bowery to Superstardom with her tough and pretty persona, beautiful voice, and witty, ironic music. Mixing New Wave, Reggae, Rap and Disco, Debbie created an unforgettable landmark of pop culture. The Debbie Harry Doll captures the singer’s sassy spirit and famed beauty. This is the first doll in the Ladies of the 80’s collection.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Blondie Meets Zhang Ziyi

Here’s something I made a few years ago, and thought I’d post it up here and share…

I’m a huge, huge fan of BLONDIE, been one ever since hearing “Heart Of Glass” all those many years ago, and from that point on,  I had to get all their earlier albums, including  the eclectic PLASTIC LETTERS as well as their debut album, simply entited BLONDIE!

Their first album had a decidedly 1950’s sound to it, indeed, just looking at the back of the album and you saw a group that actually LOOKED like they were from the 50’s, and the music certainly supported this look: with  songs like “A Shark In Jet’s Clothing”, “In the Flesh” and the ode to those 50’s science fiction double features, “The Attack Of The Giant Ants”, this album was chock FULL of those greaser days of yore!

One of the songs that never failed to raise my tension level and get me all amped up was the totally kick-ass ode to  Chinese Kung-Fu Movies,  the rocking KUNG-FU GIRL!

Every time I would listen to the song, I’d imagine some Chinese Girl totally  going off and whupping her opponents, and I’d always think, MAN, someone should make a movie short with this as the theme song!

Years later when the incredible CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON came out and I was ALL in the Zhang-Ziyi love, I happened to dig out my Blondie album, and man, when it came to Debbie Harry growling out “Kung Fu Girls”, it totally HIT me…I’d make my OWN Short Movie out of  clips from Crouching Tiger!

Thus began a labor of love, and I have to say that without any kind of video editing machinery at my disposal, this was a long, intricate and sometimes frustrating task, but in the end, I had the Blondie Kung Fu Girls Movie Clip I’d always wanted!!! Silly? Yep!

FUN? HELL YEAH! So check it out, enjoy the work of a crazy Blondie /Zhang Ziyi fan!

Favorite Albums: Blondie / Plastic Letters

I’ve been a huge fan of Debbie Harry and BLONDIE ever since hearing their cool “Heart Of Glass” for the first time, and while I absolutely love ALL their albums, probably the one that I have the most sentimental attachment to is their 1978 release PLASTIC LETTERS.

Now, I’ll admit that a large part of how much I listened to that album had a LOT to do with how much I loved looking at that fantastic album cover. In fact, I had quite an obsession with it that started way back when I pickd up their single Call Me. On the back of that single’s picture sleeve, they had little pictures of Blondie’s catalog LPs and I remember squinting at the little B&W thumbnail of the album titled “Plastic Letters” and even as a lad of 13, remember thinking how frickin’ sexy Debbie looked sitting on that Police car, duked out in that tight, short leather dress and seductively holding her lush hair up to her face!

Back then I was merely a singles buyer, and it wasn’t until 1981’s  awesome Greatest Hits package came out that I realized that BLONDIE was this AWESOME group that DEMANDED I check out every one of their previous releases and that meant purchasing all their ALBUMS!

When I began to pick up all of Blondie’s albums, naturally one of the first ones I got was Plastic Letters, and Oh my GOSH, if I thought Debbie looked fine in that black and white thumbnail, imagine the impact it had on me holding a 12 inch album cover of the picture, and all in vibrant COLOR! The sexy dress Debbie was wearing now had the added allure of being this HOT PINK number and the famous Debbie Harry locks now drenched in the blonde color of her namesake! HOLY TOLEDO!

Turning the LP over, I was hit with yet ANOTHER incredible pic of Debbie, this time showing off the gorgeous two-toned hair she was sporting at the time, dressed in a sexy black dress and flashing that demure smile…gads, it drove me crazy, I had SUCH a MEAN crush on her! To this day, this time period is my favorite as far as Debbie’s “looks” are concerned, and the Plastic Letters cover and back are STILL my favorite pictures of her, EVER!

So , yeah, I must admit that the cover had a LOT to do with how much I listened to that album, but even so, I still think this album stands out from the others: Whereas the first album had a real “50’s” retro sound to it, and albums Parallel Lines and Eat To The Beat were kind of like “mainstream” albums featuring hit songs you heard on the radio all the time, Plastic Letters is the only album that seems like a “Post-Punk/New Wave”  record with a real “underground” sound to it.

Songs like "Fan Mail” are synthesizery poppy tunes that clearly sound like the forerunner of what groups like Missing Persons and Berlin would sound like a few years later, and yet, songs like “Cautious Lip” have all the tension and angst of a punk group (and you can’t beat that animalistic SCREAM at the end!)…and then there are the FUN songs! Tunes like “Kidnapper”, “Love At the Pier”, “I’m On E”, and “I Didn’t have the Nerve to Say No” are soooo fun and catchy, and it was a thrill to see (years later) a 1978 concert with Debbie singing there and struttin’ her stuff and sassily dancing around on stage!

For fans of the first album there are a couple of those “fifties” sounding songs here, too: “I’m Always Touched By Your Presence Dear” and “Denis” have the light-hearted touch a la Dusty Springfield, and the album is rounded out by a few VERY moody and picturesque numbers in “No Imagination”, and “Youth Nabbed As Sniper”, and the spookily X-Files sounding “Bermuda Triangle Blues”!

Blondie are still one of my favorite groups, and I still pick up everything they’ve done, including CDs and DVDs as well as their reunion efforts like No Exit and The Curse Of Blondie, and still look forward to whatever new projects they may have coming up!