tjhassecrets's Full Review: The Hunter [Remaster] by Blondie
It's rare that a Blondie album doesn't thrill me. Aside from the pathetic mid-90s remix singles, Blondie's releases have been stellar. Even the crap has been enjoyable and solid. Whenever people tell me that something is bad, I immediately want to find out for myself, and quite a bit of the time, I end up loving it. This was certainly not the case for Blondie's 1982 The Hunter album, a record that stands as the worst collection of Blondie songs ever. After their non-stop fun and artistic Autoamerican, Debbie Harry went off to do the brilliant (but only slightly successful) KooKoo album. It's bizarre that only a few months later, Blondie would release some of the worst music of their decade-spanning career.
For as quickly as they came into the limelight, they would soon leave. Debbie Harry was not interested so much in the record industry politics at the time, and she was much more enthused by acting and modeling. Chris Stein had fallen remarkably ill, and the band's staggering drug use was out of control, and the public could see and ( more importantly) hear the band crumbling down. You're only as good as your last product, so I'm glad that they came back full-force in 1999 with No Exit. This album was unbelievably rushed, and only three tracks come off as polished.
This whole album rode on the coattails of Island of Lost Souls, a song that was underrated even at the time of its release. Even though this song wound up on such a crappy record, it embodies all the great things about Blondie-- the fun personality, the reggae, the pop, the kitsch. Debbie's vocals are great, and the lyrics are catchy, sounding much like a Vegas-stylized show opener, as Debbie commands: Let me reel you through! Here is what we do! In fact, this song fits right in with the classic material they released on Autoamerican and Parallel Lines. The closest you're going to get to a newer Blondie sound, though, is War Child, another single, but this time with more of that strange and twisted 1980s sound. Where Island was bubbling with that classic Blondie personality, War Child sounds much like a solo Debbie track, akin to the great music she would later write and record for 1986's Rockbird. I'm a war child! I'm a war baby, and that's the difference between you and me! As great as this song is, it sounds so unfinished. The backing music comes off more like a metronome than an urgent beat. I'm glad that Debbie went back and revisited this sound in the mid-80s, because she fixed all that was wrong here. The album opener Orchid Club is annoying on first listening, but the dramatic feel will grow on you-- it's like an introduction to War Child. The best song the record, though, is Danceway, which sounds like it could have been the basis for Billy Joel's Tell Her About It. It's an uptempo rock song with a cute mood. While it's not the best they've ever done, and you can really hear where Blondie tried to take this song-- doesn't save it from being horribly out of place on this carribean themed trainwreck.
The cover of The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game closes the album, and if you can get through the crap on this album, then you'll be rewarded, because it's great. The song was written by the incredible Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, but was capitalized by the spark of Miss Grace Jones, who recorded it for her ground-breakingly amazing Warm Leatherette album. I'm a massive Grace Jones fan, so I was hoping Debbie Harry could match her version-- and wow, she hits it out of the park. The boys in the band do a great job with the instrumentation as well, making this classic creepier than ever.
That's the cream of the crop. Five songs. Out of eleven. The rest is what I like to call the cream of the crap-- the album cuts that nobody ever listened to for a reason. 1982 may have been a weird time in music, but that certainly didn't stop anybody else. Just around this time, dance maven Madonna came out her insanely catchy debut album and shook things up the way Debbie had, picking up where Blondie had left off. If there was ever a reason to stay away from drugs, it's to prevent the production of crap like this. Burnt out, strung out, and hung out to dry, Blondie recorded "music" like For Your Eyes Only and The Beast. To be fair, these songs have potential; however, after one minute, I legitimately thought I'd been listening for twenty. It's not fair of me to criticize this songs, saying that they should be a minute and a half long each. I think it'd be better if Blondie just fixed it. Dragonfly is a generic pop song, rare for Blondie, that, again, is way to freaking long. This song continues in that strange Caribbean-volcano-Flintstones approach the band went with on this album. The verse are nice and Debbie's odd spoken word interludes are interesting, but after six minutes, I just wanted to call my friends one last time, get out the revolver, and call it a night. I do listen to this song, just not all the way through very often. If I do, it's probably on in the background-- quietly.
And then we have songs that are just downright bad. Little Caeser gives off the impression that it's going to be very, very good-- the opening is powerful and in your face. Then, Debbie's weird vocals come in-- you can't understand her, and she sounds drunk. I just don't understand why they should to ruin a song with such potential.
All in all, every song, strangely, sounds very much like the last-- which is so uncommon on a Blondie album. And when it does happen, it usually works, as on the eponymous debut. The Hunter is an album you will hate on first listen, and chances are, you won't be getting through the tracks in their entirety. On your second listen, you'll pick out the good moments and learn to not despise everything about it. On the third, you'll just feel bad that Blondie went out on such a bad note. On the fourth listen-- wait, no, you probably won't be listening to this a fourth time.
TRACKLIST Orchid Club Island of Lost Souls Dragonfly For Your Eyes The Beast War Child Little Caesar Danceway (Can I) Find the Right Words English Boys The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game
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